Work Text:
John kissed James’ lips as the other man slowly appeared to be waking. “Today’s the day,” he whispered before he slowly started to get out of bed, stopped by one strong arm pulling his smaller body back.
“You sure about this?” James whispered, mouthing at John’s hairline just above his ear. “He might not even remember us. It’s been five years… we’re all different now.”
John sighed heavily as he laid against James, running his fingers through the slightly older man’s hair, tracing them along the shell of his ear and down his jawline before pressing their lips together once more.
“I’ll go myself, but I told you… we made a promise, remember? No matter what… if we got back to London alive… we’d find him. Well… now we have…” John pushed himself back up and started to gather up his clothes. “Stamford said that if he’s not at this address on Montague St., then he’d be at Bart’s. Either way, I’m tracking him down today.” He paused as he pulled his jeans on, looking over at James. “Are you sure you don’t want to come with me?”
James smiled and shook his head. “While I share your enthusiasm on finding who… was probably the most memorable fake reporter I’d ever met… and I would love to see what kind of man he is now… I really don’t think my presence will help luring him back.”
John’s shoulders slumped as he stared at James with hurt and sadness in his eyes. “Oh James…” he whispered and James merely shook his head.
“Don’t. Best I regain my self confidence in my own time, don’t you think?”
“But…”
“I’m fine, John. Tell me when you find him, okay?”
John was just exiting the cab when a tall man in a billowing coat caught the door as he proclaimed, “Hold that taxi!” just as he almost collided with John in the process.
It took John less than half a minute to recognize that distinct voice that drew him in five years ago. In a blink, he nearly missed Sherlock’s face as the other man maneuvered past him with an impatient “Move!” and just like that, he was sucked back into the cab, sliding back into his seat, forcing Sherlock to shift to the other side. He watched as Sherlock frowned, obviously perplexed, but not bothered enough to actually look at him.
“I was just looking for you,” John decided to speak fast before Sherlock had the chance to process that, for all he knew, a complete stranger followed him into a cab. “I don’t know if you remember me… it’s been five years…”
“Afghanistan or Iraq?” Sherlock drawled, keeping himself preoccupied by rapidly texting message after message on his phone.
“Excuse me?”
“Tan on your hand but not past your wrist. Five years ago, I was in both Afghanistan and Iraq on separate cases. Where would I have met you?”
John bit back an indignant reply that Sherlock could just look at his face and see if he recognized. Instead he tapped his fingers against his knee before he answered, “Afghanistan.”
Sherlock’s phone slipped from his grip and John’s eyebrows shot up at just how quickly the blush had started to spread across those still impeccable cheekbones. “Five years ago in Afghanistan I… oh…” He trailed off when he finally lifted his eyes to look at John – still that striking misty blue-green, almost gray in the London overcast. “Captain John Watson, wasn’t it?”
John nodded once and smiled. “Hello, William.”
“Sherlock.”
“Right,” John laughed a bit, “Got use to calling you William.”
“Of course…” Sherlock shook his head, trying to jar loose the dazed expression on his face. He was doing a poor job. His breath hitched as a sudden thought hit him before he turned to face John again. “James… is he…?”
“He’s fine,” John interrupted, to keep Sherlock from completing that thought. “Well… he was injured. We both were. It’s… well… I won’t bore you with the details, right? But he’s alive.” He smiled, reaching out and taking Sherlock’s hand, stilling it as it hovered uncertainly nearby. “God, I’ve been looking for you for months. You realize that?”
“Really? Didn’t think I’d be that hard to find…”
“I couldn’t remember your last name. Lost your card a year ago… Lucky for me, we seem to share an acquaintance. I found out on accident. You just… popped up in conversation one day and… He’s the one who told me where you live… and I just realized how creepy that sounded, I’m so sorry…”
Sherlock’s expression softened as he smiled before laughter fell forward with a shake of his head. “No… given the circumstances, it’s really not.” He squeezed John’s hand and brought it to his lips. He breathed John in, closing his eyes and seeming to get lost only to be snapped from his reverie when the cab came to a stop. “Oh…” He looked out the window and scowled. “Shit. I have something I need to take care of,” he freed his hand from John as he started to step out. “Listen… is there a chance I can meet up with you once…” he trailed off a bit and drummed his fingers against his lips as he seemed to consider something. “Wait… you were a doctor in the army, were you not?”
“I was.”
“… care to help me then?”
