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The first thing John saw when he opened Sherlock’s door was an abundance of pale skin. Sherlock was undressed, he realised, and sprawled out across his bed.
The second thing John noticed was that Sherlock was hard. He didn’t have a hand around himself, but he was lying on his side and thrusting against the mattress, hips twitching in their search for friction, so it was clear what he was doing. John knew he should’ve left when he realised.
But then he saw Sherlock’s fingers, graceful as ever, working his ass open.
He could hear him panting, but since his face was tilted into a pillow, the sound was muffled. John had never once seen him appear so vulnerable. His face was flushed with colour and his brows were scrunched up. He looked almost desperate.
John felt frozen in place. The logical part of his mind was screaming at him to leave before Sherlock noticed him, but his eyes refused to be forced away. He knew he was never meant to see Sherlock in such a state, but the sight was engrossing.
He’d seen men get themselves off before, during his time in the army, but that was only ever frantic hands shoved down the fronts of their trousers. He’d never seen a guy finger himself, and he’d especially never felt such a rush of arousal at the sight.
Not to mention, Sherlock being the guy in question made it all the more intriguing. John hadn’t even known whether Sherlock touched himself before that moment. He’d thought sexual activity in any form might’ve qualified as “not his area”. It seemed too corporal for him to bother with.
Still, as enraptured as he was, he didn’t want to be a voyeur. He made up his mind to leave before Sherlock noticed him gaping like a virgin at a sex show.
He tried to turn away, to leave before he was seen, but he ended up knocking his knee against the doorframe. Perhaps if his attention wasn’t stuck on the sight before him, he would’ve watched where he was walking.
He winced when he heard Sherlock gasp.
“John?” Sherlock questioned, his voice breathier than usual.
John didn’t dare reply, because he knew his voice would sound the same, tainted by arousal. Instead, he ran off to his room and locked himself inside, panting against the door.
He was horrified to find that he was hard in his trousers.
Achingly hard, because of Sherlock.
“Oh god,” he mumbled.
He’d never gotten hard because of a guy before. Seeing Sherlock in a compromising situation should not have made him feel that way.
And yet it did.
There was something so inexplicably nice about seeing Sherlock—usually detached from human emotion, unbending to the will of his body—giving himself over to pleasure. It was interesting, if only for what a shock it was. John assumed anyone would think so.
But it was hot, too. The way he squirmed against his mattress, pressing back against his fingers as his neglected cock drooled all over the bedsheets. The way he gasped for air, so consumed by pleasure that he could hardly remember to breathe.
John almost wished he hadn’t run off. He wondered what it would’ve looked like when Sherlock came, smearing his semen all over his poncy bedding. He wondered if he would’ve cried out, and whether it would’ve been curses or a name. He wished he could’ve seen.
He also wondered if Sherlock stopped after he stumbled back to his room, too embarrassed to continue, or if he had taken himself in hand right then, too desperate for orgasm to let the shame stop him from finishing.
John’s hand was in his own trousers before he even realised what he was doing.
He quite pointedly avoided Sherlock for the rest of the day, for he was too embarrassed to face him after what happened. Sherlock would read the guilt on his face and know what he did when he went off to his room.
John also wasn’t sure what the etiquette was for talking to someone after seeing them touch themself—he didn’t know if he should apologise, or if it would be better to pretend it didn’t happen in the first place. He doubted Sherlock would mention it if he didn’t.
Acting oblivious would certainly save them the embarrassment of discussing it, but he didn’t want Sherlock to think he was a pervert. He hadn’t meant to spy, after all.
When he headed downstairs the next morning, he found Sherlock sulking on the couch with an arm thrown over his face. Seeing his long limbs stretched out over a piece of furniture reminded John of the day before, and his face flushed so quickly that he had to question whether he was ready to speak to him yet.
“Good morning,” he tried.
“Mm,” Sherlock hummed.
“Did you sleep well?” John asked.
“No.”
“Any new cases?”
“No.”
“Okay.”
John frowned as he sat in his chair. Sherlock’s withdrawn answers made it clear that he was still upset, so John figured he should apologise before it got any worse.
“I’m sorry,” he told him. “I know I should’ve knocked.”
Sherlock made an abortive noise before turning to face the back of the couch, away from John.
“I didn’t see anything,” John lied, hoping to make him feel a bit better.
Sherlock didn’t reply. He must’ve known he was lying. He always knew those things.
“I’m sorry if I upset you,” John said.
Sherlock scoffed and said, “You were the one who was upset, clearly. You ignored me afterward.”
“I wasn’t upset,” John argued. “I was embarrassed. There’s a difference.”
“You were upset,” Sherlock insisted. “You assumed I’m gay because of… what you saw, and that upsets you.”
John gaped at Sherlock’s rigid shoulders, shaken that his first thought would be that he was homophobic.
He had never even assumed Sherlock to be straight in the first place. The only belief he had to reanalyse was that Sherlock wasn’t into sex, and that didn’t take long to correct.
His focus was much more prominently on his own sexuality, and why it turned him on to see Sherlock touch himself.
“I wouldn’t care if you were gay,” he eventually said.
“Statistically, plenty of heterosexual men enjoy prostate stimulation,” Sherlock said.
“…Okay.”
