Chapter Text
There is an ashtray in the windowsill.
The remains of a partially smoked cigarette lay inside of it.
With the remains of the cigarette only partially extinguished a thin trail of smoke still rises from its tip.
It swirls up into the night sky through the opened window, finding itself a home amongst the wispy clouds that cover up the moon and stars.
Another, properly lit, cigarette is held loosely between Sherlock's long and elegant fingers.
He leans himself out of the window as he smokes it.
His elbows resting on the windowsill as his back curves.
The upper half of his body is bare and in the dimly lit hotel-room John, from his position on the bed, can just make out the ridges of his spine.
Sherlock is naked except for a pair of small black boxer-shorts.
As far as John is concerned he shouldn't even have bothered putting those on.
It's not as if John hasn't seen what's underneath them before.
After all, they've just had sex about 15 minutes ago.
And the hotel-room window is so high up that nobody walking around on the streets of the city will be able to steal a look anyway.
Not that a lot of people will be out and about at this time of night.
A quick glance at the clock on the bedside table tells him it's 3:15 am.
Sherlock takes a drag from his cigarette.
He holds his breath for a couple of seconds before he lets the inhaled smoke pour out past his lips once more.
It swirls in intricate patterns as it drifts out into the night where John eventually loses sight of it.
Neither of them have spoken in quite a while.
John doesn't mind.
He likes the silence that usually falls between them in these stolen moments.
It gives him time to think.
Time to get his thoughts straight.
Time to figure out what the hell he's actually doing.
This isn't the first time Sherlock and him have had sex in some cheap hotel-room and it probably won't be the last.
John is not gay.
He knows he's not.
He has a girlfriend after all.
Mary.
Mary must never find out about.....this......whatever “this” is.
The first time had sort of been an accident....or.....rather....that's what he tells himself.
He had had a fight with Mary.
Right now he can't quite remember what they had been fighting about anymore......it was months ago after all.
He had stormed out of Mary's dorm-room and before he knew it he had found himself utterly and completely drunk in some bar or another.
These details are also vague to him now.
It doesn't matter.
They're just details after all.
The devil's in the details......
Isn't that what they say?
Sherlock had been there too.
Sherlock had been......gorgeous and.....mysterious......and.....everything that Mary was not.
Sherlock had been confusing.
He had been......
Around closing time Sherlock had asked John if he wanted to come with him.
John had said yes.
He had had nowhere else to go after all.
They had slept together for the first time that night.
It had been awkward and strange and yet also......
It had been in a hotel-room similar to this one......but not the same.
They've never been in this hotel before.
After that night John had made himself believe that it had all been a mistake.
Just a one time thing.
Just.......nothing......
He had called Sherlock again the next week.
And two weeks after that.
And......
He steals a glance at Sherlock where he is still smoking his cigarette, casually leaning out of the window.
His hair is dark and messy. John can barely see it as it blends in with the darkness that seeps into the room from outside.
He remembers running his fingers through it....pulling on it.....jet-black curls that frame a pale face with sharp edges, high cheekbones, pale blue eyes and Cupid's bow lips.
Once again Sherlock exhales a cloud of nicotine-filled smoke.
His lips form a loose 'O' as he does so.
John feels his cock twitch beneath the sheets as he watches silently.
He doesn't know what he's doing here.
Again.
He's straight.
This.......
It's just to let off steam.
Because of all the drama he's been having with Mary lately.
This......
It doesn't mean anything.
It doesn't......
This
There is not a lot he knows about Sherlock.
He knows he gives a damn good blow-job.
And he knows what it feels like to thrust inside of him.
How his naked skin feels underneath John's grasping hands.
How his back will arch and the muscles in his long legs will tense and stretch just so when he's close to orgasm.
How his lashes flutter and his pupils dilate, leaving only a sliver of iridescent blue iris around their edges.
Sherlock has turned himself around at the windowsill.
He is giving John an inscrutable look as he takes another drag from his cigarette.
Under it John feels exposed.
Somehow laid bare.
Although the situation is nothing new.
Sherlock has seen him like this a dozen times already.
He suddenly finds the dark quiet atmosphere of the room oppressive....suffocating.
He reaches for something to say.
Anything.
Anything to break this sudden, charged tension between them.
“You know those things are bad for you, right?” he says, as he gestures towards the half-smoked cigarette that still dangles elegantly from between Sherlock's slim and clever fingers.
“There are a lot of things that are bad for you”, Sherlock says. The look on his face still gives nothing away but he keeps it fixed on John.
John coughs as he casts his eyes down.
The sound far too loud and grating to his own ears.
Once again he is reminded of the fact that he knows nothing at all about Sherlock.
Except for the fact that, on occasion, they fuck.
Whenever John feels confused...or angry.....or sad....or.....a combination of all three of them....he will call Sherlock, they agree to meet in some dingy hotel-room or other and they fuck.
Nothing more and nothing less.
It doesn't mean anything.
Nothing at all.
John has a girlfriend.
And on every single one of their encounters Sherlock never gives off more than an air of bored indifference.
