'I wonder what I ever did to deserve an angel like you.'

'Mmm?' Sherlock blinked a few times, looking up at John with eyes dazed and lashes lowered.

'You, Sherlock.' John grasped Sherlock's knees, stroked them. 'No one on earth has ever been more beautiful, more perfect than you. You looked like a bloody dream in that dress and those shoes, you really did. You look like a bloody dream now, actually.'

Sherlock grinned crookedly at his lover, letting that soft voice had calm him to the point that he wasn't about to pass out from lack of air and frustration. He found John's lips with his own and their smiles met; one man groaned when he felt the other's tongue. When they broke for air, the detective said, 'I was hoping that they'd inspire this effect.'

'You didn't hope – you knew.' John ran his hands gently down from knees to the insides of long thighs, smiling.

Sherlock frowned, crinkling his nose. 'You're thinking. Are you thinking? What are you thinking?'

'Ah,' John laughed gently, 'now that would be telling, sweetheart.' He lay down on his front, lowering himself between his detective's splayed knees so that his face settled above a proud and dripping cock.

Sherlock propped himself up on his elbows to scowl down at his soldier. 'I demand that you tell me.'

'As I see it,' purred John, breathing warm breaths over engorged flesh, 'you're in no position to demand anything.'

'But I want to know what you're – ah!'

John hum-laughed around a mouthful of Sherlock. He opened up his throat, breathing hard through his nose and took his cock deep - almost down to the base. Another slow breath and he was there, tongue quickly swiping his balls, just in time for Sherlock to look down and see him: red lips stretched, dark eyes watering. As the pair locked gazes Sherlock emitted a low, whining gasp and watched John swallow hard around him; when he was freed from the hot, delicious confines of that throat he let his hips buck, thrusting the head of his erection against John's eager tongue. The tip and sides of that tongue flicked and swirled and Sherlock let the wet, hot silkiness take him over until his knuckles were white even against his pale skin as he clutched the duvet.

Both men had been flirting with the very edge of oblivion for some time now - they knew that a few more hard sucks or swipes of tongue would see John's mouth filled with come. They also knew that John was enjoying a little too much the feel of heavy cotton sheets beneath his hips, and that continued thrusting would see them thoroughly stained.

'John… mmm, uh – John – stop, stop, stop.'

Reluctantly the soldier's mouth slowed and he freed Sherlock's cock wetly. He blew onto it. Sherlock's groans thundered around the room and goosebumps flew across a curving torso and set of long, quivering limbs. For the third time John and Sherlock wordlessly called a truce; stopped, panted, collected themselves. Stepped hand in hand once again a few paces away from the brink.

John shuffled up the bed to lay once more next to the consulting detective, hissing when his cock accidentally rubbed up against Sherlock's thigh in the process. Very occasionally they'd have sex like this – if they had a few hours to while away, they'd stretch out their enjoyment, drive each other and themselves mad with need for as long as they could, until one or both of them lost control. It was usually both. They'd found that a very particular type of pleasure could be achieved through the repetition of denial, of teasing, and that a few rounds of stopping just before muscles tensed and senses swam could make their relief and desperation ramp up the bone-shattering intensity of their orgasms.

The detective and the doctor lay panting with their heads propped up on plump pillows. Sherlock absent-mindedly trailed a hand gently in trails up and down his own breastbone and looked from his erection to John's and back again.

He loved to play this game. He loved to know that he had time to observe, to look at them both, to compare the colours of their skin, their proportions, to watch them naked and breathing. He loved to revel in their beauty, collectively and separately – so different and yet so much the very same. To see their desire for each displayed so simply was joyous. Sherlock glowed with the knowledge that John was watching him admire them together, hands laced, on this bed and far away from everything – two angels, one bronze and one pale. The beauty of them, the rightness.

'I'm very glad we decided to come on holiday, John.'

'You mean you're very glad I decided to pretty much forcibly drag you to the airport and onto the plane.'

That earned John an eye roll. 'Well, yes, if you're going to be pedantic about it,' Sherlock huffed, lifting an arm to make graceful shadows on the sunsplashed wall with his hand.

'It's not pedantry, love. I'm pleased you recognise now that some time away will do us good.' John wiped the sweat from his brow with the back of his hand and felt his breathing rate slow somewhat. 'Do you feel more relaxed?'

Sherlock turned his head sharply to look at John, raising an eyebrow and smirking down at their flushed groins. 'Now? Right this very minute? Not so much.' He chuckled deeply and added, 'Do you?'

John laughed too and Sherlock mentally catalogued the bubbling little giggle. 'OK, all right, perhaps relaxed was the wrong word – I feel good, very good. Do you feel good?'

'Yes, I feel good too,' replied Sherlock.

'Good. I'm glad you feel good. That's good.'

'We need a new word now.'

'I agree,' John took a deep breath and stretched himself out on the bed, sighing contentedly. 'I do feel relaxed actually, on some level. On a higher level. A level that's not throbbing and aching and making me want to jump on you and – and pin you down, and – and – ooh…'

'John.'

The doctor stopped licking his lips and looked down. He unhanded himself. 'Sorry. What was I saying?'

'You were describing how very relaxed you are,' Sherlock replied mockingly, reaching to place a kiss on John's temple.

'Well,' John smiled, grabbing one of the fluttery, mental curtains and holding it away from the window so that they could see the sky's gradient, 'parts of me are. The rational parts of me that know we've got a ten days of this – nothing to do, nowhere to be, just us.'

