Work Text:
John stands in the doorway, arms crossed in front of his chest, clad only in pyjama bottoms and—thankfully, finally—free of the belt.
He takes a deep breath, looking at Sherlock, the long line of him stretched on the bed.
"Right," he says. "I'll be back."
He turns to make his way toward the more neutral zone of the living room, ignoring the indignant noise that follows him. "Don't pick those," he calls back, almost an afterthought. Meaning the cuffs, of course, though he knows Sherlock would have an easy enough time getting out of them if he wanted to.
John pours himself a glass of water from the kitchen tap, downs it in three long gulps. Presses his forehead against the cool surface of the wall and focuses on his breathing.
Sherlock is still trying to get John to play by his rules, of course, and he’d be damned if he’s going to—
Bollocks to that, he thinks, already padding back toward the bedroom on bare feet. Sherlock can try to manipulate him all he likes; John isn’t going to put this off any longer just to prove a point.
He’s really not in the mood to wait any longer.
John leans his shoulder against the doorframe. Sherlock’s face passes from irritation to anticipation as his eyes flick down to the front of John’s pyjama bottoms to the evidence of John’s arousal he can see there. Sherlock shifts on the bed, the sheets wrinkling under his legs as he inches them a bit farther apart, a gesture of obvious invitation.
The corner of Sherlock’s mouth curls up in an amused smirk. “I’d rather thought you’d be ready to get on with it,” he says. He twists his wrists in the cuffs, long fingers curling and uncurling against the headboard. “Come on, John,” he urges, nudging his legs a bit wider.
“So impatient,” John says with a wry smile.
Sherlock smirks at him, cocks his head toward the closet. “You may want to take a look in that box,” he says.
John eyes him narrowly but moves across the room. There’s a cardboard box on the floor, nestled in among the jumble of books and detritus under the hanging clothes, and John nudges it into view with his foot. He barks out a laugh when he sees the contents.
“You went shopping,” he says in mild disbelief.
Sherlock does a very credible impression of a shrug, cuffed hands notwithstanding. “I went shopping,” he echoes mildly. “You didn’t think I just had that lying about, did you?” He rolls his eyes upward in the direction of John’s own room and John realises he means the harness. “Turnabout and all that.”
“Fair play,” John agrees, and then he’s done with talking.
He takes two long strides across to the bed and kneels up on it, catches Sherlock’s hair in his hand. The moment when their mouths join is too hard to be called a kiss, John surprising himself with the ferocity of it. Surprising Sherlock, too, if the way Sherlock draws back is any indication. His body holds the tension for long seconds while he presses the back of his head deeper into the pillow; then, abruptly, he yields, letting John explore his mouth with tongue and teeth.
Sherlock’s eyes are closed when John pulls away.
“Shut up,” John breathes, though Sherlock doesn’t seem to have recovered enough breath to do much talking. Sherlock drags his eyes open again, the irises dark and shadowed with eagerness. John’s quick glance down reveals that he’s almost fully hard.
(He’s just come, too, John reminds himself, not a quarter of an hour ago. Likely still oversensitive, and hard again already. The thought is like a jolt down John’s spine; oh, Christ.)
Sherlock shifts his hips against the bed, trying to remind John what he’s meant to be doing (like he could have forgotten, his own arousal making itself known with every pulse of the blood in his veins). When John makes no immediate move to touch him Sherlock opens his mouth to speak.
John slips two fingers between his lips, passing over his teeth to apply firm pressure on his tongue.
“I said quiet.”
Sherlock huffs a small laugh down his nose, sucking lightly and working the tip of his tongue into the gap between John’s fingers. John shivers. He rests his free hand on Sherlock’s hip, brushing his fingertips over the smooth skin there, featherlight pressure with his blunt nails, and is rewarded with a catching of the breath in Sherlock’s chest.
“It’s quite obvious what it is you want,” he said, moving to run one fingertip up the underside of Sherlock’s erection. Sherlock sucks in a harsh breath around John’s fingers. “But I have to tell you,” he continues, pulling his hand away, using it to slide the waistband of his pyjamas down over his own hips, “I think we’ve both paid quite enough attention to what you want lately.”
John pulls his fingers out of Sherlock’s mouth, runs his wet fingertips along the sensitive underside of Sherlock’s jaw, the contact eliciting a fine quiver just under the pale skin. John pushes his pyjamas all the way down his legs, kicks them over his feet. He straddles Sherlock’s body, momentarily lost in the sensation of his cock trapped between his stomach and Sherlock’s hip as it arches upward, insistently pressing Sherlock’s own arousal against him.
