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John wants to smack that smirk off that smug, annoying, smirking face so bad that the palm of his hand starts itching. It doesn't much help that Sherlock's perhaps one of the five men in the whole of London John might actually manage to take in a slap fight. He curls his fingers in on themselves, inhales a long, slightly shaky breath over an internal count of five. Lets it out and those steady eyes don't flicker from his for a moment. He fights for composure. “I don't suppose there's any point repeating myself, is there?”
“A little redundant, perhaps, but if it helps you to feel more in control of the situation –”
“Which would be purely an illusion . . .”
“There. You're already catching up. Well done you.”
John grits his teeth, spits out the words because there's absolutely no point in shouting them. “I don't fancy you, Sherlock.”
“Of course you don't.”
“Don't – don't do that.”
“Don't what? Agree with you? I'm sorry. Won't let it happen again.” And, just like that, he's dismissed, the dark, shaggy head across from him dipping back towards the book Sherlock's flipping through once more now with a disdainful snort. “You'd think, considering the subject matter, Balliot could afford to be a little less opaque.”
“Sherlock . . .”
“He's so very sincere but it's leaden. Simply unacceptable.”
“Sherlock. I'm talking to you.”
“Yes, please.”
“I wasn't offering to make you a coffee.”
“Of course you were.”
John forces his fingers out of the fists they've been curled in and marches through to flip the kettle on as his only other option is storming off like a moody teenager for the second time that day alone, and his sense of dignity's getting to the point where it's never going to recover. He folds his arms, gazes out the window and absolutely refuses to rub his fingertips over his lips to get the feel of Sherlock's off his own. Again.
-
“Are you still on about this? The non-issues with which you occupy your time expending emotional energy on are quite beyond me. It was just a small one this time.”
“You have to stop it, Sherlock. I'm not interested in you that way.”
“So you keep saying.”
“Look . . . just stop kissing me, alright?”
Sherlock almost looks puzzled, a slight frown in John's direction as he tugs off his scarf and coat, chucking them down across his chair. “Why would I stop kissing you?”
“Because I don't like it!”
“Of course you do.”
“I don't. I really – please, listen to me. I don't want you to keep kissing me.”
“John, John . . .” Leaning down slightly, touching John's arm like he's explaining to a complaining five year old why he can't have another biscuit. “Your pupils dilate each time I enter the room and you get an erection within the first five minutes of my doing so seventy-seven percent of the time, rising to ninety-eight percent of the time if I take the trouble to lick my lips, no doubt reminding you of that sordidly homosexual second year blow job in med school. Considering it's been over two years since your last sexual activity, it wouldn't be terribly considerate of me to ignore your obvious needs, now, would it? Besides. I rather like kissing you. Might do it again later, if time permits.”
“But – what – I don't – there was no sordid homosexual blow job in med school!”
“Hmm." Already flipping through Balliot again. "You're quite sure of that?”
“Sherlock, I think I remember my own sex life rather better than yo-” Wait. No. Six lukewarm cans of Stella and three spliffs too many. That total wanker in the polo shirt who has been rather too friendly the whole evening. Watching Boobs Sarah drag Stevo off in the direction of halls just as he's worked up the courage to say hello to her for the first time and see if she wants another drink. Wanker in polo shirt commiserating, a warm hand on his shoulder. Someone's room with a Jim Morrison poster above the bed staring down at John as he unzips and shoves his jeans down to his knees in an embarrassed hurry. Shit.
“There is no way on earth you could've possibly known –”
“Now, John. There's not a med student alive who hasn't either given or gotten a gay blowie by end second year. Given your level of social ineptitude, you'd have simply fallen towards the end of that scale.”
“That's just not true and I am not socially inept.”
“Aren't you? Well then. That's me put to rights.” Sherlock's tongue swipes over his own bottom lip quite deliberately and then, with a bright, insincere smile, not even bothering to look to see where John's already half-hard and getting harder still, Sherlock off poking around the bookshelves for something else, all slim and tall and tight and completely annoying.
“If you don't stop kissing me, I'll have to move out.”
“Of course you will.”
“I mean it. Sherlock, I'm perfectly serious about this.”
“I'm listening with absolute concentration. Could you pop down to the shop and get me two packs of cornflour, five lemons, some matches, three boxes should do it, some borax from the chemist and a box of washing soda, there's a love.”
There's really no point pursuing the point any further. John sighs, tries to let the tension flood out of his shoulders, works a crick out of his neck.
“Fine, but it's a bit early for explosives, isn't it? Mrs. H'll go ballistic if you interrupt the Archers again.”
-
A touch of tongue this time, curling inside the corner of his mouth and it's all John can do to stop a little gaspy sex-moan escaping as he forces his hands to shove Sherlock away rather than pulling him closer. Another smug smirk hovering inches from his face but John's learning and notices that Sherlock's pupils are dilated, too, a soft flush across those ridiculous cheekbones. Apparently someone's not quite as playful as the impression he's so carefully cultivating would suggest.
