sherlockbbc_fic | Prompting Part XXXIV

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Prompting Part XXXIV

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Sherlock flinches at the taunt before he is able to shutter his face.

Magnussen turns his back on them to return to the sofa, and Sherlock wastes no time. Shifts his weight to reach behind and unlace his brogues so he can slip them off, then twists around to sit facing John, his stocking feet flat on the floor whilst his knees jut out awkwardly in the cramped, shared space afforded by his Belstaff. Sherlock steadfastly refuses to contemplate the alarming slickness between the cheeks of his arse.

Wordlessly, John assists him in removing his pants and trousers. Folds the trousers to add them to the growing pile of clothing beside them. Sherlock appreciates the gesture, though the winter-weight wool is already rumpled beyond salvaging. And then he is sat in his socks and unbuttoned dress shirt with John knelt between his thighs, feeling hideously self-conscious in a way he has never experienced before. Every ounce of his willfully cultivated sexual ignorance weighs down on his chest like a stone, making it difficult to draw a full breath. John adjusts the placement of his own knees on the hem of Sherlock’s coat, leans forward, and with a nauseating sense of fatality Sherlock recognizes this is it, John will swarm in and bear him down, flat on his back, all Sherlock’s efforts to avoid such a humiliating arrangement, for naught.

But John simply reaches past his hip to retrieve the new packet of lubricant.

‘Come on, Sherlock, come here.’ John grasps Sherlock’s upper arm and tugs, maneuvering him astride John’s lap. ‘This is easier, isn’t it? You’ll be able to get off like this?’ John’s hands are warm, one on Sherlock’s hip, the other wrapped around him, supporting his back. It’s almost like an embrace, and it offers the advantage of allowing Sherlock to hook his chin over John’s shoulder to conceal his face. Which Sherlock does, tentatively, his own large hands grasping John’s shoulders with care.

‘Yes,’ Sherlock agrees with more confidence than he feels, unutterably grateful for this one respite.

‘Good. Great. Thank god,’ John mumbles as his arms shift around Sherlock’s body, and Sherlock is uncertain if he imagines the fleeting sensation of John’s lips against the shell of his ear, but greedily (pathetically) files it away in a mental drawer for Wishful Thinking, nonetheless. John fumbles with the fiddly foil sachet. ‘Here we go,’ he informs Sherlock, and then he is carefully pushing three fingers back into Sherlock’s arse.

It’s more than a bit...overwhelming. Sherlock’s fingers tighten on John’s shoulders. John hisses, and Sherlock realizes that his fingers are digging like claws into John’s bad shoulder, it must be excruciating, but John says nothing. Sherlock lets John ease him closer until they are chest-to-chin, and John’s other hand is rubbing wide circles over Sherlock’s back under the fabric of his shirt.

‘You okay?’

‘Yes,’ Sherlock answers, and if it’s a bit wobbly, John doesn’t call him out on it. ‘Yes,’ he repeats, more firmly.

‘Wrap your arms around me,’ John suggests. ‘Hold on to me that way. Christ you’re tense. Try to ease up a bit, hmm?’ John’s hand massages at the base of Sherlock’s spine. ‘You’re like to pull something, if you keep this up.’

Sherlock curls his arms over John’s shoulders, around his neck, and buries his face against his own arm. He makes a conscious effort to release the anxious tension in his muscles, because John is right, Sherlock is already aching all over, and he’s not done anything more strenuous than kneel here and there whilst John pushes perfectly adequately lubricated fingers into him. Clearly it is time to try again at that “being helpful” bit.

Sherlock takes a deep breath that presses his bare chest against the body-warm cotton of John’s shirt. Exhaling slowly, Sherlock gradually relaxes his body, head to toe. He sinks into John, letting the smaller man take his weight, and he may be constitutionally unable to completely let go of himself without chemical intervention, but he is able to loosen the reigns.

‘Oh my god,’ John says, ‘there you are. Isn’t that much better?’

Unlike hands-and-knees, being held in this manner doesn’t enable the detached, pseudo-anonymity for which Sherlock had been striving, out of deference to John’s (tenuous) marital status and, yes, all right, self-preservation, obviously. Unexpectedly, though, Sherlock finds this position an improvement upon the situation, and his body’s ability to accommodate such an intimate intrusion, rather than a deterrent. Perhaps not so unexpected, that John should consider it an improvement, as well.

‘Yes,’ he admits into John’s ear, his voice low and rough, and, oh, John’s faint shiver at that is...gratifying. As is the way his arm tightens around Sherlock’s waist. John’s fingers push into Sherlock as far as they will go, given the current arrangement of limbs, and there is no imagining John’s lips at his ear this time. John’s warm, moist breaths against his skin, not quite steady, send tendrils of molten sensation licking down Sherlock’s vertebrae.

Magnussen shifts on the sofa, leather creaking, projecting an almost palpable aura of impatience. Sherlock’s fingers flex against John’s shoulder blade as he suppresses the urge to grab a fistful of the fabric beneath his hand.

‘Hey.’ John pinches the skin over his lowest rib to ensure he has Sherlock’s attention. ‘Listen to me. If it were up to me, Sherlock, I’d take my time with you, do it right. I’d open you up with four fingers and my mouth, work you nice and loose and wet, until there was no question of you being ready for my cock.’

