Fic: To The Last Drop - 4/6 (BBC Sherlock)
Title: To The Last Drop
Rating: NC-17
Wordcount: 6.1k out of 31k
Beta: seijichan, lifeonmars, prettyarbitrary
Disclaimer: Do not own.
Summary: “If you want me to comfort you over my imminent death, I will be kicking you in the head,” John warns.
Warnings: Eventual off-screen character death, illness both physical and mental, assault, graphic violence, blood, bloodplay, explicit sexual behavior, dubcon, plague, attempted suicide
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
The warmth beneath John’s cheek moves. John tightens his grip, murmuring discontent. He cracks open his eyes. “What?”
“Transport.” Even muffled against John’s pillow, Sherlock’s distaste is clear.
Sleepily blinking, John lifts his face from Sherlock’s back. His skin peels away from Sherlock's like a piece of an orange. Or a blood orange, John muses, studying the scratches and bite marks he’s left. Some initial scabbing, no signs of infection. “Stomach?”
“Bladder.”
John settles back down. “Piss in one of the bottles.”
Sherlock works his arm free and his shoulder blade becomes a threat to John’s face. John rolls off him accordingly. “I’m going downstairs,” Sherlock says without moving. He lies face-down, sprawled without modesty.
“Yeah, okay.” John also doesn’t move. The separation from Sherlock cools John on his overheated bed. Additional movement wouldn’t make him too hot, not yet, but it would be unpleasant. He can feel warmth like syrup dripping down his throat and under his skin. It feels like it ought to be sweet, but his mouth tastes only of blood.
Sherlock turns his head to face toward John. Sherlock’s neck makes an unpleasant sound. John winces and Sherlock doesn’t. Sherlock simply says, “Come downstairs. You should eat.”
John grunts agreement and sits up. Sherlock gestures John off the bed before hauling John’s sheet out from under the duvet. He bundles himself up as if the sheet were swaddling clothes, but then, Sherlock hasn’t much in the way of clothing. The biting urge must’ve taken him in the bath.
For his part, John adjusts his trousers-and immediately pulls his hand away. He looks down. Very calmly, he wipes his hand on the side of his leg. “Sherlock, there’s semen on my trousers.”
His arms wrapped up in the sheet, Sherlock shrugs. “It’s not as if you’ll live to wash them.”
John gapes at him.
Sherlock frowns. “You’re not seriously about to do laundry now?”
“No,” John says. “No,” he says again, and this time he lifts his hand in a halting gesture. “That’s not-No. I’m not asking how to get dried semen off, I’m asking how it got on.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Sherlock says. “That bit is on the outside of your trousers, so clearly it’s not yours. Someone else’s penis must have ejaculated it. An utter mystery, John.”
John stares. He stares at Sherlock in his sheet. He stares at his mess of a bed. There are other words, but the one he says is still, “No.”
Sherlock stands up. He is very tall and very rumpled and, now that John’s paying attention, looks like he just had an hour-long snog. Sense memory promptly hits John in the face. And hands. And cock.
Jesus fucking Christ.
“Not good?” Sherlock asks.
John takes a deep breath and doesn’t let it out in a bloody fit. He exhales harshly instead. “Just go to the loo.”
Eyes wide and fixed on John’s face, Sherlock doesn’t move.
John stomps to his dresser, shucks his trousers, and pulls on a fresh pair of jeans. He pointedly ignores how bruised his hips feel. The entire time, Sherlock’s gaze drills into the back of his head.
“I quote,” Sherlock snaps, biting the harsh consonant, “‘What the hell are you waiting for?’”
“You couldn’t settle on a place to bite!” John shouts within a whisper. Hushed voices, they have to stay quiet. He wheels around to make sure Sherlock can’t miss a cubic millimetre of John’s immense ire. “That wasn’t sane behaviour! We’ve gone mental.”
Sherlock lifts his chin. “I haven’t.”
“No, you were a lunatic to start with.” John rubs his hand over his face. “You can’t just-”
“John.” Sherlock darts forward and seizes John by the wrist. John tugs back, the motion automatic, but Sherlock rides out the movement in order to manhandle John’s watch. No longer secured, the sheet slips to the floor, but John’s stomach drops even faster.
“How long were we asleep?” John asks.
“I’m not sure. At least forty-five minutes. I wasn’t exactly in a state of mind to check the time beforehand.” Sherlock releases John to touch his own hair. “Completely dry,” he reports. He steps out of the pile of the sheet, unselfconsciously displaying his abused back. Sherlock looks down, adjusting his pants, and makes a noise of discomfort. He mutters something, but John can only focus on the red lines and livid circles across Sherlock’s skin. John scratched those, sucked them.
John touches his split lip. There’s blood under his fingernails, Sherlock’s. He’s literally red-handed.
Sherlock turns around and the sight of his relatively undamaged chest shoves John back into the moment. “John, you’re not listening.”
He grimaces in apology. “Sorry. You were saying?”
“It’s been over an hour.” His tone brooks no question. No one should look that authoritative naked and soiled, but Sherlock might as well be in a full suit.
“Are you cold yet?” John asks.
“Still cooling off,” Sherlock says. “You?”
John traces a half-circle, shoulder to sternum to shoulder. “It’s that far down. Feels like it’s dripping.”
Sherlock’s eyebrows rise. “Quick.”
“First time through a new place always takes the longest,” John reasons. “It's true for people, could be true for this.” He worries at his bottom lip with his teeth. “I don’t know how much faster this will be.”
“Too many variables,” Sherlock agrees.
“Yeah.” John nods, unable to meet Sherlock’s eyes. “Even for you.”
“John-”
“I’m sorry.”
Sherlock weaves into John’s direct line of sight with a confused frown. “What?”
Fists clenched, John closes his eyes. “I’m sorry I’ve killed you.” He’ll never know how his voice remains steady, but he’s forever grateful for it.
“You’re an idiot,” Sherlock says with next to no inflexion.
“Yeah, I worked that out when she bit me, thanks.”
“I noticed that yesterday when I offered you your life and you refused,” Sherlock snaps.
Guilt slams into anger and John stares him down. “Not at the cost of yours. We’ve been over this, Sherlock. You fucking promised you were never doing this again.”
Sherlock groans and tugs at his hair. Dried while dishevelled, his curls are a wild mess to start with. The tangled nest only grows as Sherlock rakes his hands through it. “This isn’t the same!”
“How is this different?” John demands. “Really, how?”
“Don’t be blind--”
“Give me one reason. Just one.” John stares him down. His arms tremble, taking after his clenched hands. “You can’t, can you?”
“Fine! Yes, John, everything is my fault. I put your life above your trust.” Colour rides high in Sherlock’s chest and cheeks. He gesticulates with harsh, abrupt slices of his hands. “I want you to live: what a betrayal!”
“You would have fucking lived.” John invades his space, sheer proximity forcing Sherlock’s hands down and baring his stomach. John doesn’t need height to loom. His rage towers by itself. “You risked everything on a stupid gamble without telling me-again-so don’t you dare blame me for not cooperating.”
“It was the only solution!”
“Clearly it wasn’t! You didn’t even let me loose intentionally!”
Sherlock’s eyes dart down to John’s mouth. He sways forward before stepping pointedly back. “John...”
John checks with his tongue and discovers he’s started bleeding again. Lovely. He wipes his mouth with the back of his bandaged hand. It’s not that much blood.
“Okay,” John says. “You, downstairs, get changed. Water for both of us, food for both of us. We finish Star Wars and then we call emergency services.”
Sherlock frowns.
“We aren’t dying in the middle of an argument,” John tells him. “Let’s just say it evens out.”
For a moment, Sherlock looks ready to protest, because of course he would. Instead, his shoulders drop and his expression turns tired, exhausted. He says, “Fine. But I need another bath first.”
“You can manage on your own?”
Sherlock rolls his eyes. “You’re the one who won’t be able to manage soon.”
“Right,” John says. “Right. Sorry.”
Sherlock shrugs and they head downstairs, Sherlock’s clawed back leading the way before John’s itching hands.
Nothing appeals. John searches the fridge and scavenges through the cupboards. His stomach insists he’s not hungry, even though the last thing he ate was popcorn last night.
