Fic for ladyofthelog: Allies

[holmesticemods]

Title: Allies
Recipient: ladyofthelog
Author: [to be revealed]
Characters/Pairings: John/Sarah, John/Sherlock, Sarah/John/Sherlock
Warnings/Content: none

Allies

“Okay, look,” Sarah said, feeling her mouth twitch as she spoke. “The thing between you and Sherlock?”

“Thing? There is no thing,” John said. He was lying on the sofa with his hand on her breast, and the top button of his trousers was undone. Things were going well, things were proceeding nicely. “Cases, yes, always troublesome. Tonight, though, no case, no Sherlock. Phone’s off.”

“Yes, and it’s very kind of you John. Don’t think it’s gone unnoticed. I do appreciate the flowers, the hand-holding, the courtship, it’s all very lovely.” Sarah began to feel something digging into her back and wiggled into a more upright position. It was a book about ants, Sherlock’s presumably, tucked into the sofa cushions.

“Okay,” John said, pulling his hand away from her breast, which now did in fact seem very awkward rather than very sexy. “This is going in a different direction than I thought.” He sat up and scratched his head.

“I like you, I do. But I can’t stop thinking about Sherlock.” There, she said it. She bit her lip.

“What?”

“No. No! Not like... I don’t think about Sherlock. Not like that. But I think you do.”

“I don’t think about Sherlock like anything,” John insisted, eyes going wide. “You’ve gone and ruined a perfectly good mood. Perfectly good.”

“I know, I know,” Sarah said, waving her hands at him. “Calm down.” Sure, she was frustrated, by a lot of things. At the moment, though, she was frustrated with John and his inability to admit that he fancied his flatmate. She was also frustrated with herself and her inability to let John shag her senseless to relieve her sexual frustration. Did it really matter so much that John stayed in his post-Army closet, secretly desiring Sherlock Holmes? If he gave her a good shag or two before he figured it out, who did it hurt? She sighed. “Look, forget it, let’s go back to what we were doing.”

John’s mouth dropped open. “I... you... no.”

“It’s just... I want to sleep with you, but I feel bad about it. I almost feel like I’m keeping you two apart.”

“Sarah,” John said calmly. He took her hand in his. “You are not keeping us apart. Don’t you think it’s rather the other way ‘round? He’s keeping us apart?”

“Honestly?” She tilted her head. “No. I really don’t.” God, she was stupid, she thought. She couldn’t have had this conversation after sex?

The front door slammed shut and footsteps were heard on the stairs. “Bloody hell, what timing,” John muttered. “Out until dawn, he said. He promised.” He looked at Sarah apologetically.

Sherlock brought an icy cold blast of air in with him, scented with stale cigarette smoke and car exhaust. “Crime scene, crime scene, crime scene,” he said, striding into the front room and disarranging his outerwear. A scarf drifted over the coffee table.

“Excuse me,” John said, sounding more tense than usual. “This is not a good time, Sherlock, please for the love of god, go away.”

“No, Sherlock,” Sarah said. “Stay.”

Sherlock looked from one to the other as if he could not possibly process why he should take direction from anyone as to his presence in his own living quarters.

“John, come here, I need you.”

Sarah lifted her eyebrows at John and he vehemently shook his head.

“Sit in this chair so I can tie you up.”

Sarah could feel her mouth quirking in all sorts of ways and in fact John’s mouth was doing roughly the same. He was mostly grimacing, however, and she felt sorry for him. It would have been nice to be the person to kiss that Sherlock-induced grimace away.

“Sherlock, no. Listen to me. No. Sarah and I are in the middle of something, you’re interrupting.”

“Oh, dear me, I am so sorry,” Sherlock said. “Just because there’s been a murder and people have died is no reason to stop trying to get off with your girlfriend, excuse me.” Sarah winced at the condescension in his tone. He could be a right bastard when he wanted to be, which was far too often. She cut him a lot of slack; after all, he’d saved her life. He’d saved John’s life too, and John adored him. Slack she could cut, but that didn’t mean that she was going to put up with him.

“Right, that’s my cue,” she said, getting up from the sofa.

“Sarah. No. Absolutely... no. Sherlock!” John had gone beyond a grimace and was now looking properly dismayed.