Oh god, he could— but, no, not like this. John pulls himself together with an effort, inching himself up along the bed until he’s perched on Sherlock’s chest.
Sherlock takes a deep breath, obviously understanding John’s intention, and looks up to meet John’s eye.
John waits for permission, holding himself still until he sees Sherlock’s small nod. Nothing comfortable about it for Sherlock in this position, but he opens his mouth easily and draws John in as far as he can, coaxing with his tongue. John feels the heat beginning to curl at the base of his spine with the first pressure of his cock against Sherlock’s soft palate. Sherlock hollows his cheeks and from there it’s just a matter of shifting his hips in counterpart to the pressure, and it doesn’t take long before John’s vision splinters into sparks.
John twists his fingers in Sherlock’s hair when Sherlock swallows around him; it seems to go on forever and John curls in on himself, thighs shaking, knees pressing hard against the knots of Sherlock’s shoulders.
“Oh, fuck,” John says breathlessly when it’s finally over and he starts to pull away, collapsing back on one elbow, hitching his leg up and over to take his weight off Sherlock’s chest. He would have laughed if he had more energy; Sherlock does laugh, a small noise low in his throat when he turns his head to wipe the side of his mouth against his upper arm.
“Quite,” Sherlock says, still sounding amused, “though I’m a bit surprised you opted for that particular—“
He breaks off with a sharp intake of breath when John reaches down to circle the base of his erection with thumb and forefinger. John doesn’t move his hand, his grip just a lightly insistent band of pressure.
“Some genius you are,” John says, “if you think that’s all I wanted. I’m far from finished with you.” An increase of pressure in the ring made by his fingers, another sharp inhale, and Sherlock’s eyelids flicker shut. “Look at me,” John says sharply and Sherlock drags his eyes open again. “How many times did I bring you off, these last few weeks?”
“Five,” Sherlock says without hesitation, but a flicker of something crosses his face—anticipation, anxiety—and John just gives a tight little smile.
“Okay, then,” John says evenly. “You’re going to count for me.”
Sherlock’s forehead creases in puzzlement, but John doesn’t explain, and Sherlock seems to have other things on his mind soon enough.
John gives one long stroke of his hand up Sherlock’s shaft, root to tip. Sherlock bites his lip when John runs his palm roughly over the exposed head; when John continues to move his hand up until Sherlock’s cock slides free, he measures the effort required for Sherlock to hold himself still by the twitch of rigid muscles in his arms.
John reaches across Sherlock’s body to grab the lube from the bedside table and slides lower on the bed. He pushes Sherlock’s knees up and positions himself between them, slicks the fingers of his left hand. He brushes them lightly along Sherlock’s perineum, lower, rubs teasing circles around his entrance.
Sherlock is still open from earlier so at the first jerk of his hips John slips two fingers past that ring of muscle and inside. There’s barely any resistance and Sherlock makes a rough sound, low in his throat, at the drag of sensation on already-sore tissue. John presses his right hand down on Sherlock’s abdomen to hold him still while he slides just the tips of his fingers in and out half a dozen times, Sherlock twitching impatiently beneath him.
John commits himself with an abrupt slide in to the second knuckle. Sherlock clenches around John’s hand when his fingertips brush against that bundle of nerves, still swollen and sensitive. John rubs at it carefully, lightly, and Sherlock’s cock jumps against his hip. John can feel the muscles of his abdomen bunching under his palm.
John continues to move his fingers inside Sherlock, rubbing around over that small knot, varying the pressure but never quite stopping it. Taking his time; enjoying the feeling of Sherlock coming apart under his hands. When he alternates pressure between his two fingertips Sherlock gasps out a curse.
“Touch me, damn you,” he says, arms straining against the cuffs, and John chuckles wryly.
“What do you think I’m doing?” he asks, keeping his tone reasonable and pressing just a bit more insistently. Sherlock’s eyes fall closed with a low moan.
Right here, John thinks as Sherlock’s hips jerk upward against the restraining pressure of his hand. He knows he can hold Sherlock right on this edge; Sherlock can’t come like this, his cock already flushed and straining after the stimulation it needs. Needs but isn’t going to get, at least not yet, not until John’s damn well ready to enjoy it the way he wants to, a coil of heat in his groin telling him that eventuality isn’t so very far off.
