Chapter Text
Sherlock was a little torn, if he was being honest. The only thing that had been on his mind for the last hour had been kissing John senseless, and now that that was underway… well, he realised that he hadn’t really thought this far ahead. He’d meticulously planned each hour of their day up to this point and conveniently forgotten that things that weren’t kiss John also existed. He wasn’t sure how the last few hours of the day had slipped away from him, he really wasn’t, but he was damn certain that it was something to do with kiss John.
That phrase had been haunting him for a while now, far longer than simply the last hour. It had been persistent, but not the first of its kind.
No, the very first had come a few months ago, and Sherlock hadn’t been sure that it had even been a kiss John at the time, but now he was. He was very adept at spotting them now, even retrospectively, and the first had been over the summer. It had been July, if he remembered correctly. 15th July, 25.3°C outside. He’d been running an experiment about chickens and run out of eggs. He couldn’t remember what he’d been doing (the results must have been useless) but clearly he hadn’t been able to bring himself to delete this snippet of the day.
He’d texted John at about lunchtime, dropped a little hint:
Run out of eggs. SH
He hadn’t gotten a reply, but he hadn’t really expected to. John had turned out to have a lot more work to do after he’d accidentally gotten he and his girlfriend kidnapped and almost murdered by Chinese smugglers – the keyword there being ‘almost’, Sherlock thought – so he wasn’t surprised when he didn’t get so much as a ‘So?’ in response. He’d taken the vegetables from the fridge and replaced them with his work, effectively pausing the experiment for the time being. The same couldn’t be said for the decomposition of the vegetables, but he didn’t care about them.
He’d taken a cold shower and determinedly pulled his suit back on, refusing to let the heat put him out of his usual, cool self, and, when he’d finally finished messing around with his hair in attempt to get it to look less like that of a ragdoll, he came out to find John waiting for him. His hair was stuck to his forehead with sweat and his breathing was slightly laboured, suggesting he’d only just got in, but his too-small jumper was already off and he was leaning casually against the doorway to the kitchen in an attempt at making Sherlock believe he’d been waiting for a while.
“Warm?” Sherlock had asked amusedly. He’d smoothed down his lapels as he stepped forwards, going for the living room.
Then, John had said to him, “Your hair looks hilarious.”
He’d felt a pang of spite and glared fiercely at him, but as soon as John had held up the Tesco bag he’d mellowed. It hung from his index finger, swinging gently, and John had just stood there staring at him.
“Oh,” Sherlock had breathed, eyes roaming John’s form again. This had been around the time John had been struggling with his funds, asking to borrow some money until he could get a job, and there he was buying Sherlock eggs that he knew would only go to what some thought of as waste. All he could think was how kind, and Sherlock recognised it now for what it really was: a little urge deep in his chest and hot in his throat telling him to kiss John.
“Eggs,” Sherlock blurted. John pulled back and he stared at him with wide eyes, not really sure what had just come out of his own mouth.
“I-I’m sorry?” John frowned and looked over Sherlock’s shoulder to the kitchen. “Did you just say ‘eggs’?”
“I,” Sherlock hesitated, but nothing that made any sort of sense seemed to want to follow the word out. He shut his trap immediately and nodded instead, uncertain.
John waited. No elaboration came. “Did you want to, you know, explain? Explain why you… Eggs? Really?”
It was safe to say that the moment had passed. They were standing a foot apart now, John staring up with his eyebrows twisted in confusion and Sherlock staring down with his eyebrows in his hair in shock.
Sherlock’s mouth opened and closed like that of a brainless fish as he tried to explain his thought process. “Chickens,” he came up with instead, floundering.
“Chickens.” John swallowed. He stepped from foot to foot. “Sherlock, are you alright?”
Sherlock shook his head. He couldn’t think. Everything in his head had moved at the same time that everything outside of his head had moved, like two cogs turning together instead of one turning another, and they’d jammed together and… Well. Eggs. Suddenly there was soft leather beneath him and then he sank to the left as John joined him on the sofa.
“I really don’t understand what’s happened,” John admitted worriedly, his hand still safely keeping Sherlock’s. “I’m sorry. You need to actually say something.”