“Yes, right. John, you have to tie me up. The dead man was over six feet tall and Sarah can’t leave, there’s a dead woman as well.”

“What does that have to do--” Sarah started.

“What’s interesting is what may have happened post-mortem, and why. There’s no question he’ll kill again. I expect an escalation in fact.” Sherlock had pivoted the desk chair around, assessed it, and was now moving the coffee table away from them. Sarah made a last-ditch effort to grab her wine glass but it was whisked away.

“Stop it!” John shouted, but he was being manhandled out of his seat and a ball of twine was thrust into his hands. He cocked his head at it and then looked up and suddenly winked at Sarah. “Although, Sherlock, tying you up sounds like an ideal plan, and I hope to god there’s a gag involved.”

“No gag,” Sherlock said. He was, as usual, taking everything seriously. He fussed with the chair and pushed a stack of books out of his way. He arranged the chair facing the sofa and waved at Sarah. “You’re on the floor, arm out, facing this way. As if you’ve fallen just... no, wait, no, there. There!”

Perhaps she’d been hypnotized by the fact that Sherlock used her given name instead of telling John to tell his “female companion” what to do. It was oddly disconcerting when he fixed his gaze on her and looked her straight in the eye. She lowered herself to the floor, perpendicular to the chair. His touch, when it came, wasn’t cold as she’d expected, but warm and dry. He circled her wrist with his long fingers and placed her arm out, then gently tilted her head down onto it. Her other arm was crooked and nestled next to her.

“Oi!” John said. “Touching! No touching! I do the touching, not you.”

“Really, John,” Sherlock replied mildly. “I need to get this right. She was an older woman, attractive, but your female companion will have to suffice. Both of them were garroted. It may have been the cause of death, or it may have been something he did to them, after they were dead, to reenact the murders he’d just committed. The striations on their necks were most unusual.”

“I’ve had quite enough,” John said, and ran both hands through his hair. Sarah tried not to giggle, particularly as Sherlock’s hands on her legs were a little ticklish. “You need to examine the bodies. This exercise is worthless and is wasting our time. It’s below you, Sherlock, really.”

“If you think I am doing this to interrupt your little “movie night,” I would say that such a thought is below you John, and certainly unthinkable on my part.” Sherlock rose and moved toward John.

“Because you’ve never done anything petty before,” John said. “Never interrupted any of my dates with some complete and utter nonsense. Is that what you’re saying?”

“Dates?” Sarah inquired. “Not that you can’t date other people, of course --”

“Corpses do not speak!” Sherlock shouted. “If they did, I would be redundant!”

“Don’t talk to her that way!” John was starting to get red in the face and he and Sherlock were squared off where the coffee table had been, both of them clenching and unclenching their fists. Again, Sarah tried not to laugh. It was possible John was seeing other people, but who would he have time for, between her and Sherlock? No, she was sure it was only dates with her that Sherlock saw fit to interrupt. She had long believed it was out of jealousy on Sherlock’s part, whether he was aware of it or not. She had recently begun to theorize that Sherlock was not just jealous of her having more of John’s time, as some of her friends had suggested, but actually, truly jealous of her because he wanted a romantic relationship with John himself.

“I’ll speak to her however I like,” Sherlock sniffed.

“No, you won’t.”

“Gentlemen, the female companion doesn’t mind being told to shut up when she has no intention of following such a directive. But before I fall asleep, do you think you two could get on with it?”

John blushed. “I told you Sarah, we’re not --”

“I meant, John, get on with the deducing so we can catch any murderers at large in London tonight and I can return to my wine. Tie him up, there’s a good lad.” She was enjoying herself, there was no denying it. She flipped her hair back and gave them both a look intended to communicate that she had their number.

They seemed almost meek as they turned to the chair and John made preparations to tie up his flatmate. A few murmured instructions from Sherlock and the job was done. Sherlock’s face took on a look Sarah was familiar with -- a placid, almost alien look, one of detachment from the real world -- as he examined the scene and thought.

John stepped back and watched Sherlock as intently as she was. She knew she wasn’t wrong about them, she just knew. John fancied her, but he was in love with Sherlock. It might take him the rest of his life to realize it, but Sarah would do her best. Maybe they both just needed a nudge in the right direction. Maybe she could use her own attraction to John and his attraction to her to give them that nudge.