A sure sign of the end of the world, Sherlock gravitates to the tins of soup and heats one up with marked impatience. Though Sherlock’s back is now covered by a crisp purple shirt, John retreats from the stove all the same. Too hot. He takes shelter in front of the open fridge. He sticks his head in.
“How far along is it?” Sherlock asks.
John stays put. “It was trickling before, but now it’s more of a slow ooze.” Trickling. Yes. He wants water. He closes the fridge to open the freezer. Ice water. “Hand me a glass?” He reaches without looking and Sherlock sets the glass against his hand. “Ta.”
Sherlock’s spoon scrapes against the sauce pan as he stirs. “It’s stopped giving you growing pains, I take it.”
“Mm.” His glass piled high with ice, he fills up the remaining space with tap water. He drinks, ice knocking against his lips and teeth. Much too cold and absolutely perfect. “It feels more syrupy. Like it ought to taste sweet.”
“And not burning?”
John sits down at the kitchen table to keep him company. “Not really, no.”
Sherlock hums, eyes on his soup.
“You’ve cooled down,” John notes. Shirt, trousers, socks: not yet freezing but certainly closer to a normal temperature. Faint, dark smudges discolour the back of Sherlock’s button down, as if it went through the laundry with a particularly vicious pen.
“It would take at least a day for me to arrive at the same state you were in.” Sherlock’s words come out detached. “Not that it matters. You’re progressing far more rapidly than I am this round. You’ll bite me well before I freeze.”
John will. The certainty of it aches in his jaw. He licks his split lip. “Where do you want it?”
Sherlock stops moving. Not as if frozen, but as if paused, as if reality had to stop and take a breath before the plunge. Sherlock doesn’t turn around. He does lower his head slightly, eyes resolutely on his meal, the back of his neck bare to John’s gaze.
“A central spot works out better than an extremity,” John says. “I don’t feel so lopsided this time.”
“I think it might be best if you kept to my back.” Sherlock’s voice is tight. The line of his shoulders is tighter. He’ll keep pulling the scratches open, this way.
John rolls his glass between his hands. The pile of ice within turns this way and that. He says nothing more until Sherlock piles his research to the side and puts down a bowl in its place. Then Sherlock puts down a second bowl in front of John. Beef and lentil.
“Not hungry,” John says.
Sherlock skewers him with the grey metal of his eyes. “Eat.”
He shakes his head. “Too hot.”
Sherlock continues to glare.
John meets his gaze and bursts into giggle.
“What?” Sherlock snaps.
“You badgering me to eat.”
Sherlock’s face cracks into a grin. He ducks his head and turns his face away. He clears his throat. “It’s my turn to take care of you.”
They bicker until John’s soup goes cold, but that’s for the best anyway.
John sets the DVDs up to the last point Sherlock can remember watching. They sit in their armchairs unrestrained. Sherlock watches the telly with a bored, sleepy expression. John’s eyes glaze over. The sound of Sherlock breathing beside him is far more important than anything coming from the speakers. Sherlock won’t leave him, not while the syrup pools in the bottoms of John’s feet.
John shifts in his chair to better curl up on it. He unbuttons his shirt and considers taking off the sweaty t-shirt beneath, but the air against his forearms is sufficient. He bundles up his shirt and uses it as a support for his head. Sleep rises up behind his eyes.
He wakes in the night. He reaches for Sherlock. Sherlock’s armchair is empty.
John scrambles to his feet and promptly tumbles, his blood pressure wrong and his back aching.
“John?” Sherlock calls, an abrupt cry from the sofa. A lamp clicks on, blinding John even with his face against the floor.
“Oh, thank God,” John sighs. His heart pounds, the world wobbles, and yet, all will be well. “Don’t ever do that again.”
Sherlock joins him on the floor. A trail of blankets whispers as he settles. “Do what?”
John forces himself onto his side and squints up at Sherlock. “You were gone.”
Sherlock rolls his eyes. “I was directly behind you.”
“Yeah, well. Don’t.” He half-stretches, half-reaches, and his hand finds what might be Sherlock’s knee beneath the blanket pile. “You’re supposed to take care of me.”
“I am.” Sherlock frees an arm and touches John’s forehead. His fingers are cool. John sighs and relaxes into the touch. “I’m going to get up and bring food from the kitchen.”
“Not hungry.”
“You’ll eat,” Sherlock promises. The blankets rustle as Sherlock stands. They slither after him along the floor.
John sits up. He cranes his neck and then stands. The walk into the kitchen destroys him. He collapses into the nearest chair and slumps onto the table. He straightens only to peel off his damp t-shirt. Immediately after, he presses his face against cool wood. Cloth brushes against his side and a plate clinks down in front of him. John lifts his face from his arms. His skin sticks together, much like his tongue and the inside of his mouth. “Really not hungry.” Neither sandwich nor water tempts.
Sherlock sits opposite. He shifts the blankets down and pulls John’s plate over. With some effort, he manages to reach into an inner jacket pocket, and John learns that their mail is no longer knifed to their mantel. Sherlock holds the jack knife steady and opens the scab on his hand.
Blood wells to the surface, droplets blooming with immense colour. Red and dark with a glint from the light above them. Sherlock holds his thumb over John’s glass. One drop. Two. John watches them unfurl. Sherlock clenches his fist over John’s sandwich. The bread immediately soaks in the blood. Sherlock draws two more red lines into the bread. He pushes the plate back and John is ravenous. He turns the sandwich upside-down to better taste the blood.
“I know how to take care of you,” Sherlock says as John chomps and swallows. “It’s not that difficult.” One-handed, he folds up the knife and slips it back to whence it came. His other hand, his cut hand, lies on the table in tacit promise. “I said you’d eat.”
John nods along in apology. The tastes of ham and cheese override everything else. John watches Sherlock’s hand. He forces down the remainder of the sandwich with the water. He forces down the rest of the water. Sherlock takes a cursory inspection of plate and glass before giving John his hand.
The table is narrow enough that John doesn’t have to strain, but he does have to bend. Elbows planted on the table, he secures Sherlock’s hand in both of his. The first taste is a tease. John scrapes his teeth against the meat of Sherlock’s thumb, coaxing the cut open. If he bites, the blood wells up. The table’s edge digs into John’s stomach. He ignores the touch of fingertips on the side of his face.
It’s not enough, but he’s not ready for it to be enough. The hint of blood is enough to chase after, an elusive tang between skin and tongue. Soon, he’ll need more. Soon, he’ll be ready to transfer. Not yet. He can savour this. He has to savour this.
Following the curve of John’s jaw, the backs Sherlock’s fingers curl under John’s ear. The stroke rubs his scruff. John opens his eyes at the unfamiliar sensation. He looks at Sherlock. A grey pallor, save for the blaze across his cheeks. Swaddled in blankets. Hair an unwashed mess. Eyes dark and hooded. His hand offered as a chew toy.
“Jesus fuck.” John jerks his head back. “What the hell are we doing?”
Sherlock shushes him. He doesn’t pull his hand away and John can’t seem to release him.
“The hell are we doing?” John repeats, voice lowered out of respect for the small hours of the night.
“I’m taking care of you.” The unspoken obviously echoes off the walls.
“For what? No, Sherlock, seriously: for what? We’re dead. We are going to die. We missed both windows and now I’m fucking gnawing on you.”
“I don’t mind the gnawing,” Sherlock says.
Sherlock’s neck too far away, John throttles Sherlock’s wrist instead. Sherlock hisses, a sharp intake of breath, but he doesn’t pull back. If anything, he leans forward.
“This is not good,” John tells him. “This is the most not good thing we’ve ever done, do you even realise how bad that is?”
“I could still think of something-”
“The best scientists in the world haven’t thought of something,” John interrupts. “For months. While sane, even!”
Sherlock looks at him with such haughty disapproval that John nearly takes it back, but that’s only proof they’re out of their minds. “Do you want to end it, then?” Sherlock asks. “Hm? Because we can end it. A phone call and we die. One good shout out the window could do it.”
John releases him. Immediately, his chest tightens and his heart shoves itself up into his throat. Sherlock takes hold of John’s hand and John can breathe again.