“Ch-chickens,” Sherlock said desperately, shaking his head at John. Where the hell had all the words gone?
“Something that isn’t about poultry.” John sighed and returned Sherlock’s hands to his lap. “I’ll get you a drink.”
John tried not to let the cold weight settling in his chest affect him. He tried to think of it in an I’m-such-a-great-kisser-that-I-broke-Sherlock way instead of a Sherlock-hated- it-so-much-I-broke-him way. At the back of his mind, though, despite the concern for Sherlock and the disappointment that they wouldn’t be getting any further tonight, he was angry that he’d be ending yet another Remembrance Day with a drink.
During his last year in the barracks they’d had an early start due the morning after, but every single one of them had had a quiet night in with a six-pack of beer. None of them really remembered what time they’d gotten to bed that night but they all remembered the atmosphere in the convoy the next morning.
“I was running an experiment with chickens in July and you bought me eggs.”
John jumped. He straightened himself up, realising how much he’d drooped with the memories of his last year in service, and turned around. “So?” he asked with a plastered on smile.
“You don’t remember. You had hardly any money and you still bought me a dozen eggs that you knew I’d only set fire to.” Sherlock was looking excited now. He was almost grinning. “I didn’t know why before but I couldn’t delete it. I know now.”
John, again, didn’t really understand what Sherlock was talking about. He brought him a glass of whisky and put it on the coffee table before taking a seat next to him again, glancing down into his own drink. “Go on, then.”
“It was the first time I wanted to kiss you.”
John looked up and Sherlock felt his heart shatter. He’d dropped the pathetic excuse of a smile and there was some sort of raw emotion on his face. He couldn’t tell what it was – the best he could do was identify that it was sad. Well, he might not have been able to understand, but he could certainly fix that nonetheless. He took John’s glass and put it next to his on the table. Then, slowly enough that John could protest if he wanted to, he turned around in his seat and faced him.
“I understand that you don’t…” Sherlock hesitated. “That you aren’t…” He sighed and took John’s hands, taking comfort in how warmly and firmly they held his in return. “I know you’re not really the sort of person to… to go very far on first dates, but… but technically this is the end of our second date and we’ve already gone a bit far once, before we’d even had any dates at all, so really, really you should.”
That sentence had gotten away from him slightly. He stared up at John, that floundering, panicking expression back on his face. John, eyebrows raised much too far towards his hairline than Sherlock’s liking decided they should be, chuckled softly.
“I have no idea what you just said.”
Sherlock rolled his eyes and huffed, flopping back onto the sofa. He could still hear John sniggering quietly as he closed his eyes and gathered his thoughts – again. Eventually he began his shuffling, letting go of John’s hands. He crossed his legs beneath him and turned to face John fully, pushing his companion’s legs until one was sat underneath him (John, after many shouts and protestations, told Sherlock he couldn’t actually cross his legs anymore because he wasn’t, in fact, five years old) and they were facing each other on the sofa. Just as they had been before, except this time they had less opportunities to turn away. Again, very slowly, Sherlock took John’s hands and pulled them in close, stroking the backs of his hands with his thumbs. Then he leaned forward, eyes closed, and kissed him. Only once and only very slowly, he kissed him.
He stayed hovering around his mouth, eyes closed, even after his lips had left John’s. They grazed over his where he hovered, and they shared the hot air John breathed. After a moment, when he was fully satisfied that John was hanging onto his every movement, he pecked his lips again.
“May I take you to bed?”
John took a very deliberate breath, nodding awkwardly. “Yes,” he whispered. Sherlock could hear that he’d been intending to speak aloud but hadn’t quite managed it. He tried again, a bit more confidently this time. “God, yes.”
Sherlock kissed him again, this time with his lips parted and dipping into John’s at every opportunity. John was a fantastic kisser – and, from the other end, John thought that Sherlock was, too, even if he was a little bit out of practice. He’d never experienced kissing like this before: kissing with a balance between lust and emotion. Not this sort of balance, at least. It was hard to pin down, as everything with Sherlock was, but both of them felt, somewhere, that it was more like sharing than giving or taking. The urgency was there but it was only bobbing along the bottom or the back of their minds. Even in the few serious relationships John had ever had, foreplay hadn’t been this sincere.