Sherlock finds himself surprised by John yet again, marvelous John, perfect John, who needn’t even lay a firm hand on Sherlock to succeed in utterly hollowing him out. Never in a thousand years would Sherlock have imagined John saying such words to him. To him. The noise Sherlock makes is unrecognisable as his own.

John tenses briefly in his arms, as though in an extreme effort of will against some word or action Sherlock cannot begin to guess at, then subsides. John’s hand has slid to his arse, gripping firmly, and it takes Sherlock several moments to realise it’s because he has begun to rut against John’s stomach.

‘But we don’t exactly have the luxury of time, or privacy here,’ John pants against his neck, twisting his fingers to graze Sherlock’s prostate. Sherlock’s hips stutter, and he is fairly certain he must be leaking a significant wet patch onto John’s ridiculous plaid flannel shirt.

‘And you’re heavy, for such a scrawny bastard--I don’t know how much longer I can sit like this before my legs go numb. So this is going to be as quick as I can make it for you. It’s going to be pretty uncomfortable, and I’m sorry, Sherlock, you deserve as much time as you need. You deserve a proper shag, especially for a first time, and you’re not going to get it. So I need you to promise me something, all right? I need you to tell me the second you think you might be at risk of actual damage. None of this ignoring what your body is trying to tell you until it’s too late, thinking you’ll just bully through it and damn the consequences, do you understand me?’

‘...Yes, John,’ Sherlock replies, his heart in his throat. Doesn’t add that he doesn’t care a whit about time for his unruly transport to fall in line or ‘a proper shag,’ as long as it is John, only John. A bit Not Good, that, Sherlock suspects.

‘Good, thank you,’ John sighs, and then he is pulling his hands away to tug himself free of his pants, to slick himself up, and Sherlock knows he shouldn’t watch, but he can’t not watch, likely as this is to be something he’ll never see again. Sherlock ducks his head down, forehead wedged into the space between John’s neck and shoulder, and stares at John’s blood-flushed, straining prick, the glistening, winking meatus, the way John strokes perfunctorily with his off hand, readying himself.

Sherlock doesn’t know what on earth possesses him, except for the fact that John is a doctor, and doctors care about these kinds of things (tedious), and John was so angry about the drugs that he finds himself lifting his head and blurting the words without conscious thought. Low and rapid, like a shameful secret.

‘I’m clean. They did blood tests in hospital, probably all of them, after the second surgery. Mycroft undoubtedly insisted.’

John glances up at him, seemingly just as startled by the comment as Sherlock, and meets his eyes for the first time since Sherlock dropped to his knees for him. What Sherlock sees there confuses him, because there’s no reason at all John should look like he’s the one who has willingly cracked open his own ribs and exposed his heart to the flail.

‘I insisted,’ John corrects him. ‘You never took the best care of yourself when we were living together, but in the few months I’d moved out—Jesus, Sherlock. Do you think I didn’t double and triple check all your labs, myself, while you were in there?’ John asks, as if Sherlock is the idiot here. A shadow passes over his face. ‘Had, ah, a few of my own tests run, since there was bugger all to do while I sat guard for weeks to make sure you didn’t pull another runner. Would have been stupid not to. I mean, if my own wife lied to me about being an assassin for hire under a false identity, who almost killed my best friend, there’s no telling what else she’s lied about, is there?’

Sherlock’s mouth opens and closes a few times, soundlessly. He hadn’t entertained even the slightest possibility of such a thing (having John...who would ever, ever dream of being unfaithful?), which in retrospect seems terribly remiss of him. There’s always something.

John’s eyes fall to Sherlock’s mouth, and his tongue darts out to touch the center of his own bottom lip, briefly. Something in Sherlock’s chest wrenches painfully.

Sherlock has never enjoyed kissing, does nothing for him, except impart a mild disgust at the feel of another wet tongue against his own, someone else’s saliva in his mouth, and the unavoidable sense of his own failure to understand what ninety-nine percent of the population can possibly find of worth in the act. He’s not particularly practiced, at any rate, recent dalliance with Janine aside (had striven to keep those encounters as infrequent and closed-mouthed as possible), and wouldn’t want to disappoint John. Disappoint himself. Better to cut off at the knees any well-intentioned but ultimately doomed attempts from John to offer comfort or reassurance in such a manner, so Sherlock quickly tightens his arms around John’s shoulders, pushing himself up enough to give John room to penetrate him.

Don’t think about it, Sherlock reminds himself sternly. He can feel Magnussen’s eyes crawling over him, but refuses to acknowledge the man’s presence. Keeps his eyes trained over John’s shoulder.

‘Do it, then,’ he grits through his teeth. ‘All this dawdling is intolerable.’

With a forceful exhale against his clavicle, John relents, swiping a generous amount of lubricant over Sherlock’s twitching hole.

‘Give me your hand,’ he says, jostling Sherlock’s right arm free of his shoulders and directing Sherlock to reach behind himself. ‘Grab hold of my prick and keep it in place while I help you ease down onto it, all right?’

Sherlock’s fingers curl apprehensively around John and he can’t help the curiosity that has him giving a single, awkward, underhanded stroke, feeling out the dimensions of it, the texture, the smooth slide of foreskin along the shaft. John is going to be working this inside his arse any second now, Sherlock acknowledges, nearly faint with disbelief at the unreality of their situation.