John blinked a few times at the request before he nodded slowly. “Yeah… yeah of course.”
They were giggling like schoolboys as John pulled Sherlock into the modest flat he’d been sharing with James since his return and straight into him, smoothing his unruly hair from his face before pressing their lips together. “Shh…”
“Thought we were past the need to keep quiet,” Sherlock purred devilishly in a way that made John roll his eyes. He offered an arm as Sherlock shrugged out of his coat and hung it up along with Sherlock’s scarf next to the door. “Where is he?” Sherlock whispered and John nodded towards the closed door of the bedroom before placing a finger to his lips again.
“He’s still on a military sleep schedule. 3 in the morning is a bit of an odd hour for him.”
“Pssh… boring,” Sherlock replied as he headed down the hall, shrugging out of his blazer and shirt along the way. John hung up his own jacket before he quietly jogged to catch up with Sherlock, placing a hand on the other man’s bare chest.
“Hold on… I told you. He was injured.”
“So? If I recall, so were you.”
“Yes, but… it’s a bit different. He’s badly scarred, Sherlock… can’t move his left arm fully...”
Sherlock raised an eyebrow, looking quite unimpressed by this revelation. “Okay… so?”
John just stared back, shrugging a bit at Sherlock’s nonchalance. “Just… thought you might want to know.”
“Noted,” Sherlock continued on his path, calling out to James along the way. “James!”
“Shh! Sherlock, I told you keep your voice down!”
“Yes, I heard you, but he can’t fuck me if he’s asleep, can he? Major James Sholto!”
John just laughed as he followed Sherlock’s charge forward into the bedroom. He paused in the doorway as he saw Sherlock very gently crawl into bed over James, leaning against the frame as he took in the sight. Sherlock straddled the slowly waking man and took each hand in his own, placing them on his hips. In the low light, John could barely make out the smile on Sherlock’s face before he leaned down and kissed James – a slow, long meeting of lips. John could hear it deepen, tongues sliding against each other as James seemed to wake fully.
“William,” came as a sigh of relief, or reverence if John was to be honest, when the two finally parted. John smiled as he stepped closer, Sherlock very calmly correcting James to which the response followed matter-of-factly, “Oh yes, Sherlock. Of course.”
John playfully shoved Sherlock to the side, answered by the surprised yelp as Sherlock hit the mattress next to James. John crawled into bed on the other side, keeping Sherlock between them as he started to undo the youngest man’s trousers. “Told you I’d find him,” John remarked as he pressed his lips against a pale shoulder. James chuckled as he reached into Sherlock’s briefs with his good hand and started to stroke him into arousal.
“Never doubted you,” he remarked before he pressed his lips to Sherlock’s, feeling them quiver as he started to squirm, bucking forward as James began to grope his testicles.
“Jesus… James…” Sherlock whimpered, head falling back as he reached for John, squeezing his hand before he felt his breath getting caught in a deep kiss. John reached down, taking Sherlock’s length in his fist and stroking. Sherlock groaned, the deep, guttural sound catching in his throat as John seemed to coax it from him with his tongue. There was a gasp when the two broke free and Sherlock looked downwards, watching John’s and James’ hands on him with a bit of interest and a lot of lust.
“Please,” he found himself begging. He didn’t know what he was even begging for. Sherlock grasped at John’s hair when he slid himself further down the bed and settled himself between Sherlock’s legs. There was another plea, a keening cry that wracked his chest as John took Sherlock’s cock in his mouth, his well practiced tongue gliding over it in memorized ministrations. “Fuck!” the tips of Sherlock’s nails just barely brushed over John’s scalp, just enough to encourage him. He sought James out as his anchor, grasping at his shoulder with his free hand, head falling forward at the way James’ hand tugged and rolled his balls in a maddening manner. John pulled off when he heard the quiet, shaky ‘No…’ force itself in between Sherlock’s panting breaths.
“Too soon…” he clarified in a whisper. John smiled as James swooped in to kiss Sherlock’s reddened and swollen lips. John started to shimmy Sherlock’s trousers to his ankles before reaching up and pulling his pants down to join them. John got to his knees, ridding himself of the rest of his own clothes, freeing his erection. Sherlock finished kicking off his trousers and pants and started to sit up before John grabbed his wrist and flipped him onto his stomach. As Sherlock pushed himself up onto his hands and knees, he closed his eyes at the feeling of lips tracing down his spine, fingers along his ribs. He felt himself be shifted to the side, hand colliding with skin before he found the sheets with a closed fist.