Sarah shook her head. What was she thinking? She’d been infected by the insanity in this flat. But oh god, she was kind of turned on.

“John, you know what we were talking about before?” Sarah let her body sink into the horrid carpeting. She stretched out her legs. She ran her hand up her thigh.

“Sorry, what?” John broke his gaze and refocused on her. “Yes, of course I do. We should, um. Save it for later, don’t you think?”

“I want to hear it,” Sherlock said. “Yes, I need to multi-task. Distract me and we shall let the problem unravel itself.” He looked perfectly comfortable, as if he was tied to a chair every day of his life.

“Sherlock, I think it’s better if we just focus on the case right now,” John said. He wrinkled his nose petulantly. “Sarah’s got some mad notion. Well, anyway, it’s not important.”

“It’s very important,” Sarah insisted. “Tell me, Sherlock, if John is portraying the murderer in this scenario, where is he standing?”

“Behind me,” Sherlock answered.

“John, go stand behind Sherlock please.”

“John, do as she says,” Sherlock said. “It will be amusing if nothing else.” Sherlock’s eyes met Sarah’s. She was suddenly struck again by not only the massive ego of the man, but of his frailness as well. He looked both smug and frightened. Did he know what she was up to?

John moved to stand behind Sherlock. “Right then. Sherlock, walk me through what you think happened.”

“He - or she - choked the victim in the chair first. Probably just until he was unconscious. Then garroted him, twice.”

“There you are, John,” Sarah said. “Put your hands on Sherlock’s neck.” John complied, and cast her a mild look. She widened her eyes slightly. “Don’t hurt him unless he deserves it.”

“There isn’t any flatmate alive more deserving of strangulation,” John said, but his hands were tender on Sherlock’s neck.

“Motive,” Sherlock mumbled, returning to his trance-like state and beginning to speak rapid-fire in low tones, processing the variations of the scene. “No, no, wrong!”

“You said he choked the man in the chair.”

“Yes but bruising indicates he used his thumbs on the windpipe, so he was in front of the victim. Face to face.”

“John, move around in front of Sherlock,” Sarah said. John obeyed and then looked at her.

“Now what?”

“Try choking him again.” Sarah was certain she’d never have imagined those words coming from her mouth.

“It’s not altogether the easiest way; why wouldn't he have stood behind him? He wanted to look him in the eye as he killed him?”

“Perhaps,” Sherlock said, as if the obvious didn’t need to be stated.

“I’ve got an idea, Sarah said. “Straddle him, John. Sit on his lap. Then try choking him.”

“No. Not happening.”

“John, do as she says,” Sherlock snapped. John immediately moved closer to Sherlock, casting one more glance at Sarah, this one decidedly less calm, but still accommodating. He straddled the edge of Sherlock’s knees and let his weight rest gently. Then he put his hands again on Sherlock’s neck.

“Closer, John, the killer would have been balanced sturdily on his victim,” Sarah said. “And Sherlock, you try to wiggle and buck him off. This is possible, but we should see how likely it is.” John raised his eyebrows at her and blew breath out of the side of his mouth. Sarah was sure he was feeling like the only sane person in the room but she’d soon fix that. As long as Sherlock stayed on her side.

Several hilarious seconds ensued, during which Sherlock clumsily tried to edge John off of his lap and John clung to the bucking bronco with his sturdy thighs. “Now may I throttle him?” John asked.

“Yes,” Sarah laughed. John arranged his hands in different ways around Sherlock’s neck. Sarah noted how lovely his hands were and wondered, not for the first time, what they’d feel like on her hips. Again, the two men were staring at each other, their faces closer than would normally be comfortable.

“He might have rendered his victim unconscious by cutting off the airflow, then used a string or wire to finish,” Sherlock said. “A very personal murder. Lovers perhaps.”

“The killer was a woman?” John asked.

“Possibly, yes. I had thought the son, but now I must consider a mistress. There was plenty of evidence to support that he had one. I thought it extraneous at the time, because of the woman. She was not his wife, however, so why kill her?”

“She walked in at the wrong time,” Sarah suggested.

“Difficult to manage. Messy. But yes, it’s possible. John my phone.” Indeed, Sherlock’s phone was buzzing inside his trouser pocket. John blushed as he fished it out. He didn’t seem to have any notion of moving from Sherlock’s lap.