John grunts, his hips giving an aborted jerk into Sherlock’s grasp, butting up against the cleft of Sherlock’s arse where John holds him open, a hand wrapped high around the back of either thigh. ‘Jeeezus,’ John gasps, ‘Sherlock.’

Catching his bottom lip between his teeth, Sherlock presses the tip of John’s prick to his anus.

‘Don’t try to lower yourself. Let me support your weight, you just bear down against it, all right? Do you hear me?’

Sherlock hears him (always hears John, even when he isn’t there), but what is he supposed to—‘Oh! Fuck!’ he snarls as the head of John’s cock sinks part way into him, stretching him painfully. His hand spasms around John’s shaft; they’ve hardly begun, and already the urge to tear John’s prick out of him is nearly overwhelming, his fight-or-flight drive fully engaged. ‘John.’

‘Shit, I know love, I know, I’m sorry, but you’re doing brilliantly, you can do this, just bear down, c’mon...’

Sherlock struggles to do as he’s told, and John slides into him another agonizing centimeter or so. His thighs shake, unable to hold him upright, but true to his word, John supports his weight. Concentrating on keeping his breathing deep and even, Sherlock squeezes his eyes shut, slumps forward to press his forehead hard against John’s temple, which is damp with perspiration.

‘There you go, just like that,’ John murmurs to him, his lips catching on Sherlock’s curls. ‘Just a bit longer, Sherlock, and once I’m in far enough that there’s no risk of slipping out again, you’re going to let go of my prick and put your hand back around yours.’

Sherlock huffs, ruffling the hair at John’s temple, and bears down. John pushes in a bit deeper. Sherlock chokes back a whimper.

‘The pain’s made you go a bit soft, I know, but that’s perfectly normal, that’s why you’re going to start pulling yourself off again when I tell you to. You’re going to use those long, lovely fingers of yours and pay plenty of attention to the head of your cock, make sure you stay nice and sensitive, will you do that for me?’

Sherlock nods weakly, beyond words. He would...he could do that, yes. When John told him to, yes. He bears down, and the head of John’s prick slowly sinks the rest of the way into him.

‘Oh, you’re amazing,’ John whispers, ‘absolutely...amazing, fuck.’ Gooseflesh prickles down Sherlock’s flanks at the earnest awe in John’s voice. ‘Yes, you can take your hand back, you did so well. Now use it to make yourself feel good, okay?’ His lips skim over the corner of Sherlock’s jaw in a fleeting kiss, yes, definitely a kiss, and Sherlock exhales shakily.

‘Yes, John,’ he rasps around the lump in his throat.

‘You’ll want to keep bearing down, when you can, until I’m completely inside you,’ John whispers. Sherlock doesn’t think he can speak, but he tightens the arm clinging round John’s shoulders to show him he understands. He contracts his muscles, and John slips another inch deeper.

God, it feels as if he’s being split in two. No one else—he would never, ever do this for anyone but John, Sherlock is firmly decided on that point. The pain is intense, but in a sharp, localized way that makes it easier to compartmentalize. Nothing like, say, being brutalized in a Serbian dungeon.

Sherlock’s erection has flagged significantly, but John says this is normal, so he doesn’t let himself become overly concerned. Doubts he’s going to have much success with revival efforts at the moment, and instead tries to follow John’s instructions to maintain sensitivity, to “make himself feel good.” Sherlock reaches between the press of their bodies to touch himself cautiously, wary of how his genitals may react (or not) under this kind of stress.

He uses his first two fingers and thumb to gently work the sensitive prepuce up over the glans, to massage it there, then ease the fragile skin back, exposing the tip once more, before repeating the whole process. It’s...sufficiently distracting, if only mildly pleasurable, at least in Sherlock’s present frame of mind. Meantime, John pushes into him just a bit more and Sherlock winces, his fingers tightening around the crown of his penis momentarily, an instinctive attempt to redirect the stimulus overload. John immediately leans back in order to see Sherlock’s face.

‘Okay?’ he demands, his voice strained, the creases around his eyes worried. It suddenly strikes Sherlock just how formidable John’s control over himself must be: to be able to sit back on his heels so awkwardly for Sherlock’s comfort, leveraging most of Sherlock’s weight in his arms, while he inches his way into Sherlock’s body at a glacial pace.

John Watson, you are a marvel, he thinks, staggered, and I never get your limits. Daren’t say it aloud, though, because even in his head the words sound damningly like a confession.

‘Yes,’ Sherlock answers truthfully, but it feels like a lie; he is so incalculably in love with John at that moment, he cannot bear it, and he can never say. Living with John has ingrained in him (among many other things he used to give no consideration whatsoever) that there were certain truths some people did not want to be told, and this was a burden of information which definitely fell within that category.

Something in John’s face crumples. ‘Oh, Sherlock,’ he murmurs.

Sherlock immediately slams his eyes shut, averts with face, shaking his head in denial of whatever John believes he saw there. Too much, Sherlock thinks, ruefully. He’d known this would happen.

‘Keep going,’ Sherlock orders, furious with himself. ‘The rest of the way. Finish it.’ He bears down against John, more than ready to be done with this portion of the proceedings, but John only allows him another painful inch. Sherlock hates him. Hates himself.