“I can’t do it,” John says. “Jesus, I can’t...” He swallows a lump of impossible size. He squeezes Sherlock’s hand tight. They secure each other, anchored on either side of the table by their mutual hold. The concepts and terrors clump together inside John’s head, but they never manage to fit into his mouth.
Sherlock summarises the problem in its simplest form: “You know we’re going to die, but you can’t let them kill me. Which is fine. We take care of each other.”
“What does that even mean?”
Sherlock turns John’s hand over. He inspects the initial bite mark and runs his thumb from wrist to knuckle. “We go down together, obviously.”
“I picked up on that part, yeah.” John twitches as Sherlock picks at his scab. “We’re going to get other people hurt, Sherlock. Killed. Maybe a lot of people.”
“We’ll move when the time comes.”
John snorts. “Right. We’ll jump in a cab. ‘Yes, hello, we’d like to go to the outskirts, please. Don’t mind my friend, he always travels with a muzzle.’”
“I can rent a car and have it dropped off outside.” Sherlock works a fingernail beneath the scab and delicately begins to peel it from John’s skin. “We won’t have to so much as speak to anyone.”
The wet sheen of unshed blood glistens from the back of John’s hand. His heart rate slows. They wait, but the blood never wells up to form a droplet. John clears his throat. “Can you set that up now?”
“Hm?”
“The car,” John says. “Can you make sure it comes before Mrs Hudson gets back?”
“Of course I can.”
John pulls his hand away and hides it under the table. “I need you to do that right now.”
“It’ll be fine.” Sherlock reaches for him. “Come here, I’m cold.”
“No,” John says. He stands and keeps the table between them. “You get us the car first. Anything you want after, but the car comes first.”
Sherlock rolls his eyes. “I’ll send an email.”
“Now.”
Sherlock sets off at a wobbling pace, bumping against the kitchen doorframe and the hallway walls.
“Mm.” Sherlock fetches it and returns the battery to its proper place. He works his arms out of his sheet and drums his fingers on the keyboard. “It’s loading.”
Nodding, John leans against the cool plaster of the wall. “How long for a confirmation email?”
“Not until regular business hours.”
“Right.” John closes his eyes. Sweat follows the lines of his body, a slow drip over riverbeds of skin. He picks up his abandoned t-shirt. He wipes himself down. Sherlock types.
“Here, look.”
John leans down to read over Sherlock’s shoulder. He follows Sherlock’s pointing hand and sees the email in the sent file. He skims the contents and breathes for the first time in too long.
“All right?” Sherlock asks.
John nods, sits on the cool linoleum, and flops onto his back. The laptop clicks shut. Sherlock lies down beside him with a great rustling of blankets. They stare at the kitchen ceiling.
“I’ll need to bite you in a few hours,” John says.
Shifting onto his side, Sherlock offers his hand.
John glances at the red gleam along the cut. “Hours, I said. It doesn’t want to switch now.”
“I’m taking care of you,” Sherlock explains, an implacable argument. He lays his hand on John’s overheated chest.
John closes his eyes.
Sherlock shoves a bit of a blanket under John’s head.
“This is how I know you’ve gone mental,” John murmurs.
Saying nothing, Sherlock curls a bit closer.
John dozes. John wakes. His body blazes. His back aches. A yawn cracks his split lip open anew. Beside him, a bundle of blankets rises and falls slowly in its middle. Watching, John licks his bloody lip. John ought to warm him.
There’s so much heat inside Sherlock. All John has to do is let it out.
His tongue runs over his canines and incisors. Sharp, but not sharp enough to make it clean. Flesh will tear. Propping himself up on one elbow, he reaches for the top layer on Sherlock’s pile, the afghan from his armchair. Whatever spurts or splatters, John can catch it with the blankets. He’ll press the cloth over the wound, sopping up the blood, and he’ll suck it clean once the bleeding stops. He’ll rip into Sherlock and, after, he’ll apply pressure.
His hand stops. John sits up fully. He stares at the layers of cloth, largely clean. He watches the rhythm of undisturbed breathing. He thinks, for one instant, that perhaps he ought to clean the area before he bites, as if preparing to traditionally draw blood.
He could do that instead. Take the blood, drink it, and his stomach churns at the thought. It’s not the blood. It’s the biting. It’s flesh between his teeth and the sweet moment between pressure and puncture.
John runs his hand over his face. His tense shoulders fall in a shaking exhalation.
He shakes his head. Once, twice. Careful, as close to silent as he can come, John pushes himself to his feet. The room spins. He holds onto the counter. The kitchen stops spinning. He pads away in just his pants, no need to worry about the rustle of clothing.
In Sherlock’s bedroom, all the blankets have been pulled from the bed. The room is more bare and stark than ever, and that makes it a simple task to find what he needs.
John sits down with it on the edge of the bed. He loads it. Shoulders hunched, he takes off the safety.
His throat tightens. His hands do not shake. His pulse counts out the moments of his hesitation, resounding louder and louder in his ears.
He licks his split lip and opens his mouth. The metallic tang of his gun is nothing like that of blood. It disappoints. He adjusts his grip. Sherlock’s bedroom blurs. John blinks until it stabilises.
A sharp noise comes from the kitchen, the crash of a chair kicked by a flailing leg.
Pull the trigger. Pull it now. Do it.
His hand won’t obey.
“John.”
Back to the door, John keeps his gaze straight ahead. His teeth chatter against his gun, the chill of a fever heat.
Behind him, the mattress dips.
“I’m directly behind you,” Sherlock informs him. His voice is a steel bar, cool, unyielding, entirely ready to strike or support. “If you fire, you shoot us both.” Sherlock draws closer, moving on his knees. His hands touch John’s shoulders. His chin nudges against the top of John’s head. His chest presses against John’s back.
Sherlock shifts, sinking lower. His hands creep forward to cover John’s. His touch quenches, a promise pulsing beneath cool skin. John bites the gun instead of him.
“You’re going to stay with me, John. Don’t ruin it.”
John sobs around the barrel. His arms tremble. Sherlock peels John’s fingers away from the grip.
“Stay with me. Hold onto my hand instead, John, hold on--”
John relinquishes the gun.
In one impossibly swift movement, Sherlock flicks on the safety and unloads the gun. He hurls firearm and ammo in opposite directions before John can reach for them.
“Sherlock--”
Sherlock slams him down and shoves him onto his back. He digs his fingertips into John’s scar. “What were you thinking?” Sherlock hisses between clenched teeth. “You are mine to kill, even you have to be able to see that.”
Winded, breathless, John shakes his head.
“There is no leaving, John.” His fingernails twist into John’s skin, though his skin. Sherlock’s weight pierces him and John’s arms fall to the bed, limp. Tousled and splotchy in his rage, Sherlock rips John apart with his eyes. “I’ll chain you down if I have to.”
John’s muscles twitch and jump, but Sherlock shifts his weight without hesitation or blinking. The clutch of his clawing hand stings. It stings until John shivers. Sherlock clamps down all the harder. Pain becomes a chip of ice, melting on his tongue, dripping down his spine. John shakes. He trembles. His eyes flick down to the new wound opened over the old, to bloody hands and ripping nails.
“I’d break your leg if you ran,” Sherlock promises. “A quick dislocation of the kneecap. What would you do to me?”
“I’ll fucking paralyse you.” Though the threat flies from John’s lips, his hands lie dormant. He makes no attempt to protect himself.
Sherlock’s eyes gleam. “How? Where?”
“Down low. Let you keep arm mobility.”
Breathing heavily, Sherlock loosens his grip to sit on John’s stomach rather than kneel. His palm pulls across torn skin.
John groans. His feet twitch. His toes curl, involuntary.
Sherlock freezes. All his body but that arm remains perfectly stationary as he drags his fingers through the injured area. Gentle at first, light and slow, smooth save for where blood turns the slide sticky. More pressure now, more force. Hints of fingernail tease at the damage still left undone.
Sherlock’s hand slows. Stops. The touch fizzles and flattens into a background sensation.
When John can’t stand the lack any longer, he inhales deeply, pressing his chest into the stinging contact. He’d arch his back if Sherlock weren’t sitting atop him. God, he needs the chill.
