A Mechanical Man - Holmes/Watson - NC-17
Title: A Mechanical Man
Rating: NC-17
Fandom; Pairing: Sherlock Holmes 2009 (Steampunk AU with lots of book influence), Holmes/Watson
Word Count: 6,222
Disclaimer: Full disclaimer in my profile. I don't own the story or characters. They belong to Marvel Comics.
Warnings: Steampunk, AU, prosthetic limb as a focal point of the fic, amputated limb, fetishization of disability or of things with gears that go whirr (either way it's suspect), sexual content and language, Britishness, and also, VICTORIAN WRITING STYLE. Oh god.
Happy birthday, skuldchan, you so awesome!!
Summary: So, this was going to be a subplot to a larger story in which Holmes and Watson in a Steampunk London tried to solve the murder of an industrialist and philanthropist whose groundskeeper has been framed for the crime. It involved a villain named Peerybingle, who was a douche, and a really awesome Irish lady who was trying to spare her husband's life and a guy who was too nice to keep in his own money. The social structure was exaggerated from the suckiness of Victorian Britain, as the working class laborers were mostly mechanically modified to be better workers (truly treating the people as machines of production) and it was basically going to be Holmes bitches about why racism and classism and religion are kind of stupid, because they blind people to the truth of things like murder and were also keeping him from banging Watson. He starts poking the mechanical leg with the defense that understanding it will help him understand how mechanical modifications and limbs play a part in the case (which they do, but he's mostly trying to get into Watson's pants).
I failed at writing that, so just have the subplot of romance and PORN.
It was Dr. John H. Watson’s daily ritual to go to bed early and rise late for a separate breakfast prepared by Mrs. Hudson. As a matter of his nightly rituals, he washed his hands, arms, neck, and face after stripping down to his braces and trousers. He hid his deformity at all costs, Holmes knew, lest he should happen to rap upon the door and call Watson away from his toliet. To his own admittance, Holmes had occasionally done just such a thing as this and so, if Watson’s goal was to conceal his leg from Holmes’ eyes, he made an effort worthy of a man of the Queen’s army.
But what he concealed from Holmes’ eyes, he could not conceal from his mind or, for that matter, his ears. They were, after all, exceedingly sensitive, particularly to sounds which were out of place in their surroundings. For instance, the sliding of greased metal, the tightening of springs, and the whir of precision cogs were all very curious sounds to be heard in the vicinity of a lamed surgeon’s knee.
The hour was creeping past eleven and Holmes knew Watson was asleep, could hear the calmness of it all even through the door. He gently tested the lock while the doctor started a bit of snoring and rubbed unconsciously at his mustache, mussing all the trim hairs. The lock was easy to pick, being an indoor lock. Honestly, a harsh tug would have probably jostled the levers out of place and opened the lock, but the same would have easily woken Watson from a restless sleep.
Indeed, Watson turned this way and that on his bed, throwing sheets off and then pulling them back, like a feverish child. Holmes’ natural curiosity often wondered what dreams fevered him so, but Watson’s propriety would never admit to such secrets, just as he had said, “It’s only a limp, the result of a bullet graze to the thigh. ” Certainly, it was not a lie, but it was also not a whole truth.
He slid the door open very delicately and Watson was none the wiser. He lifted it like a common criminal takes a monogrammed bit of fabric from a pocket in the busy streets of the city, and then settled into the chair by Watson’s metal rack for his polished shoes.
Holmes set his leather tool case against the sill with a little clatter and, after a moment of sheer amazement and self-centered pleasure, went to work. Watson, for his part, tossed a bit in bed, snoring softly. He coughed a bit and pawed at his own face in his sleep. He heard the clicking and scraping of metal in his dreams and it made his flesh crawl, until the insect like feeling of small metallic sounds was too much to ignore.
Blearily, Watson opened his eyes. At first, the vision of Holmes sitting in the corner with his leg-his leg-upon his lap seemed like only another part of some strange, terrible dream. The mud and fog of a restless sleep cleared, as if with warm sun, and he saw that Holmes had even lit himself a lamp. Watson rolled onto his good hip and fumbled for the striker of the oil lamp on his nightstand. Once there was further light upon the situation, Watson cleared his throat to speak.
“Return that to me at once, Holmes.”
Holmes spared Watson a glance and then returned to his work explaining, “Really, I can’t. It would be of no use to you until I replaced the component parts of the knee and reconnected the socket to this unidentifiable apparatus here.”
Watson cleared his throat and repeated, “Holmes.”
This time the detective, hard at work unraveling the mysteries of his friend’s mechanical limb, did not even look up. He continued to pull out cogs and springs, setting them without a semblance of order-though Watson knew that was not the case, it only appeared to be a total catastrophe.
“Now, now, Watson, this is purely a scientific inquiry, very significant to our current case,” he offered. It was what passed for reassurance, but the quirk of a smile upon Holmes’ lips showed him to be a liar. Even to someone without Sherlock Holmes’ skills for deduction.
“I assure you, I had already assumed as much,” Watson replied, dry and curt.
