"Can I fellate you now?"

John opened his eyes and looked up at his flatmate.

"It's not quite eight o'clock, to answer your next question, and yes, I was asleep for the last two hours too." Sherlock dipped his head to nuzzle John's shoulder. "You're still in your work clothes, though, and you promised I could see the rest of you."

"I did, didn't I." John stretched his arms up over his head - eliciting a noticeable pop from his bad shoulder - and settled further back into the mattress. "You're sure about this?"

"Are you?" Sherlock countered. And then scrabbled backwards, putting space between their bodies. "You're not. Damn. John." He glanced briefly at John's face, then pointedly looked away. "I apologize for pushing you," he said quietly.

"Hey - you didn't push me." John propped himself up on one elbow and laid a firm hand on Sherlock's bare shoulder. "It's okay, really."

"You're not gay, though."

"Doesn't mean I don't want to see where this goes."

"Nowhere, apparently," Sherlock said, and rolled off the opposite side of the bed in a quest for some clothes. He yanked a pair of pants and pajama trousers out of his dresser and pulled them on with sharp, jerky movements.

The sight of Sherlock in a strop wasn't exactly unfamiliar, although the reverse striptease was. John couldn't help but watch as Sherlock covered up those deliciously long limbs, bit by bit. Retreating further into himself with each movement.

"Sherlock," John said quietly. And repeated, when he was ignored: "Sherlock."

"What?" Sherlock snapped. "You're not gay, you pitied me, you decided to humor me. End of story. I'll delete it and we can go back to how we were before."

The end of his statement had significantly less assertion to it than the beginning did, but John knew better than to be caught by an argument of tone and semantics. Sherlock could argue circles around anyone when he really wanted to. Much better to coax him out of it . . .

"Do you know what part of you I find the sexiest?" John asked, not looking away from how Sherlock's torso stretched as he pulled on a clean shirt. "I love how you look so thin, almost breakable, but then you're deceptively strong when it actually matters. I think people tend to underestimate you because you're so brilliant - they assume you can be physically intimidated. I love seeing you prove them wrong. Even before today, I will absolutely admit to a not-entirely-platonic fascination with your musculature."

Sherlock straightened the shirt with a tug to the lower hem, but he didn't immediately reach for his robe. Listening.

So John pressed his advantage. "Do you remember that case with the footballer? The arson?"

Sherlock nodded slowly, still not turning around. Waiting for the punch line.

"He had five stone on you, at least, but you laid him out cold within thirty seconds. You fight smart. And when we got back to the flat, I rushed straight to the shower and pulled myself off to the memory of how you looked in that moment - flushed but exultant. At the time I was praying you wouldn't notice, but I always suspected you figured it out."

". . . I remember." Sherlock raised his head slightly, eyes still on the wall above the dresser, but at least he wasn't running off to lick his wounds in private. John was willing to count anything as a positive at this point.

"I kicked myself about it afterwards, about picturing you as I came, but I couldn't help it. You were just so damn sexy and alive. That isn't the only time I've jacked off to thoughts of you, mind, but it was one of the most memorable."

Sherlock did look back, then, a hesitant peek over his shoulder. John met it with a smile and a raised eyebrow.

"Come back to bed?"

Sherlock's lips pressed together into a thin line, but he never took his eyes from John. "You keep saying you're not gay."

"According to everyone in London except those living in this flat, apparently I am. And now I'm seeing the truth in their argument. Because if I have to choose between my sexual identity or you, I choose you."

"John." Sherlock's eyes widened, and then he was clambering back up onto the mattress and - not touching, just hovering in John's personal space. It was all John could do not to yank him down into a heated snog and hope he picked up the truth by osmosis.

Instead, John raised a hand and carded it through the downy hair at the nape of Sherlock's neck. "I believe you asked to see me naked?" he murmured. "I'm all yours, if you still want me."

Sherlock sucked in a sharp breath and let his gaze drift down to John's chest. His fingers actually trembled as he slipped one button free, then another, then another, until John's shirt was open from his collarbone to his hips and Sherlock could slide a flat palm underneath to press a warm weight against John's left pectoral, over his bullet wound.

"I hate that somebody shot you," Sherlock whispered.

"I hated being shot," John said simply. "But I do take comfort in knowing that you'll probably find my scars interesting. And you can probably deduce the caliber and angle from the texture and discoloration."

Sherlock's eyes brightened at that (of course they did). Moments later, John was being rolled onto his stomach and his button-down was being dumped unceremoniously on the floor. Sherlock was a comforting presence above him, weight braced on an arm planted somewhere to the right of John's head, long fingers tracing the web of scar tissue radiating from the pockmark on the inner edge of his scapula. An unexpected pressure (fingertip against the center of the wound) made John tense, but then Sherlock dipped closer and John felt a gentle brush of lips against his shoulder and it was suddenly okay.