“Lestrade,” John said.

“With perfect, almost prescient timing,” Sherlock mused.

“The woman was his mother. They’re backed up at the morgue. The pathologist is doing the post-mortem first thing in the morning.”

“Good, we have all night,” Sarah said. “Poor old mum, goes to visit her boy and gets throttled for her trouble.”

“Can I kill him with the twine now?” John asked. Sarah noted that his voice had gone lower and he was shifting a bit. At last.

John dropped the phone into Sherlock’s shirt pocket, and reached for a length of twine on the desk. He wrapped it around Sherlock’s neck and pulled it taut. It was... distracting. No one spoke. No one moved.

“Tighter,” Sarah breathed.

Sherlock’s neck arched back and he exposed his entire throat to John. The gasp elicited by John’s twine-tightening exercise was unmistakable. Now, things were getting interesting.

Sarah could feel her own breath rasping in her throat and she rubbed her hand along her hip. She had worn the comfortable jeans for the express purpose of lying around on the sofa or the bed, but she really needed to get these boots off - would they notice if she started undressing? Would they notice if she pleasured herself here on their floor while they breathed into each other’s mouths? Well, Sherlock was fond of experiments, wasn’t he?

“Kiss him,” she ordered. And held her breath.

John opened his mouth to protest. He looked at her and she lifted her chin. “Please.”

“Do as she says,” Sherlock said, with what little air he was allowed.

John lowered his mouth first to Sherlock’s neck just above the twine where it was starting to turn pink and planted a tentative kiss there. His fists wound in the twine, keeping it tight, most likely cutting off any further directive Sherlock might have given.

John used his tongue to trace a path along Sherlock’s jawline. She wanted to praise him for that one, but decided it was best to keep her mouth shut for now. She breathed shallowly as John moved up to Sherlock’s mouth. All her suspicions were confirmed as John kissed him fiercely, open-mouthed, resting his fists on Sherlock’s shoulders, but not letting him have any slack.

“He’ll need to breathe, John,” she said softly. John relaxed his grip and let go of the twine, but instead of climbing off of Sherlock, he took Sherlock’s head in his hands and kissed him again. Sherlock arched his back, and Sarah noted his hands in their bonds were trembling.

Several moments passed where Sarah couldn’t think at all, but when her brain came back online she was both disappointed and relieved. Yes, she had just succeeded in pushing the man she was dating into another man’s arms, but thank god he went willingly otherwise she’d have looked a right prat.

Mostly she felt pride. A warm glow was spreading through her. The room suddenly seemed full of a dense, almost tactile emotion. It was like an opium den from a film, filled with smoke and labyrinthine passageways. It was part arousal and part, if she was honest, something to do with Sherlock. He had a strange presence, and feeling the impenetrable wall of his personality give way where she had pushed at it, was akin to winning a particularly long and academic chess game.

There was no mistaking what was going on in front of her. Sherlock and John were pressed together tightly and clearly trying not to rut against each other. John was an excellent kisser, this she already knew. She had only been able to ascertain a few things about his cock through surreptitious glances and accidental brushes, and had thought that tonight she’d be getting intimately familiar with it. It was getting hot in the flat, and no one was looking at her, so she undid a few buttons on her shirt, and then reached down to unlace the completely impractical high-heeled boots she’d chosen to wear. She was working on boot number two when Sherlock let out a gasp.

“God, John, it’s…”

“Shh,” John responded.

“Oh,” he moaned. Based on the full body shudder, Sarah was certain he’d just come. John looked completely shocked.

Sarah rolled over to lay on her back and breathed out. This was not an ideal scenario. Sherlock had gotten off and she and John were back to square one. Sherlock was panting in a post-orgasmic haze and John slid off his lap and stood up, obviously aroused and confused.

“John, don’t be an idiot,” Sherlock snapped. “It’s Sarah’s turn.”

John didn’t miss a beat, bless him. He slid to the floor and looked down at her. She nodded mutely, and guided his hand to her waist. He quickly undid the top of her jeans and then leaned down to kiss her. It wasn’t anything like his previous kisses. It was hot and dirty. He captured her mouth completely and the feel of his tongue insistent against hers was heavenly. She had been turned on for what felt like days, so when his hand slid down inside her underwear his fingers were immediately slippery against her clit. He didn’t let her move her head, didn’t let her breathe, just devoured her mouth and pushed his fingers inside her. He gets off on control, she thought wildly, readjusting her fleeting impressions of John as a gentlemanly lover. She pictured him rutting against Sherlock and knew the two of them would reenact that scenario over and over if they weren’t complete idiots and managed to become lovers.

