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"Jesus, Sherlock, take off your coat before you pass out."
Sherlock began to let the coat in question slide off his shoulders as he climbed the stairs. Underneath it, his white shirt clung to his back, nearly transparent with sweat. When he turned at the top of the stairs, John could see more sweat beading on the pale temples.
An ordinary spring evening, brisk and breezy, would have justified an overcoat. This had been no ordinary spring evening, though. Not with record high temperatures and a blackmailer running hell for leather through Leicester Square. Sherlock couldn't spare the time to shed his beloved Belstaff, not that he'd have dropped it on a street corner anyhow. John knew that, of course he knew it, but the doctor in him couldn't help but object.
"Give me that," he said, pointing at the coat. "You can live without it for a few days. I'll take it to the dry cleaner in the morning when I drop off the laundry. Now go drink a glass of water and take a shower."
The lack of argument was confirmation of just how long their day had been. Sherlock simply tipped his head in the hint of a nod. The coat puddled on the sitting room floor. The shirt beneath followed.
"No more your housekeeper than Mrs Hudson is," John called after him, less irritated than fond.
He tried and failed to ignore the sheen of Sherlock's back as he filled a glass at the kitchen sink, the curve of his arm as he tipped his head back to drink, the faint gasp of satisfaction as he drained the glass and set it on the counter before vanishing into the bathroom. John told himself, as he had for weeks, that his hyperawareness of Sherlock's physical presence came with the unpredictable and often dangerous territory.
Upstairs, John tossed the coat across the foot of his bed. He shoved the shirt into an already overflowing laundry bag, then peeled off his own clothes and added them. By the time he padded downstairs in nothing but his robe, the flat was dark and silent. John didn't bother tiptoeing through the kitchen or easing the bathroom door shut; the madman he lived with hadn't slept in 48 hours and was unlikely to awaken to anything short of an explosion.
As John stepped with a weary groan under a tepid shower, he could easily imagine that Sherlock had simply collapsed across his bed, too overheated and exhausted to climb under the covers. By the time he began automatically toweling himself dry, he found his mind adding details: damp curls clinging to flushed forehead, limbs splayed limp and coltish in every direction, cock lolling against one thigh...
John nearly choked on his toothpaste as he realized the direction his thoughts had wandered. He wasn't just wondering whether he should check that Sherlock was well. He was imagining his best friend lying naked across his bed, and the thought was sparking a distracting tickle at the base of his spine. And that -- oh, that was a bit of a shock, wasn't it?
No. If he was honest with himself, it wasn't. He might as well acknowledge it.
His bedroom was close and airless in the unseasonable warmth; he took off the robe as soon as he shut the door. Ordinarily, he slept in at least a pair of pants -- Sherlock had a habit of barreling in at all hours during a case -- but tonight he knew he would be undisturbed. Or as undisturbed as he could be with the memory of Sherlock's bare shoulders. He was willing to admit as much, at least to himself. Tonight, then, he could flop gracelessly onto his own bed, already half hard. Tonight he could roll onto his back and imagine those shoulders above him, braced against his hands. No one would know.
He stretched out and allowed himself to think of long legs and sharp eyes, of the way Sherlock had tackled the suspect and pinned him down until Lestrade arrived, of the way Sherlock had reached one hand up afterwards for John to pull him to his feet.
His toes brushed something thinner than the duvet and rougher than the blanket. He hooked one foot beneath the tweed and dragged Sherlock's coat up the bed. It smelled of the night just past, of exhaust fumes and stale coffee and -- oh god, sweat that hadn't yet soured. Yes, he thought as he lay back and pulled the coat over him. That. That's what Sherlock himself would smell like if he were here in John's bed, biting his lip, straining against him, demanding more (because Sherlock would never do anything so plebeian as beg).
He wasn't going to draw this out. He couldn't bother to make this last. He wanted, he needed. He curled one hand around his cock, thumbing the head in teasing circles before settling into a fast, relentless stroke that made him moan softly through clenched teeth.
The coat's warm weight was Sherlock's body on his, its silky lining the smooth flesh of Sherlock's thighs against him. John rolled his head from side to side in a fast-building agony of pleasure. "Sherlock, god, that's good," he heard himself whisper, unable to silence himself. He planted one foot solidly on the mattress for leverage, and rocked his hips in counterpoint to his hand.
This, this was how his friend would straddle him, wrap long fingers around him, bend trembling above him. The Sherlock in his mind ground down against him with a basso growl. John responded enthusiastically. "There, like that, just like that, oh -- "
He bit down on the collar of the coat to stifle the ecstatic whine that spilled from his mouth. "Oh, oh fuck," he gasped, arching up as his senses overwhelmed him, then falling back and shuddering, again and again.
Panting softly, he lay drifting beneath the heat and weight of the coat before finally sighing and flipping the heavy tweed off himself. The lining bore a new stain, still spreading. John stared at it for a long moment before lifting it to his nose, smelling sex and his own sweat mingling with Sherlock's.
Then he sighed, a low resigned sound, and shoved the coat off the end of the bed to fall onto the laundry bag. They had sent the dry cleaner worse.