“This is how I stop you from killing yourself,” Sherlock reasons. “You can’t disengage when I hurt you.”
“Doesn’t hurt.”
“No?” Sherlock digs his thumb into John’s shoulder, hard.
A strangled whine fights its way between John’s teeth. His limbs jerk and his body shoves into the touch.
Sherlock leans in, his weight on John’s sweaty shoulders and stomach, his eyes much too close. “What does it feel like?” His sour breath heats John’s cheek. His trousers sticking to the sweaty skin of John’s belly, Sherlock’s weight restricts John’s breathing. “What else can I do to you?”
“Anything,” John says, and Sherlock’s face goes slack.
“Say that again.” His voice drops so low, it vibrates in John’s stomach. Sherlock’s eyes roam down John’s throat, across his bare and bloody chest. Without either moving, the contact between them changes. It is the difference between a touch and a caress.
“Not that kind of anything,” John says.
Without breaking contact, Sherlock stops touching him. The form remains, hands against skin, and yet the essence vanishes, as if Sherlock has withdrawn into an unknowable depth within his own body.
“I see,” Sherlock says.
“I was thinking more along the lines of a knife or something.” His tongue darts out to his dry lips. “Cleaner than scratching.”
Sherlock shakes his head, refusing eye contact. “You could kill yourself with a knife. No.”
“I won’t.”
“Don’t be an idiot, you were about to shoot yourself.”
“Not anymore.”
“It was minutes ago.”
“Yes, and now I’ve changed my mind,” John insists.
Sherlock presses his weight down on John’s chest. The heat smoothers him. “Do I have to contain you? Or merely hold your interest until you need to bite?”
“Let me cut you instead.” John picks up Sherlock’s hand from his chest and runs his fingertips over the circular scab, the purple contusion. His own blood smears between their fingers. “There’s too much damage in biting. Look at that. It’s not precise enough. I’d stay shallow with a knife. Less bruising.”
“I won’t arm you,” Sherlock says, but he hesitates first.
John digs his fingernails into the bruise and grins when Sherlock hisses. “Fine. I’ll get one next round.” He keeps picking at the scab until blood rises. Sherlock’s blood on the back of the hand, John’s blood across the palm. John lifts his head, his mouth already open, but Sherlock twists his arm free. John immediately seizes Sherlock by the shirt and rolls them both.
Pinned in the centre of the bed, Sherlock makes no further move toward escape. His legs relax on either side of John’s thighs. His chest rises and falls against John’s fisted hands. Face flushed beneath the stubbly beginnings of a beard, Sherlock says, “Make it fresh.” He lifts his chin, offering his jugular. John sways forward but does not bite.
“Git.” John unbuttons Sherlock’s cuff. “Now who’s suicidal? My teeth, your throat? Not going to end well.”
“I don’t mind if you kill me.”
They both stop.
John blinks at Sherlock. Sherlock stares evenly back.
“I mind,” John says.
“Each possibility has its merits,” Sherlock answers with the certainty of a man who has considered his options. “Either way, it will be amazing.”
John thinks about it. John swallows. He resumes pushing up Sherlock’s sleeve.
Sherlock gives an abrupt thrash. John slams him down, reflex, instinct, and Sherlock laughs. “Yes, just like that. You see?”
“All right, yes,” John says. “We finish this together.”
Smug as only he can be, Sherlock grins and relaxes into the bed. He displays his throat. “As you will.” His pulse visibly pounds beneath his skin. Too tender, too vulnerable to accept, and now a bite to the arm wouldn’t compare.
John unbuttons Sherlock’s shirt instead. Tight cloth parts willingly over cool skin. Sherlock shivers under John’s hands, and John doesn’t look at his face. “Over the collarbone,” John says. “I can...”
Barely breathing, Sherlock answers, “Yes.”
“You wouldn’t bleed out.” John lowers himself and eases down. No rush, not with Sherlock so far from freezing, not when there’s no threat of escape. He can take his time. He can aim.
Sherlock nods and his chin brushes John’s hair. “Do it.” He takes John by the back of the head, his fingers tense and cold.
John wets his lips and his tongue brushes skin. Sherlock jerks under him, against him. Ignoring the pressure against his stomach, John sets his mouth over bone and bunches the skin with his teeth. Harder now, harder, harder still. His is a slow, stubborn bite. Skin gives way against his incisors, the first true puncture. Heat spills against his tongue, into his mouth, over his lips.
As John sucks him up, Sherlock’s hand tightens in his hair. Save for this, Sherlock holds himself perfectly still. His tense legs frame John’s. Though hot where he presses against John, the only movement there is in line with Sherlock’s pulse. John's own disinterest is clear within is pants. Sherlock must be able to feel that lack, but he says nothing, does nothing, asks for nothing.
John bites. He gnaws. He leaves a line of wreckage along Sherlock’s collarbone, glistening with blood and saliva and the damp flesh between skin and bone. The damage remains within his control.
With a gasp, with a twitch, Sherlock’s tense body begins to unwind. John gives him more teeth, more pressure. He slurps audibly, and Sherlock’s hand in his hair at last relaxes.
John bites, and he sucks, and he licks, and he keeps at it until his elbows ache from holding him up. Falling asleep, his forearms tingle. In an uncertain motion, he lowers himself fully, cheek against abused flesh. Sherlock hisses.
John lifts his head. He looks up, toward Sherlock’s chin and his nose and his eyes beyond. When John digs his fingernails into Sherlock’s side, Sherlock looks back at him. They lie chest to bloody chest.
“All right?” John says.
“I’m warmer, but I can’t be sure it’s an effect of the transfer.” Sherlock’s voice rasps beneath the clinical phrasing.
“Should be. I’m cooling down.” Taking his weight on hands and knees, John lifts off Sherlock. He lies down beside him, curled a bit awkwardly on his side.
Sherlock mirrors him. His eyes stray downward to where John doubtlessly sports bloody stubble. John wipes at his mouth with the back of his hand. He licks his lips and can’t tell if the blood is Sherlock’s or if his split lip has opened again.
“Let me,” Sherlock says, not a question or a request. He licks his thumb and smudges gently at John’s cheek.
John closes his eyes and leaves him to it. A damp slide across his cheekbone precedes a tactile inspection of his nose. Increment by increment, cooling spit replaces congealing blood. Sherlock has the most trouble at the corners of John’s mouth, prodding at him until John giggles.
“Hold still,” Sherlock chides. “This is why you’re so sloppy.”
“Sorry, next time I’ll use a straw, would that be better?”
Sherlock snorts. “This is fine.” He scratches at John’s jaw, his eyes lingering low. “Do you need a blanket yet?”
“I’ll all right.” Cool at the edges, but what else can be expected for a man in his pants? “Maybe in a bit, though. You all right?”
“I just told you.”
“You said you were warmer.”
Sherlock bites his lip, his own lip. His fingers on John’s face stall. The intent behind them feels fuzzy, like a paused tape. Then Sherlock removes his hand, licks his fingers perfunctorily clean of blood, and John understands. It takes him a moment to speak. The silence is too heavy. He squeezes out from under it.
“You can... directly, if you want,” John offers. “I mean, that would be easier. Than. Than that. You’re practically a cat already, half the time.” He makes the statement and he closes his eyes. He lies there, one arm folded beneath his side, the other carefully not touching anything, and he waits for Sherlock to do as he will.
The tip of Sherlock’s nose is cold. His tongue is not. His tongue is not cold and not dry. There is a great number of things Sherlock’s tongue is not, and John thinks about those for a bit. First is the tongue, then the sucking, then the hint of teeth. Waiting for a bite, John’s muscles relax. He could almost fall asleep as Sherlock holds his head and angles him this way and that. The oral inspection roams. Jaw, cheek, nose, even behind his left ear.
John’s mouth, Sherlock leaves alone, or perhaps leaves for the last. Sherlock pauses, his breath on John’s lips, and John opens his eyes.
Sherlock waits. He doesn’t move. He doesn’t ask to.
