There's Always Something
Fandom: Sherlock
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Non-con, character death, suicide, supreme angst.
Summary: Written for this prompt at the kink meme - "You're the only person who's ever cared for me, John," Sherlock whispered, and lowered himself onto John's cock. Dark!Sherlock (or genuinely believes he's sociopathic!Sherlock) rapes John. Ties him up, drugs him, and rides him.
There's Always Something
John heads upstairs, throwing a ‘Goodnight’ over his shoulder to his flatmate.
Sherlock does not respond, seemingly engrossed in his book. John is unaware of the hungry eyes which flick away from the page to watch him go.
* * * * *
John wakes to a stinging pain in his face. His eyes open just in time for Sherlock to land another resounding slap on his cheek.
‘Ow! Sherlock!’
The pale detective leans away from him, backing off to pace beside the bed. It must be the middle of the night; the room is lit only by the bedside lamp, but Sherlock is fully dressed in purple shirt and black trousers. ‘Finally, John! You have no idea how dull it is watching you loll about unconscious.'
Unconscious? John thinks, then puts the word together with the cottony feeling in his mouth and the fading headache and comes up with; ‘Chloroform.’
Sherlock smiles approvingly. ‘Very good, John. I knew there was a reason I found your company unusually tolerable. You are, of course, completely useless in many ways, but you are at least a good doctor.’
At that, John decides to move - he doesn’t have to lie in his own bed and be insulted - and several facts become instantly, horribly apparent.
He is lying half-propped up on his pillows. His hands are bound - quite firmly, he finds, after a moment’s frantic wriggling - crossed behind him, wrist tied to elbow with soft cord. Attempts to move his legs prove to be no more reassuring. A thin bar of cold metal is lashed behind his knees, forcing his legs wide. John looks down and notes, with an absurd urge to laugh, that the make-shift spreader bar is none other than his old cane, dredged out of some dusty corner of his room.
Last of all, and most damning, when his head clears enough for it to register: John’s pyjamas are gone. He is pinned, naked and vulnerable, under the eyes of his flatmate, and he doesn’t like the look in those eyes at all.
‘Sherlock, what the hell?’ John demands, when this ugly chain of observations is complete.
‘Don’t be asinine, John,’ Sherlock scolds, ceasing his pacing and glaring down at the bound man from the foot of the bed. ‘It is perfectly obvious what’s going on. I’ve decided it’s time to consummate our relationship. You are tied up in order to prevent your damnable reticence getting in the way of what we both want.’
‘Consummate our - ’ John echoes, with a dull sinking feeling in his guts. ‘Sherlock, we don’t have a relationship. We’re friends, yes, but you’re married to your work, and I’m straight. Why else would I be going out with Sarah?’
‘Mind games,’ Sherlock declares, waving a hand dismissively. ‘You’re trying to make me jealous. But really, the way you’ve been looking at me these past few months, you could hardly be more obvious.’
John shakes his head in automatic denial, then thinks of the way he looks at Sherlock when he works, and the cries of “Brilliant!” and “Fantastic!” each deduction draws from his lips. How easy, he sees now, for someone just a little out of step with normality to read them as something more. He swallows around a sudden tightness in his throat. ‘I never meant it like that. Untie me, Sherlock, and we’ll talk about this.’
Sherlock shoots him a condescending look and begins unbuttoning his silk shirt. ‘There really isn’t anything to talk about. I’m going to give you what you want, and then there won’t be all this God-awful sexual tension distracting me from more important matters.’ He strips off the shirt, drops it casually to the floor and unzips his trousers.
John shakes his head against the pillows over and over, not quite believing what’s happening. But the sight of Sherlock’s pale, bare chest, more muscular than his skinny frame suggests, only makes the awful situation more real. The eccentric genius is deadly serious.
‘I don’t want this, Sherlock. I never did,’ John says, keeping his voice as low and even as he can. He won’t - can’t - allow himself to panic. ‘Please, untie me.’
Sherlock ignores him, and pulls down his trousers and shorts in one smooth, swift motion. He is already half-hard; long, thick cock jutting up from inky curls.