“If you're planning to complain about me kissing you once more, I really wouldn't bother. It's getting terribly dull and humping my leg is hardly the action of an uninterested party.”
“I did no such thing.”
“John, you rubbed your cock against my leg and licked my tongue. Taking into consideration the length of time since you last ejaculated, not quite –” He checks his watch, “four hours, that's more than simply an unconscious sexual response.”
“That is – not appropriate! Chrissakes, Sherlock, please. Have a little propriety.” He sits in his chair, unreasonably flustered and working very hard not to lick Sherlock's taste from around his own mouth. Sherlock perches on the chair's arm next to him, one hip pressing into John's shoulder.
“If you don't want me to listen to you masturbate, why would you be so loud while you're doing it? You wouldn't be, you'd make an effort to muffle the noise, face into a pillow, that sort of thing. Not that I'm complaining, I almost came through to join in this morning. My fingers are somewhat longer than your own . . .”
“You have no idea what I was doing.”
“Eros-brand lube, silicon-based, not exactly top drawer but decent enough taking into account your current lack of funds. I'd congratulate you on your prioritisation skills but it's not a new bottle, you've had it awhile and you're simply being frugal in your use. Which explains no more than two fingers, fucking yourself slowly, wondering how big I am - considerably bigger than two of your fingers, I might add. Perhaps I should buy you a dildo, I wouldn't want popping your arse cherry to be any more uncomfortable than strictly necessary . . .”
“I'm not a – fucking hell. Have you been going through my things?”
“You left a smear on the bathroom door when you went in to wash your hands.”
John sits forward, covers his face with his fingers in a hot mix of embarrassment and frustration as one of Sherlock's hands strokes up the centre of his back briefly.
“Please, don't touch me. You're driving me mad. I honestly don't know why you're being like this.”
“Like what?”
“Torturing me. God, that's it. You get off on it, don't you? You're a sexual sadist and you're grooming me.”
“I wouldn't say sadist per se. It's rather limiting, don't you think? Perhaps I just feel sorry for this old chap. I think he's lonely.”
A quick, affectionate rub of John's dick through his trousers and Sherlock's swinging those impossibly long legs out as he gets up off the arm of the chair.
“Come on. To the lab, Igor. Vomit stains won't analyse themselves, you know.”
-
This one's easy to explain. Point out any one person alive who says they wouldn't get turned on by being pushed slowly and inextricably against a wet wall down a dark alley in the middle on the night by a relatively-attractive someone pushing their tongue into your ear, and John will call them a fucking liar. Sherlock's justifiably impressed with himself after rubbing Donovan's nose in it rather more thoroughly than he needed to over this one case, and it spills over as he shoves John back against the wall, long fingers curling around John's rapidly-swelling dick as he does so. His mouth is already open as Sherlock's tongue thrusts in deeply and the groan comes out of nowhere, especially not from the depth of John's throat or via John's achingly full balls that Sherlock's rubbing circles over with the palm of his hand. A wet mutter,
“No, not here. Sherlock, come on. It's starting to rain, for a start.”
Sherlock's face moving away to look down into John's but the hands remain, one on John's shoulder holding him firm, the other smoothing up to thumb over the tip of his erection now.
“If we go home now, you're going to have an attack of the fainting petit-bourgeois virgins and break out the chastity belt once more. I'd rather take my chances in an alley full of tramp piss, if you don't mind.”
“This really isn't my scene.”
“It's not?” Fingers stroking the length of him, a mouth pressing against his neck for a second before a damp whisper in his ear, “your pulse has jumped through the roof, which tells me something else entirely.”
Sharp teeth biting just a touch too heavily on his throat, over his Adam's apple as nimble fingers work quickly on undoing his belt and trouser button. His voice sounds whiny, needy to his own ears, little more than a token protest, Sherlock, we can't, we're around the corner from the fucking police station but his fingers thread into thick, too-long hair as Sherlock drops into a crouch in front of him, rubbing his face into John's cock through his underpants. A low murmur,
“Now, I'd hope that our positions would usually be reversed in this situation but, as you're intent on staying wound tighter than a nun's cunt on the whole sex issue, necessity compels.”
The low slither of his zip being tugged down, fingers snaking inside his open fly and it takes every ounce of willpower John's got to reach down to grab Sherlock's wrists, hold them still.
“I said no.”
A pause, then the hands retreat immediately as Sherlock stands, shoving his hands deep into his coat pockets, tucking his nose into his chin, half disappearing into his scarf.
“Because you don't fancy me. Of course you don't. How silly of me to forget.”