John shifts his head between Sherlock’s hands. He angles his forehead closer, and Sherlock meets him in kind. One sweaty, one clammy, they press their brows together, close their eyes, and sleep.
previous | next
Rating: NC-17
Wordcount: 6.1k out of 31k
Beta: seijichan, lifeonmars, prettyarbitrary
Disclaimer: Do not own.
Summary: “If you want me to comfort you over my imminent death, I will be kicking you in the head,” John warns.
Warnings: Eventual off-screen character death, illness both physical and mental, assault, graphic violence, blood, bloodplay, explicit sexual behavior, dubcon, plague, attempted suicide
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
The warmth beneath John’s cheek moves. John tightens his grip, murmuring discontent. He cracks open his eyes. “What?”
“Transport.” Even muffled against John’s pillow, Sherlock’s distaste is clear.
Sleepily blinking, John lifts his face from Sherlock’s back. His skin peels away from Sherlock's like a piece of an orange. Or a blood orange, John muses, studying the scratches and bite marks he’s left. Some initial scabbing, no signs of infection. “Stomach?”
“Bladder.”
John settles back down. “Piss in one of the bottles.”
Sherlock works his arm free and his shoulder blade becomes a threat to John’s face. John rolls off him accordingly. “I’m going downstairs,” Sherlock says without moving. He lies face-down, sprawled without modesty.
“Yeah, okay.” John also doesn’t move. The separation from Sherlock cools John on his overheated bed. Additional movement wouldn’t make him too hot, not yet, but it would be unpleasant. He can feel warmth like syrup dripping down his throat and under his skin. It feels like it ought to be sweet, but his mouth tastes only of blood.
Sherlock turns his head to face toward John. Sherlock’s neck makes an unpleasant sound. John winces and Sherlock doesn’t. Sherlock simply says, “Come downstairs. You should eat.”
John grunts agreement and sits up. Sherlock gestures John off the bed before hauling John’s sheet out from under the duvet. He bundles himself up as if the sheet were swaddling clothes, but then, Sherlock hasn’t much in the way of clothing. The biting urge must’ve taken him in the bath.
For his part, John adjusts his trousers-and immediately pulls his hand away. He looks down. Very calmly, he wipes his hand on the side of his leg. “Sherlock, there’s semen on my trousers.”
His arms wrapped up in the sheet, Sherlock shrugs. “It’s not as if you’ll live to wash them.”
John gapes at him.
Sherlock frowns. “You’re not seriously about to do laundry now?”
“No,” John says. “No,” he says again, and this time he lifts his hand in a halting gesture. “That’s not-No. I’m not asking how to get dried semen off, I’m asking how it got on.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Sherlock says. “That bit is on the outside of your trousers, so clearly it’s not yours. Someone else’s penis must have ejaculated it. An utter mystery, John.”
John stares. He stares at Sherlock in his sheet. He stares at his mess of a bed. There are other words, but the one he says is still, “No.”
Sherlock stands up. He is very tall and very rumpled and, now that John’s paying attention, looks like he just had an hour-long snog. Sense memory promptly hits John in the face. And hands. And cock.
Jesus fucking Christ.
“Not good?” Sherlock asks.
John takes a deep breath and doesn’t let it out in a bloody fit. He exhales harshly instead. “Just go to the loo.”
Eyes wide and fixed on John’s face, Sherlock doesn’t move.
John stomps to his dresser, shucks his trousers, and pulls on a fresh pair of jeans. He pointedly ignores how bruised his hips feel. The entire time, Sherlock’s gaze drills into the back of his head.
“I quote,” Sherlock snaps, biting the harsh consonant, “‘What the hell are you waiting for?’”
“You couldn’t settle on a place to bite!” John shouts within a whisper. Hushed voices, they have to stay quiet. He wheels around to make sure Sherlock can’t miss a cubic millimetre of John’s immense ire. “That wasn’t sane behaviour! We’ve gone mental.”
Sherlock lifts his chin. “I haven’t.”
“No, you were a lunatic to start with.” John rubs his hand over his face. “You can’t just-”
“John.” Sherlock darts forward and seizes John by the wrist. John tugs back, the motion automatic, but Sherlock rides out the movement in order to manhandle John’s watch. No longer secured, the sheet slips to the floor, but John’s stomach drops even faster.
“How long were we asleep?” John asks.
“I’m not sure. At least forty-five minutes. I wasn’t exactly in a state of mind to check the time beforehand.” Sherlock releases John to touch his own hair. “Completely dry,” he reports. He steps out of the pile of the sheet, unselfconsciously displaying his abused back. Sherlock looks down, adjusting his pants, and makes a noise of discomfort. He mutters something, but John can only focus on the red lines and livid circles across Sherlock’s skin. John scratched those, sucked them.
John touches his split lip. There’s blood under his fingernails, Sherlock’s. He’s literally red-handed.
Sherlock turns around and the sight of his relatively undamaged chest shoves John back into the moment. “John, you’re not listening.”
He grimaces in apology. “Sorry. You were saying?”
“It’s been over an hour.” His tone brooks no question. No one should look that authoritative naked and soiled, but Sherlock might as well be in a full suit.
“Are you cold yet?” John asks.
“Still cooling off,” Sherlock says. “You?”
John traces a half-circle, shoulder to sternum to shoulder. “It’s that far down. Feels like it’s dripping.”
Sherlock’s eyebrows rise. “Quick.”
“First time through a new place always takes the longest,” John reasons. “It's true for people, could be true for this.” He worries at his bottom lip with his teeth. “I don’t know how much faster this will be.”
“Too many variables,” Sherlock agrees.
“Yeah.” John nods, unable to meet Sherlock’s eyes. “Even for you.”
“John-”
“I’m sorry.”
Sherlock weaves into John’s direct line of sight with a confused frown. “What?”
Fists clenched, John closes his eyes. “I’m sorry I’ve killed you.” He’ll never know how his voice remains steady, but he’s forever grateful for it.
“You’re an idiot,” Sherlock says with next to no inflexion.
“Yeah, I worked that out when she bit me, thanks.”
“I noticed that yesterday when I offered you your life and you refused,” Sherlock snaps.
Guilt slams into anger and John stares him down. “Not at the cost of yours. We’ve been over this, Sherlock. You fucking promised you were never doing this again.”
Sherlock groans and tugs at his hair. Dried while dishevelled, his curls are a wild mess to start with. The tangled nest only grows as Sherlock rakes his hands through it. “This isn’t the same!”
“How is this different?” John demands. “Really, how?”
“Don’t be blind--”
“Give me one reason. Just one.” John stares him down. His arms tremble, taking after his clenched hands. “You can’t, can you?”
“Fine! Yes, John, everything is my fault. I put your life above your trust.” Colour rides high in Sherlock’s chest and cheeks. He gesticulates with harsh, abrupt slices of his hands. “I want you to live: what a betrayal!”
“You would have fucking lived.” John invades his space, sheer proximity forcing Sherlock’s hands down and baring his stomach. John doesn’t need height to loom. His rage towers by itself. “You risked everything on a stupid gamble without telling me-again-so don’t you dare blame me for not cooperating.”
“It was the only solution!”
“Clearly it wasn’t! You didn’t even let me loose intentionally!”
Sherlock’s eyes dart down to John’s mouth. He sways forward before stepping pointedly back. “John...”
John checks with his tongue and discovers he’s started bleeding again. Lovely. He wipes his mouth with the back of his bandaged hand. It’s not that much blood.
“Okay,” John says. “You, downstairs, get changed. Water for both of us, food for both of us. We finish Star Wars and then we call emergency services.”
Sherlock frowns.
“We aren’t dying in the middle of an argument,” John tells him. “Let’s just say it evens out.”
For a moment, Sherlock looks ready to protest, because of course he would. Instead, his shoulders drop and his expression turns tired, exhausted. He says, “Fine. But I need another bath first.”
“You can manage on your own?”
Sherlock rolls his eyes. “You’re the one who won’t be able to manage soon.”
“Right,” John says. “Right. Sorry.”
Sherlock shrugs and they head downstairs, Sherlock’s clawed back leading the way before John’s itching hands.
Nothing appeals. John searches the fridge and scavenges through the cupboards. His stomach insists he’s not hungry, even though the last thing he ate was popcorn last night.