'I'm beginning to see the appeal of that, I must confess,' mused Sherlock, looking out into the blue. 'As you said, no pressing cases, and London will still be there when we get back. She'll miss us though, won't she?'

'London? Yeah, of course she will.' John turned to the detective, reaching to run fingers through tousled curls. 'I love that you refer to her as, well, a her.'

'She's always been more than a city to me, John. So much more.'

A gentle silence fell. John and Sherlock heard the seagulls again. Dark eyes found light ones and soft shadows chased the sunlight on their bodies. Sherlock's voice rumbled. 'Now?'

'Yeah. Yeah, now is good.'

There was some more shuffling whilst positions were established. John was hanging off the edge of the bed in attempts to reach one of the many tubes of lube which had found its way to the floor when the voice rumbled again.

'I'd like to feel your fingers, John.'

Grabbing the lube and kneeling up in front of Sherlock's spread legs, John grinned and coated said fingers. 'I'm sure that can be arranged.'

With a pretty flush rising once more on his cheeks, Sherlock leant forwards into John's offered kiss before settling down and arranging his wanton thighs to allow full access to his arse, still slick with saliva.

When a warm, slippery finger inquisitively pressed at an opening, John held his breath. Sherlock expelled his with a sharp sigh. This was one of John's favourite ways to pleasure Sherlock – to use his clever physicians fingers to open him up, to stroke and to stretch. John could get off very quickly indeed on the vocality of his consulting detective, and it was during sessions of fingering that Sherlock's sounds would quickly become loud, obscene. So it was with indulgent moans that John sunk slowly one and then two fingers down to the second knuckle, answering Sherlock's needy gasps and cries.

He kept those digits straight, thrusting evenly and deeply into the rings of Sherlock's muscle, watching himself slowly sink in again and again and again. Gradually the tightness faded and the slight resistance gave way to a pulling, soft yet strong, yielding and welcoming and hot.

'Sh… Sher – Sherlock.' John detected a hint of blood on his lip from where he'd bitten down. 'More?'

Sherlock pushed himself down hard on John's fingers and moaned, growled. 'Mmm – oh, yes… God, yes.'

He pressed two fingers in once more, curving them upward slightly and causing Sherlock's hips to jerk. He withdrew them and then added a third, a fourth, opening his mouth when he felt the stretch, swearing when he saw and felt Sherlock's hands move to grasp the cheeks of his own backside to spread them wider.

One of Sherlock's twitching calves was resting on John's back and he could feel their sweat prickling and pooling. He had a glorious burning in his forearm and bicep, which flexed as he worked his fingers into Sherlock – massaging and pressing and twisting before pushing in deeper, seeking for the little cluster of nerves which he knew would make his flushed love come.

Quickly he found it. Sherlock swore. The sounds were animalistic now, high and rasping and endless. Sherlock freed his hands from the grip on his arse cheeks and clutched at his own hair, running them over his face before slamming them back down to grasp and pull at the duvet. John could hear fragments of his name, increasing in volume – a warning. He slowed his hand, pulled back, not wanting to stop.

'It's your call, Sherlock,' he grunted.

The growled reply was immediate: 'Make me come.'

Grinning wildly and giving Sherlock's nearby knee a swift bite and lick, John redoubled his efforts, finding Sherlock's prostate again and staying there. He moved around and around it with a finger before stroking it directly once, twice, three times before every part of Sherlock's body became tense, before John's hand was trapped in a ring of shuddering muscle. There was a heartbeat or two of stillness, of silence before Sherlock gasped as though he needed all the air in the world, before he arched his back and trembled and his cock began to shoot long streaks of come up onto his chest.

'Mmm, yes, Sherlock, yes –' John was murmuring. Whilst Sherlock's cock still jerked and his muscles continued to twitch, John pulled out his fingers and knelt, lifting up the detective's hips by hooking his arms under his knees and shoved his cock hard into the tight warmth.

John managed six, perhaps seven frantic skin-slapping thrusts before he was coming so hard that he ached with the joy of it. The harsh waves of warmth pulsed through him, filling up his ears and making his toes curl; it was with a wordless roar that he filled Sherlock, held him hard. He had the vision of his lover's flushed face, creased with pleasure, seared onto the back of his eyelids – this he saw whilst his skin prickled with perfect ecstasy.

Finally stilling on shuddering knees, John pulled out of Sherlock carefully and, gulping for breath, collapsed unceremoniously on top of him and sought his mouth. The detective was still making noises, still groaning and panting as he kissed John fiercely, his hands roaming and clasping before he became gentler, peaceful and boneless. They broke apart and lay breathing hard.

'Jesus,' managed John after some minutes during which he may or may not have fallen asleep. 'Jesus absolute motherfucking unholy Christ.'

'Mmm? What did you say?' Sherlock's voice was sleepy and hoarse.

'I said "Jesus" and a lot of other words.'

'Why?'

'… I don't know. They just seemed fitting.' John opened his eyes and looked across to where Sherlock lay sprawled with one arm slung over his face. 'You OK?'

'I think I'm dead.'

John chuckled and reached over to lift up Sherlock's arm so that he could kiss his cheek. He saw a smirk bloom across Sherlock's features before he, too, opened his eyes. The detective propped himself up on an elbow and wiped two fingers through the come cooling on his chest and stomach.

'I think,' he began, popping the fingers into his mouth ponderously, 'that I'm going to like holidays.'

Eyes wide, John watched Sherlock repeat the action of swiping and sucking. 'You just wait, love. This one's only just started.'