John stares at his stiffening length and feels real fear jolt up his spine. Sherlock is big. Even if this was consensual, even if he wanted to, John doesn’t think he could take him. He has never done anything like this before, but he’s seen plenty of cases where it’s gone horribly wrong.
Christ, he’s going to tear me in half, John thinks, and the thought spurs him into action. He isn’t tied to the bed itself, and he rolls, shuffles, inches towards the edge, working his hips and heels for leverage. If he can just roll off and get under the bed, he might be safe. Sherlock would take a while to winkle him out again, and he might have time to talk the man out of this insanity. It’s a desperate strategy, but John almost thinks he’s going to make it.
He’s inches from toppling off the bed when Sherlock grabs his upper arm and drags him back into the middle. Almost instantly, he is on top of John, sitting astride his spread thighs, pinning him in place.
John cringes back from the intense look of lust and concentration on Sherlock’s porcelain face. He is fully hard; red, swollen cock almost touching John’s flaccid length as he leans forward and runs his hands over John’s lightly-furred chest.
‘Sherlock, don’t!’ John begs. He tries to throw the lithe man off, but Sherlock has taken away all his leverage. John is trapped, and dread runs icy down his spine. ‘You’re a good friend - don’t do this to me.’
‘Shh, John,’ Sherlock sighs. ‘You don’t have to lie to me. I deduced everything there is to know about you within thirty seconds of meeting you. Did you really think I would miss the repressed homosexuality? Did you think I wouldn’t know you wanted this?’ He takes John’s cock in one long-fingered hand and works his foreskin, rubbing his thumb over the sensitive head.
John lets out a strangled noise, half moan, half sob. It feels good, though his whole being is yelling that this is wrong, and John feels the first stab of shame in his guts. He’s going to get hard; he knows it just as surely as he knows that Sherlock will take it as proof that John is a willing participant in this atrocity.
‘Please, stop! Don’t touch me!’ John chokes out, even as his cock begins to flush with blood under Sherlock’s deft ministrations. The young man does have obscenely clever hands.
‘Relax, John,’ Sherlock tells him, smoothing his hand round John’s balls and squeezing gently. ‘Doesn’t that feel nice?’
John thrashes his head against the pillow, holding in another moan. ‘No. No, no, no, no!’ he grinds out, sucking air desperately through his nose. Tears well in his blue eyes, shame and betrayal and fear.
Sherlock tuts at his response and leans forward again. He brings his soft lips to John’s groin and swallows his length down.
John yells at the sudden heat and wetness, hips jerking instinctively into Sherlock’s mouth. The pale man hums appreciatively around him, and John sobs at the vibration. It feels so damn good that he can’t fight the rocking of his hips. John is a doctor, he knows his physiological responses don’t equal consent, but still the shame eats at him. He could never tell anyone about this, never explain the truth. Half of their friends think that he and Sherlock have been shagging for months anyway.
Tears roll down over John’s temples as he groans and writhes into Sherlock’s mouth, red hot pleasure torturing him in counterpoint to the searing pain of heartbreak. He’s getting close, balls drawing tight against his body, but Sherlock isn’t going to let him off so easily. He pulls off John’s cock with a wet pop and grins up at him, lips red and slick with spit.
‘How fascinating! Crying during sex is quite an unusual response, John. I should have known you’d be interesting.’
John takes a ragged breath. ‘I’m crying because I don’t want to do this, Sherlock. Let me go.’
Sherlock simply smiles and twists his fingers around John’s spit-slick cock again, drawing another moan from the pinioned doctor. ‘Really, still so repressed?’ Sherlock chides him. He leans sideways and grabs a bottle of lube from beside the bed.
John stiffens, dreading the pain and humiliation still ahead. He can’t take Sherlock without tearing something, he just can’t.
‘I’m sure you’ll feel less conflicted once you’ve been balls-deep in another man,’ Sherlock says brightly, snapping open the bottle and coating his fingers with lube. ‘It really is nothing like being with a woman; you’ll see.’
Balls-deep? John thinks, then catches on. ‘You don’t want - You’re not going to -?’