John is nothing to him.
Just something.....someone....to pass the time.
To wile away the lonely hours of the night when every other sane person is in their own bed and asleep.
He coughs again and the sound is just as out of place the second time.
Maybe if he knew something more about Sherlock....maybe he wouldn't feel so cheap and dirty about the whole ordeal then.....maybe he wouldn't feel......whatever it is he's been starting to feel lately.
“So”, he says, “do you have any brothers or sisters?”
Sherlock raises a haughty eyebrow.
“Trying to get a threesome going?”
“What?.....No!......No!.....I mean.....I was just........”
Sherlock chuckles.
The sound is dark and rich and it makes John's throat go dry as his lungs, all of a sudden, seem too large for his constrictive chest.
“Just joking, John”, he says as he extinguishes his cigarette next to the one already in the ashtray and places a fresh one between his soft lips.
His eyes momentarily blaze up like coals in a furnace as he lights it.
John finds he has run out of questions.
Sherlock always seems to be so at ease.
So sure of himself.
So “suave”.
So......him.
He wonders if Sherlock does this.....whatever “this”.....between them is.... with other men too.
If that's the reason why he seems so unbothered by it all.
At the thought of Sherlock with someone else....some strange unknown face.....touching him....kissing him......making him moan in that special way he does when John gets it just right......someone else seeing him like this.....loose.....relaxed.......private....John's stomach does a strange flip.
Suddenly he feels he has to know.
His fingers have suddenly become restless..
He twists the sheets on the bed in between them. Squeezes the fabric tightly.
The bed still smells like sweat and sex and....them.
He has to know.
He has to......
He doesn't know how to ask and so the question he poses is awkward and fairly obvious.
“Have you taken many people to this hotel?” he asks.
There is a sharp edge to his voice he doesn't recognize.
Sherlock's face is a cold mask in the darkness of the room.
Once again devoid of emotion.
But this time there is something in the depths of his eyes that betrays him.
A flicker of......
It's gone before John's hazy mind can register what it is exactly.
“Out of the two of us”, Sherlock replies, “you are the one with the most bed partners.”
Mary.
Of course Sherlock knows about Mary.
Has known from the start.
Had known when they started this whole ordeal.
They just fuck.
That's all they do.
Only occasionally.
When John needs it.
When he is.....
When.....
He has no right to be jealous.
Why would he be jealous?
He's not jealous.
He's straight.
He has a girlfriend.
This....whatever it is....it's just stress relief.....it's just......
Sherlock is still looking at him.
“I'm sorry”, John says, but he doesn't know why he says it.
Sherlock gives him a smile but it's almost.....sad?
There is another oppressive silence between them.
Cold, heavy and ominous like the night that surrounds them.
Outside a car alarm goes off but neither of them pays it any mind.
There are things.
Things that neither of them says.
Neither of them wants to say.
But they are there.
Words in the silence.
Hiding in the dark corners of every single hotel-room they find themselves in.
It's a new hotel every time.
A new room.
A different bed.
But the words are always there.
And they whisper to them out of the darkness.
“Mycroft”, Sherlock says.
“I'm sorry, what?”
“I have a brother....his name is Mycroft.”
“Oh.”
John doesn't know what else to say.
His words have left him.
They have fled like frightened animals out of the window and into the night.
Sherlock closes the window but his cigarette is still lit.
His last inhaled breath filters back out past his half opened lips and it dissipates into the room around them.
“I don't think you're allowed to smoke in here”, John says.
Sherlock gives him another smirk and once again John's chest and insides do strange things.
“Then give me something else to do.”
The cigarette finds itself a home in the ashtray with the other discarded ends and Sherlock's boxers disappear somewhere on the floor between the window and the bed.
All too soon John finds Sherlock underneath him on the mattress. The sheets and blankets a tangled mess around their legs and feet.
Sherlock's skin is smooth and soft but the muscles underneath hard and tense as he wraps his legs around John's waist as John thrusts into him.
Sherlock moans as John hits that perfect spot just inside of him.
The sound seductive and intoxicating.
This is wrong John thinks.
This is right
This is.....
He needs to not think right now.
Stop his mind from racing.
He thrusts faster and harder, becoming almost violent.
Sherlock's moans grow deeper as his searching hands reach up like claws and his nails draw marks on John's back for Mary to find and possibly question him about as he desperately holds on to him.
Sherlock's pupils are blown wide.
His lips wet, glistening in the moonlight that filters in through the window, slightly parted.
Warm puffs of air ghost over John's cheek and the side of his neck every time he bottoms out.
This is......
Inside, Sherlock feels warm and soft and tight and.....
John needs to stop thinking.
He needs to...
Anything.
Nothing.
If only Sherlock wasn't making those noises.
If he wasn't so.....
If they both.....
Together.
He crushes his lips to Sherlock's in a fevered kiss fueled by fire and lust and wanting and.....
Kissing Sherlock always leaves a slightly bitter and salty taste in his mouth.
Sherlock tastes like cigarettes.
He tastes like......
As John climaxes his mind goes blissfully silent.