“It’s only biology,” Sherlock added, matter-of-factly.
John blinked. Then he opened his mouth to speak, before closing it again. It took a long moment to get his thoughts in order.
“You’re defensive,” he said, to which Sherlock sat up and scoffed at him.
“I’m not—”
“You are,” John argued. “And embarrassed, too. You’re assuming how I felt without any concrete evidence, and you’re overcompensating to change my mind about it. You don’t act that illogically unless something is screwing with your head.”
Sherlock went silent, his expression blanking.
“I don’t care if you’re gay, and I don’t care if you ‘enjoy prostate stimulation’,” John said. “I was embarrassed that I walked in on you, and that was it.”
Sherlock’s face flushed.
John tried not to recall the last time he saw him blush. (Yesterday, skin slick with sweat, buzzing with need.)
He tried not to think about it, but it was hard not to.
“…Okay,” Sherlock whispered.
John had never seen him look so nervous before. It was almost amusing how Sherlock could remain stoic at a crime scene but would fidget at the thought of John judging him for sexual preference.
The rest of the day passed slowly.
The air felt heavier than usual, saturated by what they weren’t saying. John felt arousal stir under his skin every time Sherlock walked past, and it didn’t help in the slightest that Sherlock was suddenly inspired to pace around the living room.
They barely talked.
Lestrade didn’t call with a case, and Mrs Hudson didn’t come up to visit, so they only had silence to sit in.
John couldn’t even think without Sherlock’s body drifting through his mind, taunting him for being too nervous to pursue what was right in the room with him.
He wanted to see Sherlock come apart again.
He wanted to touch him, and to feel his skin against his. Exploring the newfound desire inside of himself sounded better than anything, and he couldn’t help but wonder how it would feel to have another man writhe and gasp beside him.
It boiled over that evening.
Sherlock had shifted in his chair, spreading his knees apart, and the last of John’s self-restraint finally snapped in half.
He closed his laptop and stood up, deliberating for a moment before thinking, ‘Fuck it,’ and dropping to his knees between Sherlock’s legs. His heart pounded wildly from the close proximity.
Sherlock startled and peered down at him with a mix of curiosity and something else, a certain hunger concealed in his gaze. His legs twitched like he wasn’t sure whether to close them or spread them wider.
“Should I stop?” John asked, placing his hands on Sherlock’s knees and leaning forward.
Sherlock’s eyes widened like he couldn’t believe what was happening.
“No,” he said.
“Tell me if I should,” John murmured, before dipping his head down and mouthing at Sherlock through his trousers.
“Christ,” Sherlock gasped.
“I couldn’t stop thinking about you,” John said, nuzzling the bulge in Sherlock’s trousers, pleased to find it hardening by the second.
“When you were touching yourself…” he said. “Gosh, that was hot.”
“Uuhn,” Sherlock groaned, his eyes slipping shut.
“Yes, I know,” John said softly.
Sucking on the head of Sherlock’s cock through the fabric was particularly fun, for the way it made his control slip. Sherlock buried his fingers in John’s hair, and his hips began twitching despite what seemed to be efforts to still them.
He didn’t even have anything to say about John drooling all over his expensive trousers, nor about the likelihood that his cum would join the effort in soiling them.
“Do you want me to actually touch you now?” John asked, sitting back on his haunches.
Sherlock’s hands spasmed for a second as he tried to keep John’s head between his thighs, but when the question registered with him, he stopped.
“Please,” he said, retracting his hands. “Oh, please, John.”
“Yeah,” John replied. “Take your trousers down for me, alright?”
Sherlock nodded, then clumsily stripped himself of his trousers. John blushed when he saw how wet he’d gotten Sherlock’s pants, but those were soon tossed to the side as well.
He’d never given head before, but Sherlock was so far gone that he doubted it would even matter.
“You’re so cute,” he sighed, as he let his eyes wander from Sherlock’s eager cock to his reddened face.
“Please,” Sherlock whined.
John didn’t hesitate to wrap a hand around him, revelling in the gasp he heard as he guided Sherlock’s leaking cock into his mouth and sucked at the head.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck, John—”
Sherlock squirmed, threading his fingers back through John’s hair.
“That’s good,” he said. “Really good, fuck.”
John would’ve laughed if his mouth weren’t preoccupied. Sherlock’s rambling was horribly endearing, and to receive compliments from him was always a high honour. It also was interesting to note that “good” was the best adjective Sherlock could come up with. He rarely stooped so low as to use nonspecific, monosyllabic vocabulary.
To think that John’s attention was all-consuming enough to slow his rapid thought process down was beyond flattering.
“Pull off,” Sherlock said, all too soon. “Fuck, John, I’m—come on, p-pull off—”
And so John did, somewhat begrudgingly. He took Sherlock’s cock into his hand and began stroking him off instead.
It was only a moment later that Sherlock came, fingers tightening in John’s hair and cum spilling onto his shirt. He panted as he caught his breath, slowly releasing his grip on John’s hair.
“Thank you,” he whispered.
“Uh huh,” John murmured, slightly star-struck.
“Any time,” he added, utterly meaning it. He wanted to see Sherlock lose his composure like that indefinitely. He surprised himself with how much he enjoyed making Sherlock feel good.