‘To fuck you? No, I’ve always preferred to receive. I hope you don’t mind. We can always try it the other way another time,’ Sherlock says, and reaches back, sliding a slick finger inside himself with a sigh of pleasure.
John is light-headed with relief, whilst some tiny, rational part of his brain screams that that doesn’t make things any less wrong. He doesn’t want to be buggered, certainly, but neither does he want to bugger Sherlock. It’s absurd to be grateful for anything right now.
John works at his bound hands as Sherlock prepares himself, sliding a second finger beside the first and rocking his hips as the pleasure makes his cock jump against his belly. John twists his arms damn near out of their sockets, but gets nothing for his trouble but a savage pain in his scarred left shoulder. Breathless with agony and unwilling arousal, he gives up.
‘Why are you doing this?’ he asks, wondering if Sherlock is even capable of responding - the lithe man has three fingers buried to the knuckle and is keening with delight as he scissors them apart. His cock is rock hard and leaking pre-cum down onto his balls.
However, Sherlock’s brain never stops. Pale eyes snap open and glare down at him. ‘You are repetitious tonight, John. Perhaps I should have gagged you.’
The thought of losing the small freedom of fruitless protest that he has fills John once again with intense gratefulness for small mercies.
Sherlock withdraws his fingers with a slow squelch and repositions himself. His cock rubs against John’s as he moves forward and both men groan. John hates himself for responding to the touch. Sherlock raises himself up on his knees and grips John’s length, guiding it.
John makes one last attempt. ‘Don’t do this, Sherlock. I don’t want it. You’ll ruin everything.’ In his aching heart, he knows it is already ruined. The flat will never be home again.
Sherlock huffs impatiently. ‘Stop dissembling, John, or I will make you be quiet.’
John quails briefly at his tone, but he was once a soldier, and he has just one more question to ask. ‘Are you going to kill me, afterwards?’ he asks, voice whisper-quiet and steady.
Sherlock looks genuinely surprised. ‘Of course not!’ he declares. ‘I do love you, you know. You’re the only person who’s ever cared for me, John,’ he whispers, and lowers himself onto John’s cock.
John goes rigid, fighting the awful urge to thrust up into him, to push deeper into that sudden heat. Sherlock is tight, despite his preparation, and he hasn’t added any more lube. If John forces his way in, he could do serious damage. Somewhere in John’s head, that little voice laughs hysterically - he’s worried about injuring Sherlock, after all this? But John is, first and foremost, a good man. He can’t change his considerate nature, even if Sherlock is the last person on Earth he should give a damn about. So he holds still, and breathes around the tears which have begun to flow again, as Sherlock slides inch by inch onto his cock.
Sherlock is hot and tight and muscular, and John is shuddering with need and disgust by the time he is fully seated.
‘God, I haven’t done that in far too long!’ Sherlock breathes, throwing his head back and revelling in the sensations. ‘I feel so full, so utterly invaded by you.’
John sobs a laugh at that. Current position to the contrary, but Sherlock is the invader here, not him.
Sherlock breathes shakily for a few moments, adjusting to the stretch, then rolls his hips and begins to ride.
John rocks his hips up to meet the motion, grinding them together in animal pursuit of pleasure whilst his mind retreats, waiting for it to be over. It does not take long. Sherlock clenches around him at the low point of every lazy rock forwards, and the sensation wrings guttural moans from John’s throat.
Pleasure builds, heat writhing in his belly, muscles tightening until he is sure they must snap. Sherlock gives one last squeeze around him, and John comes, sobbing for breath, hating himself and his former friend more than he has ever hated anyone in his life.
‘Oh, yes, John!’ Sherlock exults, spasming around him. ‘God, that’s so good!’ He takes his cock in hand, gives three hard strokes and cries out his own release.
Hot come splatters John’s stomach, and he wants so badly to wipe it away. He tugs once more against his bonds, then grudgingly gives it up. He will have to wait until Sherlock frees him. He’ll clean up, dress and get the hell out. He can spend the night at Sarah’s. God, Sarah! He can’t face her after this. No, he can’t go there. He cannot go anywhere, but he cannot stay at Baker Street. He can never trust Sherlock again. That hurts - the knowledge that he has lost everything which made life worth living after Afghanistan feels like acid in his chest.