Holmes took a deep breath, about to lie to Watson as he did to all number of people in the name of what Watson usually recognized as justice. This time it did not sit so comfortably with him.
“Who knows what scientific benefits such a sophisticated prosthesis, previously unknown of that I can assure you, would bring about? It is quite beyond the enhancements offered to the working class, Watson,” Holmes began to prattle on. “But it is comparable enough to serve useful in the increase of strength compared to a fleshy body. Yet, with this limb, you retain a limp. I have some mechanical skill, you know, and I might be able to resolve that.”
“And it had nothing to do with fulfilling your personal curiosity,” Watson offered. “Of course.”
Holmes looked up then and smiled, as if he was charmed by Watson’s knowledge of his character. Sherlock Holmes took a great deal of time getting to know people, from a distance, but few people took any time to know him. It was still a bit shocking that Watson knew him so well.
“Oh, Dr. Watson, it had everything to do with fulfilling my personal curiosity,” he explained. “I held out quite a long time, though, did I not?”
The look on Holmes’ face said that he was very proud of himself. Watson considered throwing a pillow at his smug countenance, but the small satisfaction of an act like that would demean the severity of this invasion of his privacy and might endanger his leg’s delicate mechanisms.
“You did. Now,” Watson explained. “I ask that you please leave.”
Holmes had already turned back to his work.
“Since the choice is rather in my hands, I would prefer not to,” he said. Some part of him recognized that Watson was becoming incensed. But, Holmes rationalized, if Watson was already growing angry with him, then it was already too late. It had been too late, he surmised, from the very moment that Watson had awakened. He should have been prepared for this. He should have taken the leg into the sitting room. But then again, who knew how many hours he might pass in distraction? Watson would surely have been even angrier if he’d woken to no leg at all, rather than this incriminating tableau.
This was, in Holmes’ understanding, the last opportunity he’d have to unravel the secrets of Dr. John Watson before he doubtlessly caught the first coach out of the city.
“Leave,” Watson demanded. He pulled the sheets about himself like a woman caught indecently and glowered at Holmes, who refused to meet his eyes. He hated him for remaining so calm, so very calm, picking apart the object that felt, by now, as much a part of him as his own flesh. It was, Watson thought, only a thing to Holmes, as a corpse was. The inevitable would come after this, Watson knew, and he would prefer to be left to rest, have his leg unharmed, and be able to pack his things in the morning instead of at midnight.
“No,” Holmes replied.
“And why not?” Watson asked. Holmes refused to look at him, making Watson feel even more like a thing. He considered the location of his service pistol, but he had too much respect for Holmes, he hoped, to resort to frightening him off with a misaimed gunshot, like a common thug.
“Firstly, because I am not done with your leg here and if I leave now I will never understand how it works,” Holmes explained himself the way he explained his deductions, with an unhealthy helping of patronization and pride that had become normal to Watson’s ears. “Secondly, because with your secrets revealed to me, you will certainly wish to bow out of our domestic arrangement. Thirdly, you can’t rightly have it when I’ve taken it half apart like this.”
Not all of the decorum in the world could restrain John Watson’s bark of laughter.
“Surely you’re joking, Holmes.” At that, Holmes deigned to look up from his work.
“I am quite serious,” he said, looking quite serious indeed. “Your prosthetic is not in functioning order at the moment and your talents are not for the biological repair of objects, not the mechanical. Also, you are two and a quarter meters away, Watson, you would never reach it.”
“I meant.” Watson began to reply. He stopped himself and threw up one open hand in surrender.
“Ah, what does it matter what I meant?” Watson said, feeling something more than frustration. “You’ll take your own meaning regardless.” It was a something that he could not quite identify, but it was tinged with sadness more than anger.
“Perhaps, I would,” Holmes replied. “And, perhaps, I would not. I try not to make presuppositions.” He tried to regard both the mechanical limb and the mechanical limb’s owner at the same time and, failing, decided that, at the moment, the owner was the more interesting case for study.
“Yes, I’m certain you believe that,” Watson said. “But you are only a man, Holmes, and it is in the nature of men to make… certain judgments.”
His face darkened. Shame, Holmes realized, and a touch of anger and regret having to do with Holmes’ work at the mechanical limb. Not the limb itself, for that did not fit the character of Watson-whose propriety could regularly flex for Holmes’ benefit, but some catalytic combination of the limb and himself. Holmes felt as if there were sparks of light or flocks of birds inside his skull. It was a feeling he quite enjoyed, actually, and hungered after the stimulation, the work, and this, this sensation, was the reward.
“Many men, including yourself, have observed that I am less of a man and more of a,” Holmes paused. “What did one fellow say? A calculator on legs.” He regarded Watson carefully and took in the way he shook his head, scoffing.
“Holmes, you seem the last person to take that sort of schoolboy behavior to heart,” Watson argued. Holmes’ subtle strike was not a deep enough cut to disarm this opponent then.
“Oh, I don’t, but it would seem that you do, concealing this leg as you do,” he offered, cutting to the quick.
Watson took a sharp breath that he assumed would not be apparent. Of course, it was.
An uncharacteristic softness overcame Holmes. “It’s a trophy, Watson, not some kind of blight.”