Sherlock arches against the bed when John twists his hand to rub the heel of his hand against his perineum. John releases Sherlock’s hip and uses that hand to grasp Sherlock’s balls, tugging lightly. “Hold still,” he says, and Sherlock bites back a shout. His fingers are wrapped around the chain of the handcuffs, knuckles standing white under the skin, and John can see a sheen of sweat beginning to stand in the hollow of his throat.
He twists his fingers again and Sherlock’s head mimics the gesture, turning side to side on the pillow.
John slides his fingers slowly out of Sherlock’s body. He’s just switching hands but Sherlock makes a stifled noise, either at the sudden feeling of emptiness or in anticipation that John is about to move on to the next stage of the proceedings. Sherlock’s muscles vibrate with tension when John moves across his body until he’s sitting on Sherlock’s other side, but— no, not yet, and Sherlock breathes out a small sound of frustration when John avoids the upward jerk of his hips.
When John slides the fingers of his right hand inside Sherlock lifts his head to glare at him, tendons standing out in his neck with the strain. He holds the position for all of two seconds before dropping it back again.
“Fuck,” he breathes, the word sounding dark and obscene in his voice, catching in his throat.
“Mmm,” John says, agreeably, “getting there,” and Sherlock barks out a laugh that runs out of air halfway through, smacking the back of his head against the pillow a few more times for good measure.
By the time John is ready to go again Sherlock has his head thrown back, long throat and ribcage straining upward on each inhale, the muscles under John’s hand quivering with strain. When John finally breaks contact to roll on a condom and slick himself up Sherlock moans out an incoherent protest and rolls his head to one side, looking at John with eyes that are dark and hazy with overstimulation.
John positions himself between Sherlock’s legs again, bends low to run his tongue once up the underside of Sherlock’s erection, already slick with precome, and the sound that forces itself from Sherlock’s throat sounds almost like pain.
“Christ, John, I need—” he says, breaking off as John slides his body higher, letting the tip of Sherlock’s erection drag along his stomach.
“I know,” John says. Sherlock’s mouth when he kisses it is warm and wet and slack with exhaustion, tasting faintly of sweat and, still, of John himself. John leans back until he’s sitting on his heels, shifts Sherlock’s hips over his thighs, lines himself up and presses, finally, inside.
Sherlock’s body is soft and open around him and John closes his eyes against the sensation, sinking into it. Sherlock moans and shifts when the head of John’s cock rubs against his prostate and John’s eyes fly open again just in time to see Sherlock’s cock jump against his hip.
“Fuck, yes, perfect,” John says, cupping his hips up, and Sherlock makes that low broken sound again. He’s pulling against the cuffs, mouth slack, his eyes locked on John’s in an entreaty for which he seems to have lost the words.
“Yes, okay,” John says finally, relenting. He stills his hips with an effort and runs his fingers down Sherlock’s chest, playing lightly along the dip below his hipbone before grasping Sherlock’s erection firmly.
Sherlock begins to clench around him almost immediately and for a moment John is lost in the flutter of muscle. He drags his fist along Sherlock’s shaft, half a dozen firm strokes and then Sherlock is tightening and arching and coming and pulling John over the edge with him, both of them gasping with the force of it.
When John’s vision clears again he draws himself out slowly, Sherlock still hazy and oversensitive and twisting away from the drag of friction as they separate.
“Sorry,” John says, and Sherlock hums a wordless response, eyes still closed, lips quirked in an exhausted echo of a smile.
John pulls the condom off and knots it, then collapses against Sherlock’s chest, heedless of the mess. He rests his head against the dip of Sherlock’s shoulder and Sherlock rolls his neck to press his cheek against the top of John’s head. John can hear Sherlock’s heart beating under his ear; he listens contentedly as it slows to a normal rate, counterpoint to the rapid quiver he can still feel in the muscles in his thighs.
John thinks they might both have drifted off to sleep for a bit. When he wakes again, Sherlock is still dozing. He eases himself off the bed, pads to the bathroom, returns with a damp flannel. When he sits back on the bed and begins daubing at the drying mess on Sherlock’s stomach, Sherlock stirs, his mouth stretching into a smile before he even gets his eyes open.
“You’re a bastard,” Sherlock says, a curl of amusement in his tone, echoing John’s own words. It is, for Sherlock, an admission.
“Often,” John echoes back agreeably. “Though you do deserve it, you smug git.” He grins. “Give you a chance to deserve it again, too, if I have any say in it.”
Sherlock’s chest quivers with a repressed laugh. “God, yes. Anytime you want. Christ, that was.” He shifts slightly against the mattress and John runs his hand up Sherlock’s arm, still trapped against the headboard.
“You’re going to have bruises,” he says apologetically.