‘I asked you not to lie to me,’ John tells him, hands flexing against Sherlock’s arse as he leans in, leans up and pushes his nose against Sherlock’s cheek. ‘It was the one thing I wanted you to promise me, going into this.’

Sherlock gives a bitter, tremulous laugh. ‘Wrong. You, of everyone, should know I never make promises I have no hope of keeping.’

‘Then you promised to listen to me,’ John points out, implacably, ‘and trust me. So trust me.’

Sherlock takes a deep breath with the intention of arguing as to what he actually promised, opens his mouth to do so, but then John drags Sherlock fully onto his lap. John’s cock penetrates him to the root, and the breath becomes a strangled gasp.

‘Shh, shh, I’ve got you,’ John assures him, his arms coming up to wrap tightly around Sherlock as he shakes and shudders and attempts not to pass out from a combination of pain and the sickening jangling of nerves insisting that something is wrong. ‘Sherlock, I’ve got you.’ John presses his lips firmly to Sherlock’s temple.

‘John,’ he croaks, helplessly.

John’s lips move to the moisture at the corner of Sherlock’s eye; to his cheekbone, to the corner of his mouth, where they linger.

‘Just relax, Sherlock. Let me do this for you.’ One hand skims up Sherlock’s spine to cup the back of his skull so gently, so carefully, while the other arm tightens, draws Sherlock snuggly against the fragrant, comforting warmth of John’s body. ‘No thinking. We’re almost there.’

Oh god. Almost, Sherlock tells himself, latching onto the word desperately. John is fully inside him and they are almost done, his brother is surely almost here, they can almost go home. He struggles to adjust to John’s girth, to internalize and set aside the pain.

‘John, please,’ he groans, he just needs a distraction until his body acclimatizes, something to take him out of his own head, and John has proved remarkably adept thus far. ‘I can’t—‘

Sherlock can’t articulate what he needs, but he trusts John, he does, even in this, and his faith is rewarded when John tangles his fingers in Sherlock’s curls and tips his head back, giving John the space to scrape his teeth along the edge of Sherlock’s jaw to his ear, where he sucks the lobe into his mouth.

Sherlock is startled by his body’s immediate and visceral reaction, and the air punches from his lungs with a quiet ah of sound. His nails bite into the skin at the nape of John’s neck, where he is clutching so tightly it will surely leave bruises in the shape of his fingers.

‘Put your hand on your prick,’ John whispers against his ear, his breath hot and humid and threaded through with indisputable command. ‘Make yourself come for me.’

He squirms on John’s cock as the words twist something deep in his belly.

‘Yes,’ he hears himself gasping, without thought, ‘I...yes.’ He needs to be good for John, John is doing all he can for Sherlock in this situation, and it is time for Sherlock to finish this, to release them both from Magnussen’s perverse machinations.

John shifts his grip on Sherlock, reaching blindly behind him, and at the distinctive crinkle, Sherlock obediently holds out his right hand for John. Instead of the sachet itself, John’s hand, slick with excess lubricant, tangles with Sherlock’s. John’s fingers slot between his own, warm and slippery, and John squeezes his hand.

Sherlock hesitantly shifts to draw the tip of his nose down John’s cheek, gratitude and apology all at once, the most he will allow himself, and squeezes back. Pulling his hand away, he wraps a large palm around himself. His prick pulses eagerly at the stimulation.

‘Hold on tight,’ John reminds him, his breath hot across Sherlock’s own cheek, then he is unwinding his arms to slide strong hands down the flimsy barrier of Sherlock’s shirt, where he rubs soothingly at the small of Sherlock’s back.

Sherlock tugs at his erection once, gingerly, then again. He’s begun to fill out again, the worst of the burning discomfort past, and painstakingly encourages himself back toward full hardness.

John’s finger dips to trace the edge of Sherlock’s anus where he is stretched around John’s prick. ‘No tearing,’ John breathes against Sherlock’s chin with something like relief. Sherlock pulls back enough to press his forehead to John’s, though he still refuses to open his eyes, and shakes his head in agreement. The pain has mostly faded to a dull ache, and there is nothing like the sharp sting of lacerated tissue.

‘Are you all right?’ John asks, just to be sure, and Sherlock nods. Bites his lower lip, brow furrowing, as he chases after the elusive sensation of that tipping point, the telltale tingling deep in his pelvis which will let him know orgasm has become not just possible, but inevitable. His hips begin to shift minutely, a rolling forward-and-back motion, of their own accord, and John’s hands snap up to still him, fingertips biting firmly into both flesh and bone. Sherlock wonders if these points of contact will bruise, too, then irrationally finds himself hoping they will, knows intimately his own lack of self-restraint and can already see himself pressing his own fingers into the marks when alone and relishing the sharp ache of broken capillaries beneath his skin.

This fill (and you) are magnificent.

Still loving every second

Ohmygosh. I can't deal with the greatness of this fill.

Why doesn't this have hundreds of comments!? This is some seriously fantastic writing. I actually had to get up and walk around a few times because you were making me feel so much. Really amazing stuff, and I can't wait for more.

This fic...I can't. You're killing me. The feels are so raw. My heart is aching for Sherlock. Please, please, please continue soon. I swear I'm checking this page three times a day.

This. Is. MAGNIFICENT. Please, please do continue.