A sure sign of the end of the world, Sherlock gravitates to the tins of soup and heats one up with marked impatience. Though Sherlock’s back is now covered by a crisp purple shirt, John retreats from the stove all the same. Too hot. He takes shelter in front of the open fridge. He sticks his head in.
“How far along is it?” Sherlock asks.
John stays put. “It was trickling before, but now it’s more of a slow ooze.” Trickling. Yes. He wants water. He closes the fridge to open the freezer. Ice water. “Hand me a glass?” He reaches without looking and Sherlock sets the glass against his hand. “Ta.”
Sherlock’s spoon scrapes against the sauce pan as he stirs. “It’s stopped giving you growing pains, I take it.”
“Mm.” His glass piled high with ice, he fills up the remaining space with tap water. He drinks, ice knocking against his lips and teeth. Much too cold and absolutely perfect. “It feels more syrupy. Like it ought to taste sweet.”
“And not burning?”
John sits down at the kitchen table to keep him company. “Not really, no.”
Sherlock hums, eyes on his soup.
“You’ve cooled down,” John notes. Shirt, trousers, socks: not yet freezing but certainly closer to a normal temperature. Faint, dark smudges discolour the back of Sherlock’s button down, as if it went through the laundry with a particularly vicious pen.
“It would take at least a day for me to arrive at the same state you were in.” Sherlock’s words come out detached. “Not that it matters. You’re progressing far more rapidly than I am this round. You’ll bite me well before I freeze.”
John will. The certainty of it aches in his jaw. He licks his split lip. “Where do you want it?”
Sherlock stops moving. Not as if frozen, but as if paused, as if reality had to stop and take a breath before the plunge. Sherlock doesn’t turn around. He does lower his head slightly, eyes resolutely on his meal, the back of his neck bare to John’s gaze.
“A central spot works out better than an extremity,” John says. “I don’t feel so lopsided this time.”
“I think it might be best if you kept to my back.” Sherlock’s voice is tight. The line of his shoulders is tighter. He’ll keep pulling the scratches open, this way.
John rolls his glass between his hands. The pile of ice within turns this way and that. He says nothing more until Sherlock piles his research to the side and puts down a bowl in its place. Then Sherlock puts down a second bowl in front of John. Beef and lentil.
“Not hungry,” John says.
Sherlock skewers him with the grey metal of his eyes. “Eat.”
He shakes his head. “Too hot.”
Sherlock continues to glare.
John meets his gaze and bursts into giggle.
“What?” Sherlock snaps.
“You badgering me to eat.”
Sherlock’s face cracks into a grin. He ducks his head and turns his face away. He clears his throat. “It’s my turn to take care of you.”
They bicker until John’s soup goes cold, but that’s for the best anyway.
John sets the DVDs up to the last point Sherlock can remember watching. They sit in their armchairs unrestrained. Sherlock watches the telly with a bored, sleepy expression. John’s eyes glaze over. The sound of Sherlock breathing beside him is far more important than anything coming from the speakers. Sherlock won’t leave him, not while the syrup pools in the bottoms of John’s feet.
John shifts in his chair to better curl up on it. He unbuttons his shirt and considers taking off the sweaty t-shirt beneath, but the air against his forearms is sufficient. He bundles up his shirt and uses it as a support for his head. Sleep rises up behind his eyes.
He wakes in the night. He reaches for Sherlock. Sherlock’s armchair is empty.
John scrambles to his feet and promptly tumbles, his blood pressure wrong and his back aching.
“John?” Sherlock calls, an abrupt cry from the sofa. A lamp clicks on, blinding John even with his face against the floor.
“Oh, thank God,” John sighs. His heart pounds, the world wobbles, and yet, all will be well. “Don’t ever do that again.”
Sherlock joins him on the floor. A trail of blankets whispers as he settles. “Do what?”
John forces himself onto his side and squints up at Sherlock. “You were gone.”
Sherlock rolls his eyes. “I was directly behind you.”
“Yeah, well. Don’t.” He half-stretches, half-reaches, and his hand finds what might be Sherlock’s knee beneath the blanket pile. “You’re supposed to take care of me.”
“I am.” Sherlock frees an arm and touches John’s forehead. His fingers are cool. John sighs and relaxes into the touch. “I’m going to get up and bring food from the kitchen.”
“Not hungry.”
“You’ll eat,” Sherlock promises. The blankets rustle as Sherlock stands. They slither after him along the floor.
John sits up. He cranes his neck and then stands. The walk into the kitchen destroys him. He collapses into the nearest chair and slumps onto the table. He straightens only to peel off his damp t-shirt. Immediately after, he presses his face against cool wood. Cloth brushes against his side and a plate clinks down in front of him. John lifts his face from his arms. His skin sticks together, much like his tongue and the inside of his mouth. “Really not hungry.” Neither sandwich nor water tempts.
Sherlock sits opposite. He shifts the blankets down and pulls John’s plate over. With some effort, he manages to reach into an inner jacket pocket, and John learns that their mail is no longer knifed to their mantel. Sherlock holds the jack knife steady and opens the scab on his hand.
Blood wells to the surface, droplets blooming with immense colour. Red and dark with a glint from the light above them. Sherlock holds his thumb over John’s glass. One drop. Two. John watches them unfurl. Sherlock clenches his fist over John’s sandwich. The bread immediately soaks in the blood. Sherlock draws two more red lines into the bread. He pushes the plate back and John is ravenous. He turns the sandwich upside-down to better taste the blood.
“I know how to take care of you,” Sherlock says as John chomps and swallows. “It’s not that difficult.” One-handed, he folds up the knife and slips it back to whence it came. His other hand, his cut hand, lies on the table in tacit promise. “I said you’d eat.”
John nods along in apology. The tastes of ham and cheese override everything else. John watches Sherlock’s hand. He forces down the remainder of the sandwich with the water. He forces down the rest of the water. Sherlock takes a cursory inspection of plate and glass before giving John his hand.
The table is narrow enough that John doesn’t have to strain, but he does have to bend. Elbows planted on the table, he secures Sherlock’s hand in both of his. The first taste is a tease. John scrapes his teeth against the meat of Sherlock’s thumb, coaxing the cut open. If he bites, the blood wells up. The table’s edge digs into John’s stomach. He ignores the touch of fingertips on the side of his face.
It’s not enough, but he’s not ready for it to be enough. The hint of blood is enough to chase after, an elusive tang between skin and tongue. Soon, he’ll need more. Soon, he’ll be ready to transfer. Not yet. He can savour this. He has to savour this.
Following the curve of John’s jaw, the backs Sherlock’s fingers curl under John’s ear. The stroke rubs his scruff. John opens his eyes at the unfamiliar sensation. He looks at Sherlock. A grey pallor, save for the blaze across his cheeks. Swaddled in blankets. Hair an unwashed mess. Eyes dark and hooded. His hand offered as a chew toy.
“Jesus fuck.” John jerks his head back. “What the hell are we doing?”
Sherlock shushes him. He doesn’t pull his hand away and John can’t seem to release him.
“The hell are we doing?” John repeats, voice lowered out of respect for the small hours of the night.
“I’m taking care of you.” The unspoken obviously echoes off the walls.
“For what? No, Sherlock, seriously: for what? We’re dead. We are going to die. We missed both windows and now I’m fucking gnawing on you.”
“I don’t mind the gnawing,” Sherlock says.
Sherlock’s neck too far away, John throttles Sherlock’s wrist instead. Sherlock hisses, a sharp intake of breath, but he doesn’t pull back. If anything, he leans forward.
“This is not good,” John tells him. “This is the most not good thing we’ve ever done, do you even realise how bad that is?”
“I could still think of something-”
“The best scientists in the world haven’t thought of something,” John interrupts. “For months. While sane, even!”
Sherlock looks at him with such haughty disapproval that John nearly takes it back, but that’s only proof they’re out of their minds. “Do you want to end it, then?” Sherlock asks. “Hm? Because we can end it. A phone call and we die. One good shout out the window could do it.”
John releases him. Immediately, his chest tightens and his heart shoves itself up into his throat. Sherlock takes hold of John’s hand and John can breathe again.