Sherlock’s utter betrayal is more than he can bear, and yet John can hardly imagine going back to life without him. Perhaps he won’t - he still has his gun, after all. John realises with a horrible clarity that he has nothing left to lose. Sherlock said that he wouldn’t kill John - he doesn’t even seem to think he’s done anything wrong! But John isn’t sure he wants to live with this.
After what feels like an age, Sherlock sighs contentedly and slides free of John’s softened cock. He rolls over and lies beside his conquest, face flushed and slack with pleasure.
‘Sherlock, my shoulder hurts. Please, untie me,’ John says, before Sherlock can fall asleep. His voice is dead flat - nothing of his internal torment is audible. He can’t allow Sherlock a reason to leave him tied up.
‘Of course, John,’ Sherlock says. ‘You don’t need the bonds now anyway - you see now, don’t you? It’s so much better to be honest about these things.’ He unties the bonds with languid fingers, and it is all John can do not to flinch at his touch.
John stretches his arms, hissing at the pain in his wounded shoulder after such ill-treatment. His thighs burn, adding a second note to the chord of pain, but the pain in his chest is worst of all. It feels as though his heart is literally breaking. He looks at Sherlock, lying sated and oblivious, and knows there can be no return from this.
When his limbs are obedient again, John cleans himself with a handful of tissues, gets off the bed and grabs his clothes.
Sherlock watches with lazy eyes as he pulls on boxers, jeans, shirt and woollen jumper. He doesn’t bother with shoes and socks - he won’t be needing them. Even the clothes are more a matter of appearance than necessity.
‘What are you doing, John?’ Sherlock asks drowsily. ‘Come back to bed.’
John ignores him. He can barely hear him over the roar of hurt in his head. He opens the drawer of his bedside table and takes out his gun, loads a clip into it and flicks off the safety with quick, sure movements. His hands are dead steady now. He backs away and stands at parade rest at the foot of the bed, out of Sherlock’s reach. He will not be trapped again.
Sherlock is sitting up now, wiping himself off, afterglow shattered by the metallic reality of the gun in John’s hand. He opens his mouth to speak, but John cuts him off.
‘No, Sherlock. Shut up and listen. What you just did was the most despicable act of betrayal I have ever known.’ His voice is steady, words quick and clear. Tears lurk in his eyes but they do not fall. It is too late for tears.
‘I begged you, so many times, to stop, to let me go, and you wouldn’t. You wouldn’t hear me, but you’ll damn well hear me now. Let me state this perfectly clearly: I am not a repressed homosexual. I have always been straight. I do not feel any kind of romantic or sexual attraction to you, and I never have. My admiration of you was purely as a friend. I don’t care what you think you deduced otherwise - you were wrong. Remember, “Harry is short for Harriet”? Your deductions are not always right. You can miss things, and this time you missed a big one because you were too fucking arrogant to listen to me.’ John pauses for breath and looks at Sherlock, hoping to see some proof that he is being heard at last.
There is a look of growing confusion on Sherlock’s face, his usual certainty gone. He is listening.
John takes a shuddering breath and tightens his grip on his gun. ‘You were my best friend, Sherlock. The man who made my life worth living again when everything had gone grey. Now you’ve taken it all away again.’ He breaks off, looks down at the loaded gun and then up at Sherlock, tears bright in his vision. With a pleading tone in his voice, he asks; ‘How could you do that to me?’
There is a look of dawning horror on Sherlock’s face, his pale eyes wide with shock, and John knows that, at last, he has understood what John was trying to tell him. The great Sherlock Holmes got it wrong, and this is infinitely worse than an error on a case.
‘I’m sorry,’ he whispers, raw and broken. ‘I am so sorry.’
John sighs. If only it were so easy. But at least Sherlock understands what he has done to John - that’s all he could ask, now.
‘Some things cannot be undone, Sherlock.’ He looks at the brilliant, flawed man one last time and raises the gun. He presses it against his own head and takes a deep breath. One for the road.
Sherlock starts up from the bed, eyes full of fear. ‘John, no!’