Sherlock tips his head back to look. “You, too,” he says, quirking an eyebrow in the direction of the day-old bands around John’s own wrists, still darkening steadily.
“Fair enough,” John answers with a smile that goes sharp round the edges. He slides a hand slowly down Sherlock’s arm, past his ribcage, splaying his fingers out over the abrupt jut of his hip. “And you haven’t been counting. That’s one.”
It’s two, actually, and John waits to see if Sherlock will work it out, if he’ll notice. Sherlock’s features pinch close around the bones of his face; he regards John through eyes narrowed at the corners.
John’s hand slides lower, grabs the base of Sherlock’s softening cock, strokes upward and rasps his palm over the head. “You remember your safeword,” John says mildly.
Sherlock nods--of course he does--but his breath goes shaky mid-inhale. His hands jerk against the cuffs.
“John,” he says, and it’s somewhere between a question and a warning.
John meets his gaze, sucks his lower lip between his teeth and waits while Sherlock swallows. One breath, two, and when Sherlock doesn’t say anything else John moves his hand again, a slow, deliberate stroke. Sherlock’s eyes soften out of focus and he drops his head back hard against the pillow.
It takes Sherlock a moment to organise the words in his mouth. “Yes, fine,” he says in a voice that’s low and rough. “That’s one, then.”
John laughs. “Don’t worry,” he says, “I’ll take my time,” and Sherlock’s eyes slide shut with a groan.
Sherlock swears at John when he comes again twenty minutes later, digging his heels into the mattress. It leaves him with a shaking in his thighs that doesn’t abate for a good ten minutes. John keeps touching him through the aftershocks, rubbing light circles over the head of Sherlock’s cock with one hand. He uses the other to rub soothing strokes along the skin of Sherlock’s hips, which Sherlock is pressing down hard into the mattress in an attempt not to squirm away from John’s touch.
“Two, fuck,” he says at John’s prompting, and John bites back a grin.
The third time, John drags his teeth against Sherlock’s nipple until Sherlock comes with a hoarse shout, kicking his heel against the mattress. He forgets to count, and when John does it for him the expression on his face is one of pure gratitude.
The next time is nearly dry and Sherlock has lost his words entirely, hips jerking and stuttering. John’s got three fingers in him, light pressure against his prostate, not even really moving anymore, and when Sherlock’s hips jump John can’t quite follow at the same angle. The stretch drags a hoarse moan from his throat.
“It’s okay,” John says when he stills, drawing his fingers out with careful slowness. Sherlock writhes hazily, blinks his eyes open.
“Um,” he says after a moment, clearing his throat. “Four.”
John grins at him. He slides up the bed until he’s sitting by Sherlock’s chest, brushes the hair off his forehead where it’s stuck there by sweat. Sherlock turns his head to rest it against John’s palm and John rubs his thumb along Sherlock’s cheekbone, bends to brush a kiss against his temple.
“Be right back,” he says, pushing himself off the bed, pads to the kitchen and returns with a glass of water.
“I’m not going anywhere,” Sherlock mutters when John eases his weight back down onto the bed, as though he hadn’t even noticed John leaving. His eyes are still closed, and there’s a faintly accusatory tone in his voice. “You’ve wrecked my fine motor control.” His fingers twitch weakly and John bends again to press a kiss into one palm. There are dark red rings around his wrists from where he’s pulled against the cuffs. Maybe that’s enough of that, then; he fishes the key out of the drawer and unlocks them. Sherlock props himself up against the headboard and accepts the glass, balancing it on his drawn-up knee between sips. John sprawls sideways on the bed, rubbing idle circles against the top of Sherlock’s foot.
“All right, then?” John says when Sherlock sets the empty glass on the bedside table with a decisive thump. “We… aren’t done,” he says, almost hesitantly.
The corner of Sherlock’s mouth crumples into a smirk. “Four being not quite five, I had rather assumed as much.” John can see the shiver that passes over his skin, but he’s already inching his way back down onto the mattress, not quite wincing at the movement. “Though I will point out that, if you’re keeping an accurate count for the evening, that was the fifth.”
He’s got himself back together again, John thinks, and grins affectionately at him. “On my terms,” he says.
Sherlock gives a chuckle from somewhere deep in his chest. “Your terms are quite... enjoyable.” He casts an appraising glance down the length of his own body and gives John a look that is almost abashed. “But I don’t know if I can—“
Sherlock’s eyes slide toward the closet , and John thinks he must be having the same thought that has just entered his own mind. He pulls out the box and starts rifling through the contents.