“I can’t do it,” John says. “Jesus, I can’t...” He swallows a lump of impossible size. He squeezes Sherlock’s hand tight. They secure each other, anchored on either side of the table by their mutual hold. The concepts and terrors clump together inside John’s head, but they never manage to fit into his mouth.
Sherlock summarises the problem in its simplest form: “You know we’re going to die, but you can’t let them kill me. Which is fine. We take care of each other.”
“What does that even mean?”
Sherlock turns John’s hand over. He inspects the initial bite mark and runs his thumb from wrist to knuckle. “We go down together, obviously.”
“I picked up on that part, yeah.” John twitches as Sherlock picks at his scab. “We’re going to get other people hurt, Sherlock. Killed. Maybe a lot of people.”
“We’ll move when the time comes.”
John snorts. “Right. We’ll jump in a cab. ‘Yes, hello, we’d like to go to the outskirts, please. Don’t mind my friend, he always travels with a muzzle.’”
“I can rent a car and have it dropped off outside.” Sherlock works a fingernail beneath the scab and delicately begins to peel it from John’s skin. “We won’t have to so much as speak to anyone.”
The wet sheen of unshed blood glistens from the back of John’s hand. His heart rate slows. They wait, but the blood never wells up to form a droplet. John clears his throat. “Can you set that up now?”
“Hm?”
“The car,” John says. “Can you make sure it comes before Mrs Hudson gets back?”
“Of course I can.”
John pulls his hand away and hides it under the table. “I need you to do that right now.”
“It’ll be fine.” Sherlock reaches for him. “Come here, I’m cold.”
“No,” John says. He stands and keeps the table between them. “You get us the car first. Anything you want after, but the car comes first.”
Sherlock rolls his eyes. “I’ll send an email.”
“Now.”
Sherlock sets off at a wobbling pace, bumping against the kitchen doorframe and the hallway walls.
“Mm.” Sherlock fetches it and returns the battery to its proper place. He works his arms out of his sheet and drums his fingers on the keyboard. “It’s loading.”
Nodding, John leans against the cool plaster of the wall. “How long for a confirmation email?”
“Not until regular business hours.”
“Right.” John closes his eyes. Sweat follows the lines of his body, a slow drip over riverbeds of skin. He picks up his abandoned t-shirt. He wipes himself down. Sherlock types.
“Here, look.”
John leans down to read over Sherlock’s shoulder. He follows Sherlock’s pointing hand and sees the email in the sent file. He skims the contents and breathes for the first time in too long.
“All right?” Sherlock asks.
John nods, sits on the cool linoleum, and flops onto his back. The laptop clicks shut. Sherlock lies down beside him with a great rustling of blankets. They stare at the kitchen ceiling.
“I’ll need to bite you in a few hours,” John says.
Shifting onto his side, Sherlock offers his hand.
John glances at the red gleam along the cut. “Hours, I said. It doesn’t want to switch now.”
“I’m taking care of you,” Sherlock explains, an implacable argument. He lays his hand on John’s overheated chest.
John closes his eyes.
Sherlock shoves a bit of a blanket under John’s head.
“This is how I know you’ve gone mental,” John murmurs.
Saying nothing, Sherlock curls a bit closer.
John dozes. John wakes. His body blazes. His back aches. A yawn cracks his split lip open anew. Beside him, a bundle of blankets rises and falls slowly in its middle. Watching, John licks his bloody lip. John ought to warm him.
There’s so much heat inside Sherlock. All John has to do is let it out.
His tongue runs over his canines and incisors. Sharp, but not sharp enough to make it clean. Flesh will tear. Propping himself up on one elbow, he reaches for the top layer on Sherlock’s pile, the afghan from his armchair. Whatever spurts or splatters, John can catch it with the blankets. He’ll press the cloth over the wound, sopping up the blood, and he’ll suck it clean once the bleeding stops. He’ll rip into Sherlock and, after, he’ll apply pressure.
His hand stops. John sits up fully. He stares at the layers of cloth, largely clean. He watches the rhythm of undisturbed breathing. He thinks, for one instant, that perhaps he ought to clean the area before he bites, as if preparing to traditionally draw blood.
He could do that instead. Take the blood, drink it, and his stomach churns at the thought. It’s not the blood. It’s the biting. It’s flesh between his teeth and the sweet moment between pressure and puncture.
John runs his hand over his face. His tense shoulders fall in a shaking exhalation.
He shakes his head. Once, twice. Careful, as close to silent as he can come, John pushes himself to his feet. The room spins. He holds onto the counter. The kitchen stops spinning. He pads away in just his pants, no need to worry about the rustle of clothing.
In Sherlock’s bedroom, all the blankets have been pulled from the bed. The room is more bare and stark than ever, and that makes it a simple task to find what he needs.
John sits down with it on the edge of the bed. He loads it. Shoulders hunched, he takes off the safety.
His throat tightens. His hands do not shake. His pulse counts out the moments of his hesitation, resounding louder and louder in his ears.
He licks his split lip and opens his mouth. The metallic tang of his gun is nothing like that of blood. It disappoints. He adjusts his grip. Sherlock’s bedroom blurs. John blinks until it stabilises.
A sharp noise comes from the kitchen, the crash of a chair kicked by a flailing leg.
Pull the trigger. Pull it now. Do it.
His hand won’t obey.
“John.”
Back to the door, John keeps his gaze straight ahead. His teeth chatter against his gun, the chill of a fever heat.
Behind him, the mattress dips.
“I’m directly behind you,” Sherlock informs him. His voice is a steel bar, cool, unyielding, entirely ready to strike or support. “If you fire, you shoot us both.” Sherlock draws closer, moving on his knees. His hands touch John’s shoulders. His chin nudges against the top of John’s head. His chest presses against John’s back.
Sherlock shifts, sinking lower. His hands creep forward to cover John’s. His touch quenches, a promise pulsing beneath cool skin. John bites the gun instead of him.
“You’re going to stay with me, John. Don’t ruin it.”
John sobs around the barrel. His arms tremble. Sherlock peels John’s fingers away from the grip.
“Stay with me. Hold onto my hand instead, John, hold on--”
John relinquishes the gun.
In one impossibly swift movement, Sherlock flicks on the safety and unloads the gun. He hurls firearm and ammo in opposite directions before John can reach for them.
“Sherlock--”
Sherlock slams him down and shoves him onto his back. He digs his fingertips into John’s scar. “What were you thinking?” Sherlock hisses between clenched teeth. “You are mine to kill, even you have to be able to see that.”
Winded, breathless, John shakes his head.
“There is no leaving, John.” His fingernails twist into John’s skin, though his skin. Sherlock’s weight pierces him and John’s arms fall to the bed, limp. Tousled and splotchy in his rage, Sherlock rips John apart with his eyes. “I’ll chain you down if I have to.”
John’s muscles twitch and jump, but Sherlock shifts his weight without hesitation or blinking. The clutch of his clawing hand stings. It stings until John shivers. Sherlock clamps down all the harder. Pain becomes a chip of ice, melting on his tongue, dripping down his spine. John shakes. He trembles. His eyes flick down to the new wound opened over the old, to bloody hands and ripping nails.
“I’d break your leg if you ran,” Sherlock promises. “A quick dislocation of the kneecap. What would you do to me?”
“I’ll fucking paralyse you.” Though the threat flies from John’s lips, his hands lie dormant. He makes no attempt to protect himself.
Sherlock’s eyes gleam. “How? Where?”
“Down low. Let you keep arm mobility.”
Breathing heavily, Sherlock loosens his grip to sit on John’s stomach rather than kneel. His palm pulls across torn skin.
John groans. His feet twitch. His toes curl, involuntary.
Sherlock freezes. All his body but that arm remains perfectly stationary as he drags his fingers through the injured area. Gentle at first, light and slow, smooth save for where blood turns the slide sticky. More pressure now, more force. Hints of fingernail tease at the damage still left undone.
Sherlock’s hand slows. Stops. The touch fizzles and flattens into a background sensation.
When John can’t stand the lack any longer, he inhales deeply, pressing his chest into the stinging contact. He’d arch his back if Sherlock weren’t sitting atop him. God, he needs the chill.