It started slowly, like it usually did. Sherlock got more excitable, more keen, and they did speed up a bit. It never got too fast, though, never frantic or hurried. Always just like two people enjoying the other’s company, even when Sherlock’s hand slid up John’s arm and held the back of his head, and when John’s hand rested on his thigh, stroking it slow, tiny circles.
Eventually, Sherlock had to pull back. John was going like he could go on forever (the expression on his face certainly said he missed having Sherlock so close) but he wasn’t so patient. He wanted John. He wanted to show him that this day didn’t have to be a depressing one, filled with sad memories and mourning. He wanted to show him that there was more to celebrate than all the friends he’d lost. It had to be today so he could remember it as today.
“Come,” he said softly, stroking the back of John’s head once again before he stood up. He kept hold of John with his other hand, pulling him up and gently tugging him along behind as he made his way to his bedroom.
John felt almost as if he was seeing the room for the first time. It was dark outside, but Sherlock didn’t put the main light on. Instead he held John’s hand over the bed until he took the hint and sat down, and then he put on one of the bedside lamps. It was nice, this lighting. Soft. All the sharp edges and dead animals looked much less threatening with the warm yellow light curving their edges and bringing life to their colours.
“I told you they were beautiful,” Sherlock murmured, and John had to wonder when he’d managed to sit next to him without him noticing the dip in the bed. He, instead of following John’s line of sight to the moths, was gazing at John. “You told me it was odd.”
“They look beautiful now,” John replied quietly, tearing his eyes from the walls and meeting Sherlock’s. He swallowed hard at the utter feeling in his face. This wasn’t Sherlock Holmes. It wasn’t the one he knew. Not yet.
Sherlock pressed their mouths together again. He gave more pressure this time, urging John back. He felt a little smile curve the other set of lips and then he wrapped his arms around Sherlock’s waist, taking him with him as he lay back over the bed. Sherlock perched above him on all fours, elbows resting on either side of John’s head.
“Limits?” Sherlock breathed, kissing down John’s chin and along his jaw as he waited for a reply.
“Uh,” John grunted, finding it hard to think as Sherlock moved to his neck. “Oh, God… I don’t know.”
“Need some sort of idea, John. I don’t want to mess this up.” Sherlock brought one hand down and began unbuttoning John’s shirt.
John hummed. “You won’t.”
“I might,” Sherlock reminded him. He paused. “Have you done this before?”
John hummed again, thinking this time. “Been on your end. Done… half of this end. Sort of.”
Been fingered, then, Sherlock’s mind supplied. Good enough.
“Have you?”
Sherlock looked up at him, something flashing in his eyes. “I have. Both sides. But it was a long time ago.”
“Then we’re practically on equal grounds.” He looked down to Sherlock. He stroked his hands through his hair. “All the way.”
Sherlock’s eyebrows twitched. “Are you certain?”
“Yes.”
“I’ll be gentle.” Sherlock’s cheeks tinted pink at the promise, and John smiled.
“I know.”
Sherlock tipped his head back down and kept undoing John’s buttons, starting the pecks again. He kissed straight down the centre of John’s chest, circled around his belly button, and followed the faint trail of hair leading down to his crotch. As soon as he reached the more sensitive skin John’s breathing picked up and he smiled to himself. After another little kiss he crawled back up the half-stripped body and returned to John’s mouth, leaving one hand down there.
As he diverted his pecks back to the pink lips beneath his the remaining hand cupped the soft bulge he could feel in John’s trousers and squeezed gently, beginning to rub. John groaned quietly into the kiss, his hips pushing up into Sherlock’s hand appreciatively. His hands went from around Sherlock’s back to his front, where he began pushing the jacket from his shoulders and undoing his shirt buttons. He reached the last button and Sherlock pulled his hand back to the zip of John’s trousers, where he released the one button there and pulled the zip down.