The gunshot is deafening. The rest is silence.
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Non-con, character death, suicide, supreme angst.
Summary: Written for this prompt at the kink meme - "You're the only person who's ever cared for me, John," Sherlock whispered, and lowered himself onto John's cock. Dark!Sherlock (or genuinely believes he's sociopathic!Sherlock) rapes John. Ties him up, drugs him, and rides him.
There's Always Something
John heads upstairs, throwing a ‘Goodnight’ over his shoulder to his flatmate.
Sherlock does not respond, seemingly engrossed in his book. John is unaware of the hungry eyes which flick away from the page to watch him go.
* * * * *
John wakes to a stinging pain in his face. His eyes open just in time for Sherlock to land another resounding slap on his cheek.
‘Ow! Sherlock!’
The pale detective leans away from him, backing off to pace beside the bed. It must be the middle of the night; the room is lit only by the bedside lamp, but Sherlock is fully dressed in purple shirt and black trousers. ‘Finally, John! You have no idea how dull it is watching you loll about unconscious.'
Unconscious? John thinks, then puts the word together with the cottony feeling in his mouth and the fading headache and comes up with; ‘Chloroform.’
Sherlock smiles approvingly. ‘Very good, John. I knew there was a reason I found your company unusually tolerable. You are, of course, completely useless in many ways, but you are at least a good doctor.’
At that, John decides to move - he doesn’t have to lie in his own bed and be insulted - and several facts become instantly, horribly apparent.
He is lying half-propped up on his pillows. His hands are bound - quite firmly, he finds, after a moment’s frantic wriggling - crossed behind him, wrist tied to elbow with soft cord. Attempts to move his legs prove to be no more reassuring. A thin bar of cold metal is lashed behind his knees, forcing his legs wide. John looks down and notes, with an absurd urge to laugh, that the make-shift spreader bar is none other than his old cane, dredged out of some dusty corner of his room.
Last of all, and most damning, when his head clears enough for it to register: John’s pyjamas are gone. He is pinned, naked and vulnerable, under the eyes of his flatmate, and he doesn’t like the look in those eyes at all.
‘Sherlock, what the hell?’ John demands, when this ugly chain of observations is complete.
‘Don’t be asinine, John,’ Sherlock scolds, ceasing his pacing and glaring down at the bound man from the foot of the bed. ‘It is perfectly obvious what’s going on. I’ve decided it’s time to consummate our relationship. You are tied up in order to prevent your damnable reticence getting in the way of what we both want.’
‘Consummate our - ’ John echoes, with a dull sinking feeling in his guts. ‘Sherlock, we don’t have a relationship. We’re friends, yes, but you’re married to your work, and I’m straight. Why else would I be going out with Sarah?’
‘Mind games,’ Sherlock declares, waving a hand dismissively. ‘You’re trying to make me jealous. But really, the way you’ve been looking at me these past few months, you could hardly be more obvious.’
John shakes his head in automatic denial, then thinks of the way he looks at Sherlock when he works, and the cries of “Brilliant!” and “Fantastic!” each deduction draws from his lips. How easy, he sees now, for someone just a little out of step with normality to read them as something more. He swallows around a sudden tightness in his throat. ‘I never meant it like that. Untie me, Sherlock, and we’ll talk about this.’
Sherlock shoots him a condescending look and begins unbuttoning his silk shirt. ‘There really isn’t anything to talk about. I’m going to give you what you want, and then there won’t be all this God-awful sexual tension distracting me from more important matters.’ He strips off the shirt, drops it casually to the floor and unzips his trousers.
John shakes his head against the pillows over and over, not quite believing what’s happening. But the sight of Sherlock’s pale, bare chest, more muscular than his skinny frame suggests, only makes the awful situation more real. The eccentric genius is deadly serious.
‘I don’t want this, Sherlock. I never did,’ John says, keeping his voice as low and even as he can. He won’t - can’t - allow himself to panic. ‘Please, untie me.’
Sherlock ignores him, and pulls down his trousers and shorts in one smooth, swift motion. He is already half-hard; long, thick cock jutting up from inky curls.