John’s hands weren’t a disappointment. He knew where to press and how much to thrust and managed to keep pressure on her clit at the same time. When he sucked her tongue into his mouth she came, bucking wildly beneath him and hearing something that sounded like encouragement from Sherlock.

John kissed her until she had to turn her head away to catch her breath. She bit her lip to keep from swearing, although why that was necessary now, she had no idea. The whole thing had been decidedly un-ladylike.

“Sarah, cut me free.” Sherlock was staring at her with his intense eyes. She stared back for a split second before realizing what he was asking. Poor John.

John’s pocketknife was located and Sherlock was cut free. Then the three of them stood and looked at each other. Sarah took charge again before it could get any more awkward and moved to stand behind John. She put her arms around him and unbuttoned his shirt. Sherlock lifted shaking fingers to John’s chest. The idea of unwrapping John for Sherlock was a little strange, a little breathtaking.

“Okay,” she said, “okay.” She was shaking too as she removed John’s belt and undid his jeans. Sherlock seemed unsure - the first time she had ever seen that - so she took his hand and put it on John’s cock. She briefly wondered if all this classified her as some sort of perv, and in fact, the urge was strong to grab Sherlock’s hair and push him to his knees, but… well, she had had a threesome in her twenties, with a boy and another girl, and this was just a grown-up version of that. Wasn’t it?

Sherlock seemed to be getting the gist of the hand-job so she wound her arms around John’s chest and held him tightly, breathing reassurance into his shoulder blade. She rubbed her lips against the ridge of his scar. John possessed more stamina than either of them, so Sarah had several long minutes to soak up the afterglow and the smell of John and Sherlock and sex. John came with a quiet whimper and Sherlock swallowed the sound with a kiss.

They rearranged their clothing and cleaned up in silence.

“I have Sarah to thank,” Sherlock began.

“Look, it’s not… you don’t have to say anything,” Sarah said quickly.

“Twine was of course a stand-in, a reliable guess, as I didn’t know what the murder weapon was,” Sherlock continued, plucking his phone from his disheveled shirt pocket.

“Sorry, you’re talking about twine?” John had a glazed look about him that was entirely appropriate to how Sarah was feeling.

“Not twine,” he continued. “Boot laces!”

“What?” John was the last one in the room to catch on.

“When Sarah took her boots off. Christ, that was amazing. Don’t you think we ought to offer our guest some tea, John?”

“If wife is wearing boots, arrest wife.” Sherlock recited as he texted. “Two for one. Husband and meddling mother-in-law. The mistress was next. Cheap laces, kept snapping, forcing her to…”

“Plenty of women wear boots,” John pointed out.

Sherlock glared. “Our guest is thirsty, John.”

“I… actually, I do fancy a cuppa,” Sarah said, shuffling over to the sofa and sitting down. She had to do up the boots again. “So you solved the case when I took my boots off… which was right around the time that you…”

“A happy coincidence,” Sherlock said. He moved to the sofa as well and sat down next to her. Would wonders never cease? John was now rattling around in the kitchen creating pleasant domestic sounds.

“Right. Well, I suppose I ought to thank you for waiting until everyone had their respective happy coincidences to tie up the case, if you’ll excuse the pun.”

Sherlock looked disappointed at her attempt at levity. “I’m not a monster, Sarah.” She chuckled. “And I do sincerely thank you.” They shared a small, secret smile.

Twenty minutes later and Sarah was ready to go home. Tea had been quaffed and Sherlock was marching up and down the now-wrecked flat, yelling into his phone about boot laces and bodies. John had been a bit sheepish at first but then they had settled down to watch the show. Sherlock was putting on a good one.

“Must get home,” she finally said. At the door she kissed John quickly on the lips and reached around him to run her fingernails lightly against Sherlock’s expensive shirt, not risking any further intimacy. “Bye, boys.”

As the door swung shut behind her she could hear Sherlock say, “John, we really must have Sarah around again soon.”

end