There's nothing else to say, no possible other explanation John can give because there's no way of saying I make it a rule not to sleep with sociopathic gits who don't have the capacity to care about me or anyone else beyond the ability to boil a kettle aloud without it making him sound like a fourteen year old girl writing wistfully in her diary. So he sticks with the 'Not fancying you' line, gives Sherlock a terse nod and tries to enjoy the spurt of grim satisfaction Sherlock's brief grimace of umbrage produces in him before a shoulder is stiffly turned and Sherlock stalks off down the alley towards home. There nothing much else for John to do except follow him.
-
He's right, he's definitely learning. John begins to notice more than the kisses alone. It seems Sherlock's given up, temporarily at least, in escalating kisses into something more but there's a kiss here when John gets home from the pub, subtle and light on his jaw. A kiss there, Sherlock jumping into a cab and pulling John towards him at the last minute for a small, almost-chaste smooch before pushing him back and firmly closing the door in his face. Hello-goodbye weirdly boyfriendy stuff. But the other things . . .
Looking up from the TV to notice Sherlock gazing at him with a very slight frown over the top of the Balliot book as if John's a puzzle he's yet to solve, although, god knows that's unlikely. His nose almost brushing the back of John's neck as he leans over to tug a tenner out of John's trouser pocket and John's sure he feels an intake of breath, a low sniff as he does so. The microscopic, vanishingly-small flicker of expression the next time John loses his rag and accuses Sherlock of being a heartless cybernetic robot from outer space. It could simply be that he's astonished by the gratuitously pleonastic turn of phrase that John's taken to adopting in these circumstances, where a simple You're bloody psycho, mate doesn't ever seem to suffice.
-
The book lands on the lino by his feet from across the room with a resounding Thump!
“I want you to read it.”
“Because you can't get through it and it's driving you up the fucking wall?”
“Because I've got better things to do with my time than wage petty battle with some out-of-date text that nobody else has ever bothered to read before. Including the author, which is clear from the few vastly over-inflated footnotes I waded through. It's more your sort of thing anyway.”
John crouches to pick it up, turning it over in his hands, which he needs both of due to the weight of the thing. “'Balliot's Doctrine: Qualitative Examples of Theoretical Inorganic Chemistry including Commentary on Bioinorganic Compounds and Molecular Symmetry.' Lovely, sounds like a real page turner. What are we looking for?”
“Nothing much in particular.”
Hands on his hips, pushing him back until he's shoved up against the knobs on the cooker. “Sherlock . . .”
A mouth gentle at his neck, just below his ear. “Keeping my hands to myself doesn't seem to be convincing you to drop the blushing maiden act.”
“It's not an act.”
“You're an actual blushing maiden? Ah. So, this is what surprise feels like.”
“That's not what I meant and you know it, I'm clearly not a mai-”
He's cut off mid-sentence, Sherlock's mouth covering his entirely, soft, unassuming but resolutely there. Almost unmoving, full lips settling against his, hands tight on his waist and John gives the smallest, most maidenly ”Oh” possible, allowing Sherlock's tongue to trace the inside of his lips. And he's only human, Sherlock's irritatingly correct as usual, it has been too fucking long and a nice, wet, strong tongue pushing his mouth open entirely as Sherlock's head tilts to delve deeper doesn't seem like a bad thing at all for one dizzyingly hot moment. A tight, snaky pelvis shoved against his own, hands in his hair with a slight grunt as John's hands decide to stop listening to John's better nature and go exploring on their own, smoothing down a taut waist and hips to cup the tightest little arse he's ever sunk his fingers into.
A low clicking buzzes around the periphery of his consciousness, an annoyed growl against his mouth,
“Ignore it.”
“What's – what is that, anyway?”
“Your bum's on the electric igniter button.”
“Shit!”
“Oh, it's not like you're about to burst into flame. Come back over here.”
But the spell's broken, Sherlock's eyes strangely dark, studying him from under those overhanging brows as John combs fingers through his hair, grabs the book and does his absolute best to act like his trousers aren't tented out several inches in front of him. “I'll make a start on Balliot.”
“Yes. Yes, you do that. I'm going to go have a wank.”
“Christ, Sherlock, I don't need to know that.”
“No, no. What you probably don't need to know is that I'm planning to imagine that I'm fucking your mouth while I'm doing it.”
“Really, no. Hahh. Book.” Doesn't take the world's only consulting detective to pick up on the husky note in his voice. Bugger.
-
John studies perhaps harder than he's done since college. Makes notes even, considers making flash cards for one brief moment of insanity before he reminds himself that he doesn't need to impress Sherlock. That, hell, Sherlock's a handful enough as it is without him noticing that John's trying his hardest to get through the worst book in the history of publishing just so he can start to feel like he's pulling his weight, at least. Perhaps there'll be a body found submerged in water contaminated with heavy metals. Perhaps some case involving levitation caused by the use of magnetic properties in superconductive materials. At least trying to figure out practical applications in which he can impress the shit out of Sherlock finally makes turning each page a little less painful. He plays with creating a little spreadsheet in the end, cross-referencing ideas and properties until it grows into an unholy monster with twenty different pages alone.