John stares at his stiffening length and feels real fear jolt up his spine. Sherlock is big. Even if this was consensual, even if he wanted to, John doesn’t think he could take him. He has never done anything like this before, but he’s seen plenty of cases where it’s gone horribly wrong.
Christ, he’s going to tear me in half, John thinks, and the thought spurs him into action. He isn’t tied to the bed itself, and he rolls, shuffles, inches towards the edge, working his hips and heels for leverage. If he can just roll off and get under the bed, he might be safe. Sherlock would take a while to winkle him out again, and he might have time to talk the man out of this insanity. It’s a desperate strategy, but John almost thinks he’s going to make it.
He’s inches from toppling off the bed when Sherlock grabs his upper arm and drags him back into the middle. Almost instantly, he is on top of John, sitting astride his spread thighs, pinning him in place.
John cringes back from the intense look of lust and concentration on Sherlock’s porcelain face. He is fully hard; red, swollen cock almost touching John’s flaccid length as he leans forward and runs his hands over John’s lightly-furred chest.
‘Sherlock, don’t!’ John begs. He tries to throw the lithe man off, but Sherlock has taken away all his leverage. John is trapped, and dread runs icy down his spine. ‘You’re a good friend - don’t do this to me.’
‘Shh, John,’ Sherlock sighs. ‘You don’t have to lie to me. I deduced everything there is to know about you within thirty seconds of meeting you. Did you really think I would miss the repressed homosexuality? Did you think I wouldn’t know you wanted this?’ He takes John’s cock in one long-fingered hand and works his foreskin, rubbing his thumb over the sensitive head.
John lets out a strangled noise, half moan, half sob. It feels good, though his whole being is yelling that this is wrong, and John feels the first stab of shame in his guts. He’s going to get hard; he knows it just as surely as he knows that Sherlock will take it as proof that John is a willing participant in this atrocity.
‘Please, stop! Don’t touch me!’ John chokes out, even as his cock begins to flush with blood under Sherlock’s deft ministrations. The young man does have obscenely clever hands.
‘Relax, John,’ Sherlock tells him, smoothing his hand round John’s balls and squeezing gently. ‘Doesn’t that feel nice?’
John thrashes his head against the pillow, holding in another moan. ‘No. No, no, no, no!’ he grinds out, sucking air desperately through his nose. Tears well in his blue eyes, shame and betrayal and fear.
Sherlock tuts at his response and leans forward again. He brings his soft lips to John’s groin and swallows his length down.
John yells at the sudden heat and wetness, hips jerking instinctively into Sherlock’s mouth. The pale man hums appreciatively around him, and John sobs at the vibration. It feels so damn good that he can’t fight the rocking of his hips. John is a doctor, he knows his physiological responses don’t equal consent, but still the shame eats at him. He could never tell anyone about this, never explain the truth. Half of their friends think that he and Sherlock have been shagging for months anyway.
Tears roll down over John’s temples as he groans and writhes into Sherlock’s mouth, red hot pleasure torturing him in counterpoint to the searing pain of heartbreak. He’s getting close, balls drawing tight against his body, but Sherlock isn’t going to let him off so easily. He pulls off John’s cock with a wet pop and grins up at him, lips red and slick with spit.
‘How fascinating! Crying during sex is quite an unusual response, John. I should have known you’d be interesting.’
John takes a ragged breath. ‘I’m crying because I don’t want to do this, Sherlock. Let me go.’
Sherlock simply smiles and twists his fingers around John’s spit-slick cock again, drawing another moan from the pinioned doctor. ‘Really, still so repressed?’ Sherlock chides him. He leans sideways and grabs a bottle of lube from beside the bed.
John stiffens, dreading the pain and humiliation still ahead. He can’t take Sherlock without tearing something, he just can’t.
‘I’m sure you’ll feel less conflicted once you’ve been balls-deep in another man,’ Sherlock says brightly, snapping open the bottle and coating his fingers with lube. ‘It really is nothing like being with a woman; you’ll see.’
Balls-deep? John thinks, then catches on. ‘You don’t want - You’re not going to -?’