John had been expecting much more than for him to sit up and pull the clothes off his upper half, but he hadn’t been disappointed. He’d seen Sherlock’s chest before, just a couple of times, but it had never looked so attractive before tonight. He put it down to the soft lighting; it made him look so much warmer. It gave his skin a real tone instead of that beautifully pale but hard shade of cream it held normally. John smiled when Sherlock bent down again, expecting the kisses to return – and, again, was surprised. An arm dipped beneath him and lifted his torso up while the other pulled his open shirt off, and, just like that, they were topless and kissing and things felt much more realistic.
God knew how Sherlock’s earlier grinding hadn’t felt as serious as this.
After a moment of mutual gazing Sherlock returned to his mouth with enthusiasm, but his hands were focused down at John’s waistband, pushing and pulling with hands and then feet until he was left only in his underwear. John realised he’d been far too passive for most of the evening so far and as soon as he saw his partner thinking about rolling off and stripping his own trousers, he rolled them over and pushed them down himself. They landed an embarrassing distance across the room.
After that, the kissing got slower again. John settled over Sherlock, his erection getting heavy in his pants, and lined their crotches up. He thrust slowly against the groin beneath his own, savouring every spark of friction and every burst of heat he got. Just as he started to relax into the steady rhythm, Sherlock slid his hands down and over his hips. His fingers stroked and teased at the elastic of his underwear until, finally, he pushed it down and used a foot to hook it over John’s heels. John’s face blushed a very pretty shade of pink once the pants were gone, and Sherlock once again took control to roll them back over and pull his own boxers down.
He gave John a moment to adjust to the feeling of another cock laying over his. Only a moment, though, before he snuck his hand between them and wrapped it around John’s, stroking gently.
“You are the biggest fucking tease,” John breathed, closing his eyes and sucking a mark onto Sherlock’s neck. “I’ve been waiting all bloody day. Just do it.”
Sherlock chuckled quietly. He didn’t say anything back but he reached over into the top drawer of the cabinet by his bed and plucked out a bottle of lube and two condoms, laying the protection on the other side of the bed and rubbing a drop of the lubricant over two fingers.
“Legs,” he said softly, patting John’s thighs with his clean hand. John obediently spread his legs a bit further, gave Sherlock enough room to get his hand down there.
Get it down there he did, but he started very generously. At first it was just a slow rub against his hole, easing the tension and reminding him of what it felt like. All the while he kissed him in the hopes that the familiarity of his mouth would sooth the discomfort he was feeling. Because he was feeling discomfort. Sherlock could feel it in his body and see it in his face. He hadn’t said ‘no’, yet, though, so he kept going, as gently as he could.
Once he’d softened him up a little he started pressing a little harder, concentrating with one finger instead of two. After a minute it began to press in, and then he held off with the rubbing and pushed firmly instead, getting all the way to the second knuckle with his index finger before he stopped. John was breathing very heavily and his readiness to respond to the kisses had flagged.
“Okay?” he breathed, kissing his cheek. John nodded with a faint hum.
“A minute,” he said softly, and Sherlock could feel him relaxing bit by bit. “Just… Been a while since—you know.”
“I know,” Sherlock replied, and this time he kissed his jaw. “Just let me know.”
It took them a long time to work up to three fingers. Sherlock was patient, going slowly and carefully and always stopping when John told him to. He hadn’t quite remembered where to find a prostate, so that had been a bit of an unexpected adventure for the both of them. Sherlock had first tried with just one finger, pushed it this way and that until John had pulled his hair a bit too hard at a particularly ungraceful jab, and then he’d decided to get himself a bit more room and try again.
Two fingers sliding smoothly, he crooked them again and pressed. John sighed.
“I really think you’re going to wrong way,” he muttered, shaking his head with an awfully tired look on his face.
Sherlock sighed. This really wasn’t how he’d wanted their first time to go. “Well, which way am I supposed to go, then, doctor? You haven’t exactly been helping much.”
“I’m upside down, I don’t bloody know! Usually I have men the other way when I do that sort of thing.” John blushed the most Sherlock had ever seen him blush, and he couldn’t help but laugh.