His eyes snapped open with a sharp inhale through his mouth as he felt John’s hands spread the cheeks of his arse. A breathy sigh as he felt James’ tongue trace achingly slow across his perineum, causing him to rasp between each painful exhale. “James… John… please…”
“Even know what you’re begging for, Sherlock?” John teased.
“No… just… anything… please…” Sherlock opened his eyes, licking his lips as he was greeted with his current position. John was underneath him, head between his legs, helping James bare Sherlock’s hole to his eager and skilled tongue. As the warm, wet probing caused Sherlock’s vision to skew upwards, he teetered downwards, shuddering as John took his erection back into his mouth. “Fuck…” Sherlock forced his breath outward, pressing his weight to his elbows before he focused on the exposed erection that bobbed just below his lips. He tilted his head to the side, slipping his mouth around the shaft and sucking lightly. He was rewarded with a groan around his cock before he took the head in his mouth, John’s thighs against his ears as he stretched his mouth around his length and swallowed what he could until he felt the tip hit the back of his throat.
He heard John’s head hit the mattress as Sherlock’s mouth popped off his cock to lap at the tip with his tongue. “Christ, Sherlock…” he groaned before he seemed determined to double his efforts. Sherlock moaned appreciatively, hips squirming just a little as James sucked on his hole before pulling back. He felt something cool drip against it, running down his thighs before it was slicked inside him with two fingers. His mind was a fog to what was actually happening, content to concentrate on making the moans John vibrated around his cock to continue until he felt the pressure of James pressing into him.
Sherlock pulled away from John, surging forward with the first thrust, pressing his cheek against John’s groin. “Can’t…” he squinted and struggled against the overwhelming urge to simply lay there, bury his nose in John’s skin and ride it out as James fucked him from behind while John sucked his cock, muttering their names in a delirious mantra as the sounds of skin against skin and slurping the filled the room with a sinful melody that coaxed Sherlock into a sex addled trance.
But that’d be quite unfair to John, wouldn’t it?
Sherlock tried his best to retain whatever he could to push his head back up and take John back into his mouth, one hand coming up to wrap his fingers around the base to help keep himself grounded and steady. He moaned around it, tongue pressed flat against the underside as he tried to take in all he could. He relaxed his throat, closed his eyes but was jerked free by his own body clenching when James hit that spot inside him. “Fuck!” he exclaimed as John was jarred loose from his lips, his free hand grasping at John’s knee to stop himself from flying forward. He resigned himself to stroking John in a broken rhythm until the first spurt of come hit the bottom of his chin. Sherlock opened his mouth, catching what he could on his tongue before he lapped at the tip, sucking at it as he drew out the last of it to swallow.
Sherlock could feel his heart pounding against his chest, the taste of come on his lips as he wetted them. He whined when James pulled out of him and John pulled back, both of the men hushing him, reassuring him, promising him that they wouldn’t leave him unsatisfied. He was flipped back onto his back, John smiling as he helped James pull him into his lap, kissing the back of Sherlock’s shoulder.
“See?” he whispered as he lifted Sherlock’s hips while James guided himself back into him. “We’ll take care of you.”
Those words had been uttered in some variation five years ago on a whirlwind two week sexual experiment that Sherlock had yet to try to replicate. The feel of their bodies, older, maybe a little softer, but still incredibly familiar, stored away deep in his memory, never to be purged. With it brought whispers of appreciation and adoration – the likes that Sherlock had never experienced. As he leaned back against John, closing his eyes as his head fell on the other man’s shoulder, James continued to pound into him, his rhythm becoming more sporadic the closer he came to orgasm. John wrapped a slick hand around Sherlock’s shaft, tugging at it as his lips pressed against Sherlock’s temple. “Come on, lovely,” he urged, “Come for us.”
Sherlock groaned as he felt James come, filling him up, warming his insides. John’s hand twisted around Sherlock’s cock before he reached up with his free hand and raked his nails on the nape of Sherlock’s neck. “Come, Sherlock,” John rasped in his ear before he tugged at his hair. Sherlock’s back arched, his entire body strung taut before he came with a shout. He fell back against John with a smack and he felt John’s lips curl into a smile as he pressed them to his forehead a moment before James kissed him on the lips.
They untangled their bodies, sticky with sweat and come. Sherlock fought as James and John kept him from curling beneath the covers, but not very well. They still managed to get him onto his feet and into the cramped shower.