“You certainly had fun,” he says, shaking his head and Sherlock gives a low chuckle.
“There was fun to be had.”
“Mm,” John agrees. “Next time, then. After we’ve bought batteries and… sterilised….” He trails off when he finds what he’s looking for, disentangling a set of thigh cuffs. “Will this be enough?” he asks, holding one up.
Sherlock gives a tight little nod and narrows his eyes, letting his head fall back to look up at the ceiling. He doesn’t meet John’s eye when John buckles the cuffs around his upper thighs and secures his wrists to them. Sherlock curls one hand into a fist and flexes his elbow meditatively; it drags his leg with it. He closes his eyes and breathes out a quick huff of air.
John starts slowly, fingertips and kisses along the insides of Sherlock’s ankles, the dips under the bones there; he makes his way upward, inexorably, and it isn’t long before Sherlock is hard again, the tendons in his neck standing out as he drags breath in through his nose. John presses his thighs wide and runs his tongue along Sherlock’s perineum, Sherlock’s hands clenching spasmodically in the edges of his vision.He makes his way up one side of Sherlock’s body, the arc of his hip and the long shelf of his ribcage, and Sherlock writhes lazily, biting at his lower lip.
John can feel himself stirring again. It’s ridiculous, really, at his age; but then, he thinks wryly, he has been saving it up. A bit. Right. John gives a shiver at the sense memory of Sherlock’s teasing fingers against his skin and presses the heel of his hand against his own cock, the low throb of pulse there. He’ll be ready again when it’s time. Amazing.
It takes a long time to work Sherlock to the edge this time, John moving deliberately with fingers and tongue. Sherlock is arching beneath him, trying to push himself closer and pull away at the same time, his exhale a continuous stream of muttered please and I can’t and John’s name, and John listens through the noise for a safeword that doesn’t come. John can hear himself making small reassuring noises; yes you can, Sherlock, come on, for me. They’ve been at this for hours (it feels like weeks, a lifetime) and he needs to see this through.
He gets three fingers buried inside Sherlock, the other hand squeezing and stroking at his balls, avoiding the slick, dark-flushed skin of his cock. John is painfully hard himself by now, and when he feels the first deep flutterings of muscle inside Sherlock’s abdomen he breaks away to roll on a condom.
Sherlock shouts and bucks his hips upward, bites his lip, jerks viciously at his trapped hands, thighs trembling beneath them.
“Easy, it’s okay,” John says, slicking himself up. “Almost there, you’re so close.”
“Damn right I’m—“ Sherlock says, forcing the words up through a wrecked throat, but they dissolve into a gut-wrenching moan when John lines himself up and pushes in for the second time that night, warm and close and perfect.
John balances on one elbow, snapping his hips upward on each short thrust forward, and grasps Sherlock’s cock in his free hand.
“Come on,” he says, gritting his teeth against the tide of his own climax, “Fuck, now, come on.” He pulls his hand upward once, twice, Sherlock’s muscles quivering and clenching under John, around him.
Sherlock moans brokenly and comes, cock twitching in John’s fist, and John almost loses it right then, but now—now—he’s willing to put it off to prove his point.
“Count,” he manages through clenched teeth, throat closed tight against his own climax. “How many.”
Sherlock’s eyes snap open. “What?” he asks blearily, but John just can’t wait anymore. His hips stutter and he lets his head fall forward onto Sherlock’s chest. Sherlock squirms beneath him, long past oversensitive and too far gone to stop himself. Even when John stops moving Sherlock continues to writhe beneath him, just from the pressure of John inside him. John pulls out gingerly, collapsing sideways onto the bed, one hand curled around the blade of Sherlock’s hip.
They lay together, catching their breath. John knots the condom and tosses it in the bin, thinks about getting up to get a flannel to clean them up. Decides it’ll keep.
He must have drifted off, because the next thing he knows is Sherlock nudging him gently with his knee, hands still trapped against his thighs. John stretches and rolls onto his stomach, feeling blissfully sore.
Sherlock clears his throat, takes a deep breath. “Five,” he says cautiously.
John flashes him a wide grin, shifts so his head is resting against Sherlock’s upper arm, tips his chin upward to look into those pale eyes. He nods in affirmation and Sherlock’s eyes slide closed in something like relief.
“I still owe you,” Sherlock says, the exhaustion cresting dangerously under the words. “As soon as I can move again. Next week, sometime.”
John smiles against the skin of his arm, lets his own eyes fall closed. “No hurry,” he says, “I can wait,” and Sherlock laughs.