“Right. Which way do you go when they’re bending over?”
“I… Um, down. Rub down.” He paused and then grunted awkwardly. “No, you idiot. I rub down, but I’m the wrong way up.”
“So… So I rub up,” Sherlock concluded. He wriggled around a bit more. “Bloody hell, John, my fingers don’t bend that way!”
Right then, Sherlock’s knuckles passed over him in that way and John finally moaned in a breathless way that didn’t say ‘fucking ow’.
Sherlock’s head snapped up and he stared at John in disbelief before repeating the same movement down to the right millimetre. John did it again, a little stronger this time. He grinned at Sherlock.
“There it is,” he mumbled, pulling his hair again but this time to bring him down and kiss him. Sherlock rubbed over the spot again and he moaned gently into the kiss. “Alright, that’s enough playing.”
“Mm, you might get sore before I finish,” Sherlock muttered shamelessly.
He smirked and then went on, continuing to squeeze a third finger in. He had to pause for a while longer this time while John got used to it, and, where the others had taken just a minute or less of slow pumps for the burn to fade away, three fingers took a little longer. Sherlock was getting incredibly impatient, especially now that he knew how to make it feel good and each moan John gave him wound him up a little tighter.
Finally, after two more coats of lube for both of them, John was ready. Finally.
The condom slipped all around in Sherlock’s hands. He had to open it with his teeth in the end and even then the thing would hardly go on right. John sat there and laughed at him and, eventually, he had to turn away and do it while John’s little giggles weren’t discouraging his shy erection. After what felt like an eternity he settled over John again, one hand still down between them to help line his cock up with John’s arse.
John had gotten awfully breathless again. So had Sherlock, just from the faint brush of the head of his cock over John’s hole.
“Can you hurry up?” John teased, sliding a hand down over Sherlock’s bum and pulling gently.
Sherlock smiled. “Bossy.” He kissed John gently and then rested their foreheads together. “This’ll be very different to that. I’ll go slowly.”
John nodded eagerly and pecked his lips. Sherlock took that as his cue and, taking a firmer hold on his cock and moaning softly, he pushed. And then he pushed a bit harder, and a bit further. And then he pushed just a little bit more, probably more of a rock than a push that time, just to check that everything was alright. John’s breathing had gotten awfully laboured and he was staring up at the ceiling with wide eyes.
“John?” he asked quietly. He had to close his eyes as his brain overloaded with the sensations splashing out from his cock.
“God,” John groaned, squeezing tight around Sherlock. Sherlock gasped. “God, that’s… Shit.”
“Are you alright?” he forced, tucking his face into his neck and kissing.
“Yes,” John moaned as Sherlock accidentally rocked against just the right place. “Yes, I… Keep going.”
Sherlock didn’t need telling twice. He pulled out slightly and then thrust back in harder, forcing as kindly as he could the next few inches of his cock deep inside John with a deep groan. “Oh, John,” he whined. He couldn’t quite stop himself from rocking again, feeling the tight heat squeeze his cock in all the right places, and eventually John stopped grunting out of discomfort and started grunting out of pleasure. Sherlock recognised that it was around the time he dipped his groin down a bit, angled his cock up towards the place he’d found John’s prostate.
He was only halfway deep in John at that point, but it was enough for both of them. John moaned afresh every few thrusts, as Sherlock, having identified the magic spot, was careful not to abuse it too much. He knew things like that, recognised which places John liked and how, exactly, to get to them, so it was no difficulty for him to thrust up once and then straight a few times and then up once more. He went slowly, pressing kisses along John’s chest and up his neck and over his face and anywhere he could reach. He only just managed to stop himself from saying ‘thank you’.
After a few minutes of the slow, comfortable rhythm they’d set up between them, John’s hand fell from where they’d been clutching Sherlock’s back and dipped between them. Sherlock wondered for moment what he was doing, but John’s expression told him everything in the way the crease between his eyebrows softened slightly and he moaned again. And how he could feel him clenching around his cock. And, of course, the way his arm kept moving. Sherlock’s cock was fucking him slowly and deeply and John was… John was wanking.