‘John.’

The word is hardly out of his mouth before John is talking over him, marginally coherent curses of ‘shit, sorry,‘ and ‘wait, don’t—’ and ‘Christ you’re tight.’ John’s fingers flex on his hips as he pants into Sherlock’s mouth. ‘Just...give me a moment,’ John bites out, his every muscle taut with constraint. It sends a heady suffusion of (stupid, nonsensical) proprietary pleasure through Sherlock, to know John is clinging so precariously to self-possession.

It would be so easy like this, Sherlock thinks, recklessly. To lick into John’s gasping mouth, let him catch Sherlock’s lower lip between his teeth. Sherlock is familiar enough with the basic mechanics, can take an educated guess at what John likes, employ an inductive methodology as he goes. Sherlock is nothing, if not a quick study.

And it would be something of a novelty, he privately acknowledges, to be kissed as himself, rather than as an anonymous, vaguely willing and entirely transposable participant. To be kissed because of who he is, rather than in spite of it. It might make a difference—would it make a difference? Why would it make a difference?

Surely, Sherlock attempts to convince himself with pounding heart, any truth is better than infinite doubt?

‘Jo-John,’ he stammers, uncertainly. John isn’t letting him move, isn’t giving Sherlock instruction, and the ceaseless tumult of his higher cognitive processes is threatening to surface.

‘Yes. Fuck. Yes, all right.’ John’s hands constrict around Sherlock’s pelvis, and with the limited range of motion afforded by their position, John pitches his hips in a laborous, inelegant grind, ensuring Sherlock is seated securely in his lap. John gathers Sherlock in closer, smears his mouth down Sherlock’s throat to his suprasternal notch, where John flicks his tongue, sucks wetly at the tender flesh.

Dear lord. The sensation of John’s mouth on his neck is unexpectedly galvanic, and something disturbingly like a moan is shaken loose from Sherlock as he trembles in John’s arms. Sherlock concentrates on this, rather than the unnerving solidity of John’s substantial erection spitting him in place.

Don’t think.

‘Your prick,’ John reminds him, again, and Sherlock slides his hand over himself purposefully. Unhesitating, now. Strives to keep his body occupied with a surfeit of sensual input so his mind will stay quiet, stay out of it, not ruin the tenuous balance of his arousal.

‘That’s it,’ John says as he tugs at Sherlock’s hips, encouraging Sherlock to begin hitching himself against John once more. With Sherlock settled so deeply in his lap, John’s leverage is negligible, but it’s...preferable this way, Sherlock decides. The thought of being held down, being made powerless, profoundly unsettles him. To feel as if he is being robbed of his sense of agency, even by necessity...it’s anathema.

Don’t think.

It takes several long, self-conscious moments, but Sherlock manages to close off all extraneous, unproductive avenues of thought so he can focus his attention on the “now,” and on wresting his body into submission. He relinquishes his death grip on the nape of John’s neck in favor of cradling the dear skull in one large hand, and swallows his irrational terror. This is at least as difficult for John to do, as it is for Sherlock to let him. John doesn’t feel for him in quite the same manner as Sherlock does, John, obviously, but there is a great depth of caring, there, regardless; John will not injure him, will not mock or deride.

Sherlock holds John in place, mouth against Sherlock’s throat, against the wordlessly damning vivace of his pulse. The wet sounds of Sherlock’s hand over his own cock seem unnaturally, humiliatingly loud. John groans softly, the sound unfamiliarly guttural, and Sherlock’s scrotum tightens.

Don’t think.

‘Oh, yes, there you go,’ John soothes him. He bites gently at the underside of Sherlock’s chin, at his Adam’s apple. ‘Stay out of your head, and focus on the words coming out of my mouth, can you do that?’ John surrenders Sherlock’s hips to slide warm, calloused hands up his back, to hook his arms under Sherlock’s in grasping Sherlock’s face in his palms. ‘Sherlock. Can you do that for me?’

‘Yes,’ Sherlock agrees. His skin tingles, sparks, burns in the wake of John’s touch.

John pants into the sweat-damp skin of Sherlock’s throat, scrapes his teeth roughly over Sherlock’s sternocleidomastoid. Sherlock feels himself contract around John’s prick. Bites his lip to keep the resultant noise behind his teeth.

‘Good, oh, god, brilliant.’ John delves his fingers into the curls behind Sherlock’s ears, massages at Sherlock’s scalp. It’s glorious.

‘You’re far too tense, and you’re only going to make this harder on yourself.’ John kisses Sherlock’s eyebrow once, twice, three times. ‘Come on, you can do it. Just let go, I’ve got you.’ John’s fingers tug as he says this, and Sherlock is defenseless to prevent the sudden bowing of his spine, the embarrassing whimper that escapes as he melts by degrees into John’s arms.

Fuck. John.

His grip on the back of John’s head is precarious, now, so Sherlock abandons it to anchor himself with a hand clenched in the fabric of John’s shirt, at the center of his back. John’s hands in Sherlock’s hair have his head tipped back, throat exposed (John likes his neck, never fails to stare blatantly when Sherlock has the first two buttons of his dress shirts undone). Sherlock swipes his fingertips over the head of his prick, almost too sensitized, and notes that he’s unequivocally weeping.

‘Come on. Come for me, Sherlock.’

