#sailor!john

“He told me to give you this.”

Billy holds out a small white bundle of fabric and as John recognizes what it is, he feels all his breath leave his lungs.

All the weight of John’s sorrow seems to double in that moment, in the sensory overload that erupts in him at the sight of that one slender strip of fabric, and for the first time in days, John fears he may actually be close to tears.

Everything that he has been holding back, that he has been keeping shut away inside himself, threatens for one frightening moment, to come tearing out.

His eyes burn as his fingers close around the strip of silk. Its softness, the fineness of the fabric, it reminds John so of Sherlock himself, his lovely pale white skin, the rich darkness of his curls, so sensuous, so full, twining around John’s fingers when he pushes his hands into Sherlock’s hair.

Oh Sherlock.

As John looks at his own dirty fist clenched around it, how rough his skin looks next to the finely woven material; the dirt around his nails so stark against the white, he feels an ache move through him, seems to cleave his heart in two.

He tightens his fingers in it and stuffs it into his pocket before he loses control of himself completely, nodding his thanks at Billy with a tight-lipped smile before returning to his work.

It is only later, much later, when he is finally alone, lying in his hammock in the dark, that John lets himself pull out the length of folded silk from the trouser pocket at his hip.

He lets it fall down over his fingers, unspooling in a soft, slow tumble of silk, and he finds his breath leaving him in a long sigh at the feel of it, at everything it represents to him.

He holds it reverently for a moment in his hands, and then he presses it to his face, inhaling deeply—the scent of it, the scent of Sherlock is so strong, John almost cries out.

He feels heat pool low in his abdomen, his limbs going weak.

He shuts his eyes, pictures Sherlock’s face, eyes spread wide in startled delight in that expression that is his favorite of Sherlock’s. It is the expression he wears when John offers his body some new sensation he has never experienced, the ‘oh’ of his surprise softening the corners of his mouth, his dark lashes fluttering against his cheeks as his eyes slide to half-mast; John pictures the flush on the pale skin of his throat and chest, his nipples peaked and swollen pink.

John breathes the scent of it in again, feels his cock swell and thicken between his legs and it’s only another minute before he’s fully hard, his erection creating a sizeable bulge in the front of his breeches.

John curls over on his side, tilting his body away from the pool of lantern light further down the deck, the sound of the men’s voices over their game of cards—John has had much experience with stealthy wanking—he’s been doing it for years now.

They’re all accustomed to it, it’s generally common courtesy to ignore the sounds of your neighbor engaged in this particular nocturnal activity, but John is glad they have all give him a wide berth tonight. None would dare come near him unless for some very important reason until they all retire to their own hammocks.

It’s only the matter of one deft movement to get the fastening of his trousers open so that he may take his cock in hand.

He slicks his fist and begins to stroke, in long, slow, leisurely pulls—setting a pace he knows would drive Sherlock mad.

This realization sends a lovely image into John’s head of Sherlock, thighs spread wide, hands gripping John by the arms, thumbs stroking John’s biceps in a distracted gesture (He’s obsessed with my arms, John thinks in a flare of brief delight), hips twitching desperately as he tries to get John to stroke faster, the keening note in his voice driving John to distraction.

“More, J-John. I need m-more.”

And John would lean in and soothe him with a kiss to those plump and swollen lips, refusing to increase the pace, but sweeping his thumb over the weeping slit of Sherlock’s cock, making him cry out, knees jerking upward, as his body stiffens.

“John, I can’t, I can’t, I can’t—” He would babble, and John would kiss him quiet, pushing his tongue in between Sherlock’s lips, twining it around Sherlock’s own tongue, tasting the sound of his whimpers where they issue from low in his throat.

“Shh, it’s all right. I’m going to make it so good for you, my beauty, my darling, my pearl.”

Leaning down to suck Sherlock’s nipples as he strokes, Sherlock pushing his chest forward into John’s mouth, legs coming up to lock around John’s back.

“Oh John, oh, oh, oh.”

Sherlock’s hips rutting shamelessly against him, grinding into John’s thigh, and it is only then, when Sherlock has been reduced to an utterly animal state of need, tossing his head on the pillow, his dark curls spread out in wild disarray, his nails scraping against John’s shoulder blades, that John will finally give him the pace he wants, will finally stroke him fast and hard, gradually tightening his fist to distribute just the right amount of friction.

And then, after a few long, delicious writhing pushes from Sherlock’s lean body, he will arch up into John’s arms with a cry, shooting hot and wet over John’s fingers, the skin of both their bellies, his calves tightening around John’s lower back, still moaning and gasping for air as his body pulses through his release.

And then when Sherlock is warm and limp as a fish beneath him, still writhing his hips in little needy circles (John loves Sherlock after he comes, he’s so pliable and soft, so lewd and red-mouthed, his hands everywhere all over John, stroking and reaching and so possessive as if to say mine mine mine through the touch of those long lovely fingers) John will sit up slightly, straddling Sherlock’s thighs as he takes himself in hand, watching Sherlock’s eyes grow wide as John’s torso stretches up above him.

Sherlock loves John’s body—he knows this in an intuitive way from the touch of Sherlock’s hands on him, that grasping, desperate quality, shot through with reverence, but also from the way his eyes go wide when he looks at John, how they seem to change color, to grow greener, until they are as clear and translucent as sea-glass worn smooth.

Sherlock’s eyes will do this as John sits up, his hands stroking down John’s thighs, petting John’s flanks, before coming to settle on John’s hips as John begins to stroke himself, his eyes locked on Sherlock’s in the most intimate exchange, pulling at his cock, watching Sherlock’s eyes break away from his gaze in order to look down at his cock, the swollen length of it, the glistening head, and he’ll see Sherlock’s eyelashes flutter at what he sees, his pupils growing impossibly wider, thighs tensing under John’s weight, licking his lips—licking his lips—at the sight of John’s cock, and that will prompt John to speed up his own strokes.

He had planned to take it leisurely, to give Sherlock a proper show, but he finds, now that Sherlock is beneath him, looking at him like that, he can’t deny himself the satisfaction of fucking up into his own fist, hard and fast, buttocks clenching and tightening and then, Sherlock startles him by reaching down to grab hold of John’s arse, tugging a little, fingers kneading the muscle, and that is all takes to make John come, his abdominal muscles rippling as his body goes tight and he stiffens and spills all over his own fist and Sherlock’s pale chest, splotchy with arousal in the guttering candlelight.

John in his hammock, whose strokes have sped up to mirror the ones in his mind, clenches his hand again in the length of white silk, pushing it hard over his nose and mouth and drawing in deep shuddering breaths, inhaling its enticing scent—all Sherlock—the taste of the white curve of his throat, the grooved juncture of his hip and downy thigh, the musk of the dark curls at the base of his cock, and that hair, oh, that tangle of soft curls that falls into his eyes—it’s all there in that white strip of fabric pressed against John’s mouth, and John’s hips buckle, fist squeezing at the base of his cock and he’s coming, hard, hammock swaying as the rhythm of his thrusts finally calm and then falter.