‘To fuck you? No, I’ve always preferred to receive. I hope you don’t mind. We can always try it the other way another time,’ Sherlock says, and reaches back, sliding a slick finger inside himself with a sigh of pleasure.
John is light-headed with relief, whilst some tiny, rational part of his brain screams that that doesn’t make things any less wrong. He doesn’t want to be buggered, certainly, but neither does he want to bugger Sherlock. It’s absurd to be grateful for anything right now.
John works at his bound hands as Sherlock prepares himself, sliding a second finger beside the first and rocking his hips as the pleasure makes his cock jump against his belly. John twists his arms damn near out of their sockets, but gets nothing for his trouble but a savage pain in his scarred left shoulder. Breathless with agony and unwilling arousal, he gives up.
‘Why are you doing this?’ he asks, wondering if Sherlock is even capable of responding - the lithe man has three fingers buried to the knuckle and is keening with delight as he scissors them apart. His cock is rock hard and leaking pre-cum down onto his balls.
However, Sherlock’s brain never stops. Pale eyes snap open and glare down at him. ‘You are repetitious tonight, John. Perhaps I should have gagged you.’
The thought of losing the small freedom of fruitless protest that he has fills John once again with intense gratefulness for small mercies.
Sherlock withdraws his fingers with a slow squelch and repositions himself. His cock rubs against John’s as he moves forward and both men groan. John hates himself for responding to the touch. Sherlock raises himself up on his knees and grips John’s length, guiding it.
John makes one last attempt. ‘Don’t do this, Sherlock. I don’t want it. You’ll ruin everything.’ In his aching heart, he knows it is already ruined. The flat will never be home again.
Sherlock huffs impatiently. ‘Stop dissembling, John, or I will make you be quiet.’
John quails briefly at his tone, but he was once a soldier, and he has just one more question to ask. ‘Are you going to kill me, afterwards?’ he asks, voice whisper-quiet and steady.
Sherlock looks genuinely surprised. ‘Of course not!’ he declares. ‘I do love you, you know. You’re the only person who’s ever cared for me, John,’ he whispers, and lowers himself onto John’s cock.
John goes rigid, fighting the awful urge to thrust up into him, to push deeper into that sudden heat. Sherlock is tight, despite his preparation, and he hasn’t added any more lube. If John forces his way in, he could do serious damage. Somewhere in John’s head, that little voice laughs hysterically - he’s worried about injuring Sherlock, after all this? But John is, first and foremost, a good man. He can’t change his considerate nature, even if Sherlock is the last person on Earth he should give a damn about. So he holds still, and breathes around the tears which have begun to flow again, as Sherlock slides inch by inch onto his cock.
Sherlock is hot and tight and muscular, and John is shuddering with need and disgust by the time he is fully seated.
‘God, I haven’t done that in far too long!’ Sherlock breathes, throwing his head back and revelling in the sensations. ‘I feel so full, so utterly invaded by you.’
John sobs a laugh at that. Current position to the contrary, but Sherlock is the invader here, not him.
Sherlock breathes shakily for a few moments, adjusting to the stretch, then rolls his hips and begins to ride.
John rocks his hips up to meet the motion, grinding them together in animal pursuit of pleasure whilst his mind retreats, waiting for it to be over. It does not take long. Sherlock clenches around him at the low point of every lazy rock forwards, and the sensation wrings guttural moans from John’s throat.
Pleasure builds, heat writhing in his belly, muscles tightening until he is sure they must snap. Sherlock gives one last squeeze around him, and John comes, sobbing for breath, hating himself and his former friend more than he has ever hated anyone in his life.
‘Oh, yes, John!’ Sherlock exults, spasming around him. ‘God, that’s so good!’ He takes his cock in hand, gives three hard strokes and cries out his own release.
Hot come splatters John’s stomach, and he wants so badly to wipe it away. He tugs once more against his bonds, then grudgingly gives it up. He will have to wait until Sherlock frees him. He’ll clean up, dress and get the hell out. He can spend the night at Sarah’s. God, Sarah! He can’t face her after this. No, he can’t go there. He cannot go anywhere, but he cannot stay at Baker Street. He can never trust Sherlock again. That hurts - the knowledge that he has lost everything which made life worth living after Afghanistan feels like acid in his chest.