Sherlock groaned and couldn’t help but go a bit faster.
“Oh, God, Sherlock,” John breathed, holding him close and slowing his hand on his cock. “Fuck. Yes.”
Sherlock moaned again at the breathless cries in his ear and responded in kind. It was a stream of nonsensical curses and noises but, somehow, he had no control over them. He couldn’t stop them.
“John, oh, tight… Oh, God, you’re so… tight around me.” He took John’s lips into a hard kiss and thrust faster and harder still, causing John to moan embarrassingly loud and dig his nails into his back.
“Did I… Did I ever tell you how much I love dirty talk?” he gasped, deliberately clenching around Sherlock, who thought for a moment as he moved.
“I’m…” He hesitated a moment, in his thrusts and in his voice, and then spluttered on. “Inside you. With… with my penis.”
He stopped. John stared up at him uncertainly. “You’re inside me… with your penis?”
Again, Sherlock’s brain stuttered.
“Please don’t say eggs again,” John joked. He pulled on Sherlock’s bum and pecked his mouth. “Just… Okay. Don’t worry. Keep going, keep… Quiet.” He laughed. “Please, keep going.”
Sherlock could hardly look at John, but he obeyed, forcing his mind away from that shameful slipup and concentrating on finding the prostate again.
Soon enough they were both on the edge again. John’s arm was moving intermittently and he was clearly trying not to go first. Sherlock’s face was red and his features were all tensed as he pushed in, again and again, each one a wrench to his balls but his willpower too strong to let it get to him.
“Together,” John whined, eyes closed now as Sherlock nipped at his neck.
“Please,” Sherlock cried, thrusting harder still. “I’ll follow you. I… Yes.”
John’s arm started moving fast again as he pumped his cock with renewed fervour, finally racing towards the climax he’d been aching for. A few seconds later his muscles were pulling tight around Sherlock and he came with a long groan, spurting white ropes all up both his and Sherlock’s chest. Sherlock followed soon after, thrusting hard once, twice, three times into John before he stopped and went rigid with a deep moan. He thrust a few more times after that, each time a bit slower, before finally pulling out and collapsing on his front next to John.
Both lay there panting for a few minutes, enjoying the warm skin pressed against theirs and basking in the spikes of orgasm still running through their veins.
“Inside me with your penis… Jesus.” John snorted and clapped his hands to his mouth so that his laughter wouldn’t be too loud.
“I panicked,” Sherlock growled. He turned his face away with a huff. “Shut up.”
John sat up. He took a tissue from the bedside table and wiped down his front (and his back) before rolling over. He was smaller than Sherlock but was still quite proud of how fully he managed to spoon him, one arm sliding around his waist and the other over his shoulder to hug his chest.
“Sorry,” he said softly, kissing his shoulder. There was silence for a few seconds. “Condom,” he reminded him gently.
Sherlock sighed. “Tissue.”
“Already done.”
“No, give it to me.”
“Oh.” John passed the tissue to Sherlock, who tied the condom and tossed it, rather disgustingly, onto the floor before wiping himself down.
“I don’t know how it happened,” Sherlock muttered.
John almost interrupted him in his eagerness to say, “Don’t worry about it, Sherlock. Please. I don’t mind. It was just… funny.”
“Perhaps we should have waited.”
“No. Don’t be silly.”
There was silence for a few more seconds. John spoke first.
“Would you have wanted to wait?”
“No.”
“Then it’s good we didn’t.”
John rubbed Sherlock’s stomach gently. This time it was Sherlock that broke the peaceful silence.
“All I wanted was to give you something else to remember for this day,” he said, almost inaudibly.
John kissed his shoulder again. “I won’t be forgetting that any time soon, if that’s what you were after.”
Sherlock huffed. “No, John. I meant… I meant…”
It seemed the word wouldn’t quite come out. Luckily, John was on hand to help. “You meant like an anniversary.”
“Yes.”
John got up on all fours and moved until he was lying face-to-face with Sherlock. He smiled slightly and then moved forward, landing a sweet his to his lips.
“Well, then,” he murmured, moving in close. “Happy anniversary.”