He stood there, pressed against the wall, warm spray hitting his face as he closed his eyes. He swiped at his face, slicking back his hair, unable to wipe the small, satisfied smile that kept quirking up his lips.
He lolled his head to the side when he heard the curtain pull back, an arm reaching and wrapping around his waist to help him out into the chilled air. He murmured his content into a strong shoulder as coarse hands set to dry him off. “Missed you,” he admitted into the bared skin before he pulled back to look James in the face. “Both of you,” he amended without having to really think.
James smiled before he ruffled Sherlock’s damp hair with the plush towel and kissed his forehead. “We missed you too. Obviously.”
Sherlock sucked in a breath and draped his arms around James, leaning against the other man and using him as a support. “So glad you found me.”
“You’ll have to thank John specifically for that. That was mostly his doing… but… we both wanted to, Sherlock. Really.”
They both looked when the door opened again, Sherlock still with a cheek pressed to James’ chest. John stood in the doorway, still stark naked, with a smile. “Hey… you coherent?”
“Mm… no…” Sherlock pulled the towel tightly around his shoulders and shuffled over to John, nuzzling his shoulder as he leaned against him. John laughed softly as he lifted Sherlock’s face by his jaw and pecked him on the nose.
“Let’s get you to bed, then.”
The next morning, Sherlock was roused by a kiss to his shoulder. He smiled as memories of the night before started to play back to him. He lifted his head as he stretched, turning to face John, who was looming over him. “Morning…” he whispered in a cracked, gravelly voice, still sluggish from sleep.
“Morning,” John whispered back before he smiled, “I just going to get us some breakfast…”
Sherlock looked at James before he looked back at John, “Would he be alright if I came with you?”
“He’ll be fine. Probably sleep another four hours with the way you wore him out last night,” John smirked a little as Sherlock’s ears turned a bit pink. “Get dressed. I’ll meet you out front.”
Sherlock did as requested before shrugging on his coat and heading out. He wrapped his scarf around his neck as he felt the chilled bite to the wind. Popping up his collar, he looked at John with an awkward quirk to his lips before he cleared his throat. “So… here we are.”
John nodded as he handed Sherlock a cup of coffee he’d purchased while waiting for the other. “Here we are,” John smiled as he took a swig of his own and looked upwards. “Morning after. How’re you feeling?”
“Aside from sore and immensely satisfied?”
“Aside for that.”
Sherlock pursed his lips as he mulled that question over before sipping at his coffee and puffing a small bit of air over the top of the lid. He took another sip before he lowered the coffee and offered John an honest smile. “Very happy.”
John nodded in response, his smile from before stretching just a bit wider. “Good. Good. I’m glad.”
“I really did miss you two,” Sherlock admitted as they started to walk. “You were… on my mind a lot. It’s quite distracting. Especially with my work… very hard to dedicate my mind to it completely with random fantasies of you two dragging me to the ground and taking turns fucking me senseless.”
John sputtered a bit before he cleared his throat, giggling a little. “I’m sorry we made it so hard for you… mm… no pun intended,” he grinned cheekily before he tilted his head. “By the way, what do you do?”
“I’m a consulting detective,” Sherlock shrugged, “Sometimes I’m lent out to the British Government to discern particular threats towards sensitive information… what brought me to your base five years ago.”
“Yes. I remember… you were the most gorgeous fake reporter I’d ever seen.”
Sherlock had the modesty to at least blush a little, and John just smirked as he took another sip of coffee. “Anyway, up until our encounter… I’d done very well to keep any kind of desire… sexual or otherwise… well contained. But you two started flirting with me… and… well… you know the rest.”
“I definitely do.”
“Not that I regret it… at all. It was good. Great. Fantastic. And you two were so caring and… then when I realized who you were…” Sherlock sucked in a breath and squared his shoulders. “John Watson… I don’t think it would do us well if you and James Sholto parted ways with me.”
“Oh,” John raised an eyebrow. “Is that so?”
Sherlock smiled and nodded before leaning in and kissing John’s hair, closing his eyes as he swiped his fingers through it. “That is definitely so.”
“I’ll have to discuss it with James, you know.”
“Of course.”
John nodded slowly and smiled, “But… if I know him as well as I think I do… and I definitely do… I’m fairly certain we’re all on the same page.”
“So?”
“Sherlock Holmes… I don’t think you have anything to worry about. We’re not going anywhere.”