John has begun to meet the rocking of Sherlock’s hips with desultory, ineffectual thrusts of his own, hampered as he is by the nervy squeeze of Sherlock’s thighs around him, by Sherlock’s not insignificant weight bearing him down.

‘I’m trying,’ Sherlock grits through his teeth, frustrated. He’s right there, but his body won’t follow through. ‘I’m trying.’

‘Shh, it’s all right, let me help...’ John carefully withdraws his hands from Sherlock’s hair, smooths them down Sherlock’s shoulders to splay against his scapulae. Sherlock’s knuckles graze the inside of John’s elbow as he continues to strip his cock desperately. His arm is beginning to cramp painfully, and he grunts a helpless noise against John’s hairline, something between a groan and a sob, why can’t he do this?

‘Oh, love, it’s okay, I’m right here,’ John promises against Sherlock’s cheek. ‘You tried so hard, you were so good, but it’s too much, isn’t it? Let me help you—will you trust me to do that?’

‘Yes, all right, anything,’ Sherlock rasps. He doesn’t have much choice; this is John’s area, not his, Sherlock will freely admit it. Anything to get them out of this room, out from under the watchful, leering eye of Magnussen.

John responds by trailing a hand down to Sherlock’s knee. ‘You need more leverage, that’s all.’ He coaxes Sherlock into unfolding his leg, wraps it around himself. ‘Give yourself something to push against,’ John murmurs as he adjusts his posture with a wince (“bad” leg, return of blood flow), and Sherlock hooks his ankle around John’s calf.

‘Perfect, exactly like that,’ John tells him. ‘Now the other one.’

Oh, god.

Warily, Sherlock settles his full weight atop the slope of John’s thighs, whilst gripping John’s shoulders for balance. Draws up his other leg, and braces this one in the same manner as the first. John sits back fully on his heels once more, locking Sherlock in place. John’s hands slide to Sherlock’s waist.

‘All right, good, now just let go, and lower yourself onto your back—is that okay? Sherlock?’

Sucking in a deep breath, Sherlock holds it for a count of five, before exhaling as slowly as possible. He can do this. Magnussen already set the terms for a face-to-face encounter, so Sherlock must do, if he doesn’t want the hateful man to take any retaliatory action.

‘It’s fine,’ he hears himself saying, as if from a distance. Removed. ‘I’m fine, I can...do that.’

Sherlock releases John’s shoulders and uses his abdominal muscles to cautiously lean back, back, until his own shoulders and skull touch the floor. The lower half of his spine is stretched over the length of John’s thighs. He feels idiotic, risible (excruciatingly vulnerable), laid out like this. But not hemmed in, not pinned down, and if anyone is bodily trapped here, it’s John.

Sherlock’s fingers dig into John’s forearms.

‘Okay?’ John asks. His thumbs rub idle (not so idle?) circles on the bony blades of Sherlock’s hips. The new position opens Sherlock up, spreads his thighs that much wider. John’s prick has shifted inside him, and it’s pressing...it’s...

‘Yes,’ Sherlock says, his voice positively sepulchral.

John’s eyes flutter shut—crease between the brows, jaw thrust forward, throat clenching and relaxing around a swallow, or maybe a word or sound John has judged unwise at the last moment—and he nods.

John opens his eyes. Keeps his gaze fixed on his own hands as he tugs Sherlock flush into his lap, rolls his hips at the same time and thrusts.

Oh!

Sherlock’s brain short circuits a bit as it attempts to reconcile the mortifying crudity of the act with the unprecedented pleasure of it. Because it is shocking, disconcerting, deeply unnerving, if he allows himself to think too much into it (Don’t, he reminds himself), but yes, definitely pleasurable. With John.

‘Move with me,’ John tells him hoarsely, as he eases from Sherlock the few inches he’s able, given the hold Sherlock maintains on his arms. ‘Let go, I’ve got you. Go ahead and try again. Touch yourself.’

Sherlock does as he’s told, cedes his hold on John to curl a hand around his prick. Reaches down with the other and paws anxiously at John’s knee as he bullies himself into following John’s direction. To and fro, using the strength of his legs, caught around John’s, to power the movement.

The pace John sets is leisurely, the snap of John’s hips each time he plunges into Sherlock nothing short of maddening. Sherlock throws his arm over his face and fumbles for a moment in trying to match the stroking of his cock with John’s thrusts, the careful, almost indulgent withdraw as Sherlock pushes with his heels planted firmly against the toes of John’s boots, then the far less patient lurch as Sherlock draws himself in with his knees, thighs straining, and John fully seats himself once more, at force.

The angle of Sherlock’s hips means the head of John’s prick regularly drags in torturous proximity to his prostate; enough to tease, but not directly stimulate (difficult to achieve in any way but manually, Sherlock’s research has assured him, and Sherlock accepts this objectively, but that doesn’t keep his physiological response from trembling on edge, desperate for that satisfaction). A deep, insatiate ache blooms between his thighs, only honed by each successive, increasingly smoothly coordinated give-and-take.

‘That’s it, Sherlock, Jesus, shit, oh Christ,’ John hisses under his breath, his hands cinched around the span of Sherlock’s pelvis. ‘Are you close?’ he asks, breathlessly.

‘Close, yes,’ Sherlock huffs. He’s bordering on overstimulated, overwhelmed, not sure how much longer he can endure this.