A crash, a dull thud against a wall downstairs. John sighs, turns another page and picks up his notepad again. Something that sounds like Sherlock's bored again and has decided to study the effects of a two by four on plasterboard. John thumps on the floor, shouts out to Keep it the fuck down, I'm Ballioting. Another crash, from the kitchen this time and if that wanker's knocked the entire week's worth of washing up John finished forty minutes ago, he'll . . . fuck it, let's face it, what can he do? Probably simply wag a finger verbally at Sherlock and either get ignored or unwillingly snogged for his pains. Another crash and John remembers his laptop's down there, vulnerable to the whims of a madman and his plank. He sighs, tucks Balliot under his armpit so he can carry down the five mugs of tea in various states of growth that he keeps forgetting about.
A low grunt, a smashing sound that could be the telly? If he's bust the telly, John is going to – a different grunt, a totally different voice. Shit. Shit! John dumps the cups in the bathroom, clutching Balliot to his chest and inching forwards to stick his head around the living room door. Sherlock's on his back with some short, thickly-muscular man with red spiky hair trying to throttle the life out of him, his long legs wrapped around the man's hips as he smacks at him with clenched, futile fists, desperate, bulging eyes signalling wildly at John as the heavyset man's hands wrap around tighter still around Sherlock's neck.
Now's your chance to impress, Balliot. John edges forward, clutching the enormous, unwieldy tome with both hands. Draws his arms back, takes a deep breath and swings with all his strength, catching the red-haired man under the chin with the leatherbound edge of Balliot's magnum opus. The man flies off Sherlock with a heavy wail of surprise, quickly silenced when John leans over him and brings the book down once more, managing to tear it into two pieces over the guy's head with the force of the blow.
“Sherlock! Are you okay? Let me check your neck.” John's heart pounding through his sternum with adrenalin and shock, hot little spurts of concern for Sherlock worming their way around his gut as he watches Sherlock cough and splutter enough breath back for him to start grumping that it took John long enough.
“I didn't realise you were being attacked. I thought perhaps you'd picked up some rough trade to make me jealous.”
A wan smile through lips and skin even paler than usual, the tinge of purple gradually subsiding as John works his fingers over the bruised skin around Sherlock's neck, checking for deeper injury.
“Did it work?” That rich, low voice a deeper note than usual, more gravelled, throaty with with aftermath of the attack.
“A little bit. Would've been more effective if he hadn't been a ginger.”
A snort of gruff laughter, fingers wrapping themselves around John's belt as some sort of emotional anchor as John sits up to call the police, poking the attacker with one finger to check he's really out.
“That was a library book, you know. Library policy frowns on breaking their books over the heads of petty thugs.”
John sighs, looks at his phone briefly to key in a number for the automated police answering system and rubs his free hand up and down his thigh in the effort it's taking not to cover Sherlock's with his own. “And let me guess – it was out on my library card?”
“I have already explained that they won't let me have one any more.”
-
Skin, so much pale, smooth skin covering fine bones and lean muscle, long fingered hands that seem to get everywhere, a snarky, smirking mouth and tongue that know what they're doing and where they're going. John arches against Sherlock, pressing every inch of him that he can against Sherlock, sensation shuddering through his body as Sherlock does all manner of weird, excellent, stupidly arousing shit to John's feet, thighs, elbows, spine, setting pressure points off across his body until John feels like he's just about ready to come without even having touched his cock. Figures the smug bastard would know every last thing about sex, too. John can't really find it within himself to feel too bad about it, though, as the touch of Sherlock's teeth at the back of his knee nearly makes him shoot for the second time.
In comparison, his total lack of finesse or expertise perhaps comes across as faintly charming, at the very least endearing but, as Sherlock's impassive, infuriatingly calm faces suddenly reddens and loses every atom of insouciance as he thrusts his hips faster into John's hand and shoots heavily across his chin and chest, John figures it's working for him somehow.
“Wow. That was . . . wow.”
“I'd say it demonstrated some promise.”
“What? What kind of pillow talk is that?”
One finger tracing its way down his spine where he's snuggled into the bed on his front, head stuffed deeply into the pillow and the finger reaches his bum, trailing down between his cheeks to play in the drying saliva there.
“This was mutually satisfactory but I can think of some improvements I'd like to make next time.”
The finger traces delicate circles across the skin, making him shiver slightly in the chill of the room.
“Sherlock, you're not going to fuck me. I don't want to get bummed. I've reached a good age without ever having been bummed and I don't intend to start now.”
“Of course you don't. The very idea.”