Sherlock’s utter betrayal is more than he can bear, and yet John can hardly imagine going back to life without him. Perhaps he won’t - he still has his gun, after all. John realises with a horrible clarity that he has nothing left to lose. Sherlock said that he wouldn’t kill John - he doesn’t even seem to think he’s done anything wrong! But John isn’t sure he wants to live with this.
After what feels like an age, Sherlock sighs contentedly and slides free of John’s softened cock. He rolls over and lies beside his conquest, face flushed and slack with pleasure.
‘Sherlock, my shoulder hurts. Please, untie me,’ John says, before Sherlock can fall asleep. His voice is dead flat - nothing of his internal torment is audible. He can’t allow Sherlock a reason to leave him tied up.
‘Of course, John,’ Sherlock says. ‘You don’t need the bonds now anyway - you see now, don’t you? It’s so much better to be honest about these things.’ He unties the bonds with languid fingers, and it is all John can do not to flinch at his touch.
John stretches his arms, hissing at the pain in his wounded shoulder after such ill-treatment. His thighs burn, adding a second note to the chord of pain, but the pain in his chest is worst of all. It feels as though his heart is literally breaking. He looks at Sherlock, lying sated and oblivious, and knows there can be no return from this.
When his limbs are obedient again, John cleans himself with a handful of tissues, gets off the bed and grabs his clothes.
Sherlock watches with lazy eyes as he pulls on boxers, jeans, shirt and woollen jumper. He doesn’t bother with shoes and socks - he won’t be needing them. Even the clothes are more a matter of appearance than necessity.
‘What are you doing, John?’ Sherlock asks drowsily. ‘Come back to bed.’
John ignores him. He can barely hear him over the roar of hurt in his head. He opens the drawer of his bedside table and takes out his gun, loads a clip into it and flicks off the safety with quick, sure movements. His hands are dead steady now. He backs away and stands at parade rest at the foot of the bed, out of Sherlock’s reach. He will not be trapped again.
Sherlock is sitting up now, wiping himself off, afterglow shattered by the metallic reality of the gun in John’s hand. He opens his mouth to speak, but John cuts him off.
‘No, Sherlock. Shut up and listen. What you just did was the most despicable act of betrayal I have ever known.’ His voice is steady, words quick and clear. Tears lurk in his eyes but they do not fall. It is too late for tears.
‘I begged you, so many times, to stop, to let me go, and you wouldn’t. You wouldn’t hear me, but you’ll damn well hear me now. Let me state this perfectly clearly: I am not a repressed homosexual. I have always been straight. I do not feel any kind of romantic or sexual attraction to you, and I never have. My admiration of you was purely as a friend. I don’t care what you think you deduced otherwise - you were wrong. Remember, “Harry is short for Harriet”? Your deductions are not always right. You can miss things, and this time you missed a big one because you were too fucking arrogant to listen to me.’ John pauses for breath and looks at Sherlock, hoping to see some proof that he is being heard at last.
There is a look of growing confusion on Sherlock’s face, his usual certainty gone. He is listening.
John takes a shuddering breath and tightens his grip on his gun. ‘You were my best friend, Sherlock. The man who made my life worth living again when everything had gone grey. Now you’ve taken it all away again.’ He breaks off, looks down at the loaded gun and then up at Sherlock, tears bright in his vision. With a pleading tone in his voice, he asks; ‘How could you do that to me?’
There is a look of dawning horror on Sherlock’s face, his pale eyes wide with shock, and John knows that, at last, he has understood what John was trying to tell him. The great Sherlock Holmes got it wrong, and this is infinitely worse than an error on a case.
‘I’m sorry,’ he whispers, raw and broken. ‘I am so sorry.’
John sighs. If only it were so easy. But at least Sherlock understands what he has done to John - that’s all he could ask, now.
‘Some things cannot be undone, Sherlock.’ He looks at the brilliant, flawed man one last time and raises the gun. He presses it against his own head and takes a deep breath. One for the road.
Sherlock starts up from the bed, eyes full of fear. ‘John, no!’
The gunshot is deafening. The rest is silence.