Without warning, John fucks into him hard, holds himself there for a slow, filthy, circling of his hips. Sherlock inhales sharply as it jolts through him like a live current, and his limbs act of their own accord, legs contracting vice-like around John, head tipping back. Sherlock grinds himself down on John’s lap as hard as he is able in an instinctive, mindless effort to prolong the sensation, none the less gluttonous for it, for having never before experienced anything quite its like.

(Sherlock has always been the hedonist, but never in this. Too complicated, too messy—literally and figuratively—the mere idea bringing to mind uncomfortable words like “evisceration” and “self-immolation.” Never worth it, had been Sherlock’s firm opinion, but, well... John had unexpectedly done away with a fair number of the “nevers” in Sherlock’s life.)

Sherlock pumps his cock ruthlessly--two, three, four times—and he chokes on a sob of pure relief as he feels himself spill over that edge, his orgasm coalescing dark and viscid and shivery, like a rising tide. Teeth sunk into his bottom lip, he grounds himself as firmly as possible in his body to let it sweep over him, exhausted and exultant.

‘John,’ Sherlock whinges. ‘Don’t stop, I’m...oh god, I’m...’

Every muscle in his body locks up, as if in seizure. Sherlock begins to come with several deep, wrenching spasms, one after the other, shaking and helpless, like a revelation. Oh, god, he hadn’t...he’d known, theoretically, but he hadn’t expected... The newly intimate awareness of his own body’s internal musculature as he feels himself clamp down around John’s cock, thick and unyielding inside him, driving the chemical dump of...of endorphins and dopamine and oxy...oxy-something to heights of intensity Sherlock wouldn’t have thought possible, Christ.

Sherlock shudders in John’s arms, fists a hand in his own hair as his spine arches up off the floor with the power of his convulsions and John continues movement where Sherlock is unable, doesn’t falter, doesn’t stop fucking up into Sherlock, fucking him through the bone-grinding tremors as he shakes and shakes and splinters to pieces. But John holds him in his arms, holds tightly (so tightly) to all the scattered pieces of Sherlock, holds them safe until, with a final devastating pulse of hot semen over his own fist, Sherlock is able to sense the boundaries of mind and body again.

He is gasping for breath, wrecked and alarmed at the strength of his own reaction, and someone is laughing as Sherlock struggles to piece himself back together, struggles because he’s having trouble remembering what edges fit where. Someone else (John, he will always recognize John, even if he himself is deaf or blind or out of his skull with neurotransmitters firing as if in response to a hit of medical-grade heroin) is swearing a blue streak under his breath—‘JesusfuckingChrist, mother of fuck!’—and pushing at him frantically, trying to dislodge him from John’s lap. Which Sherlock won’t have, he’s still riddled with cracks and needs a moment (an hour, a lifetime, an eternity) to seal them over again, so he brings both hands up to grip John’s forearms fiercely and steels his thighs around John’s hips and holds on with everything he has, even as he endeavours to come down.

John’s fingers dig deep, deliciously painful bruises into the muscle of Sherlock’s arse as John suddenly jerks against him, keening lowly, and Sherlock feels the way John’s prick, impossibly, becomes perceptibly thicker and harder, the way the organ twitches, throbs, then judders as John comes deeply inside him with wrung-out curse, and one, two, three more pulses. And something in that: something in knowing that his own orgasm has compelled John to follow suit, though Sherlock is sure John (strong moral principle) intended nothing of the sort, allows him to shore himself up enough to clutch John in kind, until the aftershocks have faded, and oversensitivity and John’s inevitable mortification has taken hold.

Sherlock could tell John now—what he has always wanted to say, but never has. What he hadn’t been able to say, but only hint at, even in making his vow at John’s wedding reception, whilst so many other people were there. He could thank John for existing, in a world otherwise empty and lonely and bleak; could thank him for giving Sherlock a reason to keep breathing, simply by grace of the fact that John has been there to breathe beside him. He could thank John for giving him an After worth having, thereby allowing him to separate himself from everything colorless and disappointing and painful that became Before, upon meeting John Watson.

(You. It’s always you. John Watson, you keep me right.)

Just a fraction of a moment, he considers it (Evisceration, Sherlock reminds himself, wearily), because he realizes then that the pounding in his ears is in fact the thump of rotors—helicopter, is all he can wring from his brain at the moment—real and unmistakable, and just outside.

‘Oh ho, that was close!” Magnussen chuckles, sounding so very pleased with himself. “Quite close. I wasn’t certain you would make it there, in the end, Sherlock. And John.’ Magnussen tsks, and his laughter this time has a much more darkly amused edge to it.

John abruptly takes his hands from Sherlock and rises to his knees so Sherlock can pull in his legs. Sherlock winces as John’s softened prick withdraws from him—‘sorry, fuck, I’m sorry’ John babbles, a hand pressing down on Sherlock’s chest to keep him there—and John shifts with obvious discomfort before he is finally able to collapse onto his arse with an agonized grunt, straightening stiff legs, rubbing at them to encourage circulation to return.

Magnussen stands. ‘Quickly, quickly now, big brother has finally arrived. We wouldn’t want to keep him waiting!’ Magnussen turns and strides from the room, toward the glass doors leading outside.