“This is how I stop you from killing yourself,” Sherlock reasons. “You can’t disengage when I hurt you.”
“Doesn’t hurt.”
“No?” Sherlock digs his thumb into John’s shoulder, hard.
A strangled whine fights its way between John’s teeth. His limbs jerk and his body shoves into the touch.
Sherlock leans in, his weight on John’s sweaty shoulders and stomach, his eyes much too close. “What does it feel like?” His sour breath heats John’s cheek. His trousers sticking to the sweaty skin of John’s belly, Sherlock’s weight restricts John’s breathing. “What else can I do to you?”
“Anything,” John says, and Sherlock’s face goes slack.
“Say that again.” His voice drops so low, it vibrates in John’s stomach. Sherlock’s eyes roam down John’s throat, across his bare and bloody chest. Without either moving, the contact between them changes. It is the difference between a touch and a caress.
“Not that kind of anything,” John says.
Without breaking contact, Sherlock stops touching him. The form remains, hands against skin, and yet the essence vanishes, as if Sherlock has withdrawn into an unknowable depth within his own body.
“I see,” Sherlock says.
“I was thinking more along the lines of a knife or something.” His tongue darts out to his dry lips. “Cleaner than scratching.”
Sherlock shakes his head, refusing eye contact. “You could kill yourself with a knife. No.”
“I won’t.”
“Don’t be an idiot, you were about to shoot yourself.”
“Not anymore.”
“It was minutes ago.”
“Yes, and now I’ve changed my mind,” John insists.
Sherlock presses his weight down on John’s chest. The heat smoothers him. “Do I have to contain you? Or merely hold your interest until you need to bite?”
“Let me cut you instead.” John picks up Sherlock’s hand from his chest and runs his fingertips over the circular scab, the purple contusion. His own blood smears between their fingers. “There’s too much damage in biting. Look at that. It’s not precise enough. I’d stay shallow with a knife. Less bruising.”
“I won’t arm you,” Sherlock says, but he hesitates first.
John digs his fingernails into the bruise and grins when Sherlock hisses. “Fine. I’ll get one next round.” He keeps picking at the scab until blood rises. Sherlock’s blood on the back of the hand, John’s blood across the palm. John lifts his head, his mouth already open, but Sherlock twists his arm free. John immediately seizes Sherlock by the shirt and rolls them both.
Pinned in the centre of the bed, Sherlock makes no further move toward escape. His legs relax on either side of John’s thighs. His chest rises and falls against John’s fisted hands. Face flushed beneath the stubbly beginnings of a beard, Sherlock says, “Make it fresh.” He lifts his chin, offering his jugular. John sways forward but does not bite.
“Git.” John unbuttons Sherlock’s cuff. “Now who’s suicidal? My teeth, your throat? Not going to end well.”
“I don’t mind if you kill me.”
They both stop.
John blinks at Sherlock. Sherlock stares evenly back.
“I mind,” John says.
“Each possibility has its merits,” Sherlock answers with the certainty of a man who has considered his options. “Either way, it will be amazing.”
John thinks about it. John swallows. He resumes pushing up Sherlock’s sleeve.
Sherlock gives an abrupt thrash. John slams him down, reflex, instinct, and Sherlock laughs. “Yes, just like that. You see?”
“All right, yes,” John says. “We finish this together.”
Smug as only he can be, Sherlock grins and relaxes into the bed. He displays his throat. “As you will.” His pulse visibly pounds beneath his skin. Too tender, too vulnerable to accept, and now a bite to the arm wouldn’t compare.
John unbuttons Sherlock’s shirt instead. Tight cloth parts willingly over cool skin. Sherlock shivers under John’s hands, and John doesn’t look at his face. “Over the collarbone,” John says. “I can...”
Barely breathing, Sherlock answers, “Yes.”
“You wouldn’t bleed out.” John lowers himself and eases down. No rush, not with Sherlock so far from freezing, not when there’s no threat of escape. He can take his time. He can aim.
Sherlock nods and his chin brushes John’s hair. “Do it.” He takes John by the back of the head, his fingers tense and cold.
John wets his lips and his tongue brushes skin. Sherlock jerks under him, against him. Ignoring the pressure against his stomach, John sets his mouth over bone and bunches the skin with his teeth. Harder now, harder, harder still. His is a slow, stubborn bite. Skin gives way against his incisors, the first true puncture. Heat spills against his tongue, into his mouth, over his lips.
As John sucks him up, Sherlock’s hand tightens in his hair. Save for this, Sherlock holds himself perfectly still. His tense legs frame John’s. Though hot where he presses against John, the only movement there is in line with Sherlock’s pulse. John's own disinterest is clear within is pants. Sherlock must be able to feel that lack, but he says nothing, does nothing, asks for nothing.
John bites. He gnaws. He leaves a line of wreckage along Sherlock’s collarbone, glistening with blood and saliva and the damp flesh between skin and bone. The damage remains within his control.
With a gasp, with a twitch, Sherlock’s tense body begins to unwind. John gives him more teeth, more pressure. He slurps audibly, and Sherlock’s hand in his hair at last relaxes.
John bites, and he sucks, and he licks, and he keeps at it until his elbows ache from holding him up. Falling asleep, his forearms tingle. In an uncertain motion, he lowers himself fully, cheek against abused flesh. Sherlock hisses.
John lifts his head. He looks up, toward Sherlock’s chin and his nose and his eyes beyond. When John digs his fingernails into Sherlock’s side, Sherlock looks back at him. They lie chest to bloody chest.
“All right?” John says.
“I’m warmer, but I can’t be sure it’s an effect of the transfer.” Sherlock’s voice rasps beneath the clinical phrasing.
“Should be. I’m cooling down.” Taking his weight on hands and knees, John lifts off Sherlock. He lies down beside him, curled a bit awkwardly on his side.
Sherlock mirrors him. His eyes stray downward to where John doubtlessly sports bloody stubble. John wipes at his mouth with the back of his hand. He licks his lips and can’t tell if the blood is Sherlock’s or if his split lip has opened again.
“Let me,” Sherlock says, not a question or a request. He licks his thumb and smudges gently at John’s cheek.
John closes his eyes and leaves him to it. A damp slide across his cheekbone precedes a tactile inspection of his nose. Increment by increment, cooling spit replaces congealing blood. Sherlock has the most trouble at the corners of John’s mouth, prodding at him until John giggles.
“Hold still,” Sherlock chides. “This is why you’re so sloppy.”
“Sorry, next time I’ll use a straw, would that be better?”
Sherlock snorts. “This is fine.” He scratches at John’s jaw, his eyes lingering low. “Do you need a blanket yet?”
“I’ll all right.” Cool at the edges, but what else can be expected for a man in his pants? “Maybe in a bit, though. You all right?”
“I just told you.”
“You said you were warmer.”
Sherlock bites his lip, his own lip. His fingers on John’s face stall. The intent behind them feels fuzzy, like a paused tape. Then Sherlock removes his hand, licks his fingers perfunctorily clean of blood, and John understands. It takes him a moment to speak. The silence is too heavy. He squeezes out from under it.
“You can... directly, if you want,” John offers. “I mean, that would be easier. Than. Than that. You’re practically a cat already, half the time.” He makes the statement and he closes his eyes. He lies there, one arm folded beneath his side, the other carefully not touching anything, and he waits for Sherlock to do as he will.
The tip of Sherlock’s nose is cold. His tongue is not. His tongue is not cold and not dry. There is a great number of things Sherlock’s tongue is not, and John thinks about those for a bit. First is the tongue, then the sucking, then the hint of teeth. Waiting for a bite, John’s muscles relax. He could almost fall asleep as Sherlock holds his head and angles him this way and that. The oral inspection roams. Jaw, cheek, nose, even behind his left ear.
John’s mouth, Sherlock leaves alone, or perhaps leaves for the last. Sherlock pauses, his breath on John’s lips, and John opens his eyes.
Sherlock waits. He doesn’t move. He doesn’t ask to.
John shifts his head between Sherlock’s hands. He angles his forehead closer, and Sherlock meets him in kind. One sweaty, one clammy, they press their brows together, close their eyes, and sleep.
previous | next