They spent several long minutes like that, Sherlock just cataloguing John's injury with fingers and tiny kisses. John was moderately hard, just from the proximity and the charged situation, but he let Sherlock take as much time as he needed. This was important - it was Sherlock familiarizing himself with another human body, with consensual touch. John would have happily given him all day if he'd wanted it.

Sherlock did slow to a stop, though, eventually. The questing fingertips and gentle kisses made way to a slow sweep of pressure down the length of John's spine, stopped only because he was still wearing his (now horribly wrinkled) work trousers.

"I want these off," Sherlock growled, tugging at the belt loop just over the small of John's back.

"So take them off." John worked a hand under himself just enough to undo the zip and the button, then jammed his arm back under his pillow. "Take as long as you want - I'm feeling pleasantly quiescent right now."

"Quiescent?" John couldn't see Sherlock's face, but he could hear the amused note in his tone.

"Fuck you," John grumbled into the pillow. "It feels nice, okay? I like when you do - whatever-you're-doing - back there. Feel free to keep doing it."

"Oh, I intend to." Sherlock insinuated his fingers alongside John's hips, then dragged pants and trousers together down to his knees. And stopped moving entirely for a long moment. "You have a quite attractive arse, John," he eventually said with a note of finality.

"Mmmm." John wiggled his bum a bit, just to be a tease. The sharp intake of Sherlock's breath told him the movement was perhaps something to remember for later.

"I can't fellate you from this position."

John grinned (hopefully his face was still hidden well enough that Sherlock couldn't tell) and wriggled again. "Going to flip me over?"

The words were barely out of his mouth before strong hands were manhandling him into a new position, flat on his back, legs spread, pants and trousers tossed aside. Sherlock knelt between his thighs and stared for so long John started to get worried that he was going to demand a blood sample, or insist on pulling out his microscope, or something. Instead, Sherlock reached out - almost reverently - and traced a single line up the underside of John's cock.

"Mmmm - definitely not straight," John said under his breath.

And Sherlock heard, of course he heard. He quirked an eyebrow and did it again, a long gentle glide against John's skin. John was fully hard now, had gotten hard just under the weight of Sherlock's stare, but now he was hard and practically itching with the need to do something. To kiss Sherlock, get his hands on him, pull him down so he could get back to the sensitive spot on Sherlock's gorgeous neck. John just fisted his hands at his sides, though, and let Sherlock go as slow as he needed.

Which John suspected would be very slow indeed. And which was also the reason John nearly jackknifed in shock when Sherlock bent down and slipped his lips over John's cock in one smooth movement.

"Ah! Fuck!"

He could feel Sherlock's grin more than see it, but Sherlock quickly recovered and bobbed his head lower, encasing John's entire length in smooth, wet heat. For this being his first time, he was astoundingly, shockingly good at it. John wondered (with the tiny part of brain still left working) whether this was something Sherlock had practiced, whether he'd had it stored away in his mind palace in case the information was ever of use, or whether this was just the natural result of Sherlock watching porn and being too damn observant.

"It's because you're easy to read, John," Sherlock murmured, pressing tight kisses up and down the length of his cock. "I may be a novice at blowjobs, but I'm an expert at reading you."

"Fuck," John sighed. There were probably other, better words, but none of them seemed adequate. Not when Sherlock had now brought his hands into play, lightly kneading and caressing his bollocks, pressing a blunt thumb into John's perineum as he slipped his lips over John's glans again. Sherlock's tongue was in motion now, too, gentle but insistent, drawing shivers and sighs out of him with frightening ease.

Sherlock was devastatingly thorough, of course. John was beyond words for what felt like forever before he finally found himself tipping over that elusive edge. He fisted a hand in Sherlock's hair as he felt himself tense, but Sherlock had already read the signals and was withdrawing, pumping him manually, letting his saliva lubricate the motion. His other hand was between his own legs, working frantically. They locked eyes for a long moment, then John groaned and came all over Sherlock's hand. He stubbornly kept his gaze on Sherlock's, so he was able to see how Sherlock's own eyes went wider and how his breath stuttered in his chest before he locked up and let out a low moan that only ratcheted up the intensity of John's aftershocks. Sherlock collapsed on the bed next to him, breathing heavily, and they both lay there for what could have been hours.

"That was . . . god, Sherlock," John finally said. "Please don't remind me of my 'not gay' phase anymore. I'm horribly embarrassed by it now."

"As long as it was just a phase," Sherlock said in a voice which was merely a fraction above rumbling. "And I disagree with your initial premise."

"Mmm?"

"Simultaneous orgasms are much more fun."

And then Sherlock caught his eye, and they both dissolved into relieved laughter.