Sherlock passes a hand over his eyes for a single, self-indulgent moment as he collects himself. (Into battle.) He rolls to his feet with shaky, uncooperative limbs, hurriedly snatches up and yanks on his clothing: pants, trousers, jams his feet into his shoes. There is semen drying on his abdomen and chest, and Sherlock reaches down hesitantly with the half-formed idea of wiping it away with his hand, but realizes doing so will only spread the mess. His scarf, maybe...but then that would be two items of clothing lost to the events of this afternoon, and he doesn’t—afterwards, he might not get a chance to—

‘Sherlock,’ John says, gaining his addled attention. John, tucked away and buttoned up proper once more, pushes himself laboriously to his feet. He approaches with his own scarf, and Sherlock watches numbly as John wipes his torso clean, folds Sherlock’s mess to the inside and shoves it into his jacket pocket. Jaw clenched (angry, worried) John helps him with steady hands to button the urine-soaked Dolce shirt (destined for the bin), his suit jacket and Belstaff. Finished, John’s hand hovers awkwardly over Sherlock’s lapel, hovers, but doesn’t make contact.

‘Are you...’ John clears his throat, finally looks up at Sherlock and catches his eye. ‘Are you all right?’

‘I’m fine,’ Sherlock tells him, not because it’s necessarily true (Sherlock will have to wait to evaluate the truth of it, himself, until later, once he is alone and has a chance to process), but because it’s what they both need to hear. If his hands shake, almost imperceptibly, as he jams them into the pockets of his greatcoat, neither of them mention it.

John stares at him intently, brow creased (guilty, upset), and Sherlock recalls his promise to John.

‘I will be fine,’ he amends. ‘I—thank you, John.’

‘”Thank you?”’ John repeats, incredulously. ‘Sherlock what I just did...don’t you fucking thank me!’

It’s Sherlock’s turn to avoid eye contact, and he does so whilst fussing with his gloves, turning toward the glass doors.

So amazing...is it amazing? Why is it amazing?
Yeah.

‘Yes, thank you,’ he insists, speaking quickly and raising his voice preemptively against John’s undrawn breath, against the increasing whinge of rotor blades, ‘because it could have been much, much worse, and you were careful and you were, you were patient with me, more than I deserved, and you did something distasteful, so Magnussen wouldn’t do something even more so. Of course, thank you.’ Gloves finished with, Sherlock loops his scarf around his neck briskly.

‘Just transport,’ he reminds John, or maybe himself, with the hint of a self-deprecating smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth. Though Sherlock’s not certain either of them really believe that, not with the unspoken tension that has existed between them since Sherlock’s return, and which has only increased since John’s marriage. That very tension which stretches between them now, made brittle and aching sweetly beneath Sherlock’s sternum in the wake of John’s touch, in the wake of John’s words whispered into his skin and John’s ejaculate slowly seeping from between his legs.

The circumstances certainly aren’t what Sherlock would have chosen (not least of all because of that pointless guilt in which John will insist indulging), but, as Mycroft had taken great pleasure in snidely informing Sherlock on several occasions during their youth, beggars did not have the luxury of being choosers.

Sherlock abruptly jerks his head in the direction of the patio doors. ‘We should get out there.’ Sherlock has his witnesses, and his dear John has his gun tucked thoughtlessly at the small of his back, where it will be within easy reach, out of sight until too late. Sherlock will finish this, and Appledore’s “vaults” will be destroyed.

John reaches out and grasps Sherlock’s sleeve. ‘Sherlock. You can’t possibly... We need to talk about this,’ John insists, adamant. He shoots a glare toward Magnussen, outside. ‘Not now, obviously, but this is seriously—’

‘Later,’ he assures John blithely, intending nothing of the sort. Once he kills Magnussen, Sherlock is aware there very well may be no “later.” Not for him, anyway, but there will be one for John, and that is what’s important. That is what the point of all this has been.

Sherlock gently shakes John off and makes for the open door. He can feel John’s stare, John’s displeasure, burning into the center of his back like a tangible touch but, crisis passed, their natural dynamic has been regained, and John remains silent. Sherlock steps through the doorway.

Magnussen peers over his shoulder with a cheerfully mocking grin, raises his voice to be heard above the roar of the helicopter.

‘Here we go, Mr. Holmes!’

~ ~ ~

OP, I hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it, and thanks so much for the fantastic prompt that got me writing again for the first time in five years. :D

I was also thinking I'd like to put this up on my (brand new) AO3 account, but I know it's a bit rough, and as an American my attempts at "proper" spellings and turns of phrase are kind of all over the place, so if anyone is interested in being a beta and "Brit-pick" for me, please email me at soliandxpyne@gmail.com, thanks!

I will be hunting for this on your ao3. Thank you!

Not the OP, but this was utterly fantastic in every possible way. I'm a big fan of fuck or die and 'bad guys made them do it', and this has to be one of the best and most vivid I've ever read.

Please post a link here when it's on AO3 so I can bookmark, and please don't let five more years go by without utilizing your talent, because you have quite a bit!

I love how in love they are and I love how neither of them sees that and I especially love how much this hurts them. <3

PS I too look forward to seeing this on AO3!

You can now find the cleaned-up version of the complete fic here on AO3: Take What We're Given (http://archiveofourown.org/works/1606838).

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