“You would say that.” He laughed. “I have been quite ridiculous about this whole affair, haven’t I?”
“It is quite natural, from what I’ve observed,” Holmes said, looking back to the leg. “I don’t understand it all, but I wouldn’t be concerned over it, mother hen.”
Watson sat up and leaned out over the ledge of his bed towards Holmes.
“You find my leg intriguing, do you?” he asked, his pessimistic mood shifting away.
“It is more than intriguing, Watson,” Holmes offered, unable to remove himself from his subject now. “It is beautiful. Not as efficient as flesh and bone, but flesh and bone are rather unreliable, aren’t they, doctor?”
Watson smiled. He quite agreed, actually. Never had someone so easily captured the truth of the limb. It was a marvel, perhaps not perfection, but his other leg felt its quivers from time to time, just as the mechanical leg occasionally caused him pain or popped a spring.
“Have you ever had a chance to look within it?” Holmes asked.
His excitement was so palatable it seemed to light up the room. He looked up and was unsure what exactly to make of Watson’s expression. It was genuine, but Holmes’ interest in body language was limited to anger, rage, desperation, and the difference between a truth and a lie. Whatever this was, it was beyond him.
“Yes, of course,” Watson said, realizing Holmes’ oddness.
The man carefully gathered up the parts he had extricated from the mechanical leg and moved them first to a careful place upon Watson’s bedspread. Then he lay out his tools. Finally he returned to Watson’s bedside with the limb itself, hollows in the space of its knee joint and the area where it attached to what remained of Watson’s thigh.
All in place, Holmes settled himself on Watson’s bed quite naturally, the mattress sinking under his weight. Watson adjusted himself around Holmes’ body in order to see just what Holmes had done to his limb.
“Now see,” Holmes began. “I can determine from this structure on the socket which you attach to your thigh that the machine relies not only on the contractions of your muscles, but on the electrochemical processes of them, as well.”
As he pointed this out he gathered up the screws, which attached the locking apparatus and put it back in place. Watson huffed a sigh of relief that it went back just exactly as it always had been. The hair on the back of Holmes’ neck stood up. He moved on to the next point of interest.
“These mercury vials and the connected pivots are the means of the exceptional balance it offers. Such structures are used to keep copper automatons from toppling,” he explained, turning his head slightly towards Watson’s. Outside of a coach, perhaps, they had never been so close. Watson was not looking at him, though, but at the mercury vials that Holmes had pointed out.
“But I have not gotten past the knee yet,” Holmes said, putting back the mechanisms that had hidden the mercury vials away. “And so I have no idea what purpose the arch and toes serve, because I am certain such an elaborate construction in them would not simply be to fill a shoe of your size.”
Holmes placed the polished metal cover over the upper thigh of the mechanical leg and deftly screwed it back in place.
“It is another means of balance,” Watson explained. “And aids in the smoothness of walking.”
“Well, of course,” Holmes said, giving him a patronizing look. “The question is not what they do, but how they do it.”
He reached out and rested his hand casually on Watson’s foreshortened thigh underneath his bed sheets.
“You could, perhaps, remove your hand from my thigh,” Watson said.
“Apologies,” Holmes said, removing it slowly. “I was quite distracted. You know how it can be at dissections and such. There are so many parts, all so delicate and beautiful.”
“You continue to call it that,” Watson said. Holmes regarded his furrowed brows and Watson, in turn, regarded the look of curiosity in Holmes’ eyes. They both struggled to understand one another faster than the other.
“Beautiful?” Holmes asked.
“Yes,” Watson said.
Then he stopped, his brow furrowing in a way that made Holmes slightly agitated, and smiled. The agitation did not fade, unfortunately, and he sense the time was growing to return Watson’s limb to him and let the other man sleep.
“You are a most exceptional man,” Watson said, stroking his pride like a housecat.
“Of course I am,” Holmes said, smiling back.
Slowly, he turned back to the limb and continued to put the pieces of it back exactly as he had found them. Watson watched, continually impressed by the chaos of Holmes’ chosen organizational system. Still, he didn’t misplace a single screw or cog, he barely even smudged the metal plates with his fingerprints. He was meticulous and it was fascinating. He was himself fascinated with his limb, though he understood implicitly that no other man would feel the same. Now, here was Sherlock Holmes. He had his flaws, but they were tolerable things, which Holmes himself tried to compensate for and which could only inspire sympathy once a man realized how intelligent and humorous the man was.
He thought it was beautiful.
Holmes couldn’t help but note that Watson had not backed away, though in his excitement he had crossed more lines than he thought even the most flexible John Watson would tolerate. Perhaps he had underestimated the doctor. If that was the case, then he was even a more worthy acquaintance than he had been assessed as initially. It made Holmes smile to himself in a stilted way. Then he looked at Watson and Watson was looking at him. His mind rushed ahead of him again.
“I ought to leave you to your rest,” Holmes offered. “You seem to require a great deal of it.”
“Yes, I suppose I do in comparison to you,” Watson said, not at all sensing some discomfort in the atmosphere. Perhaps it was because he was so tired, or because of his profound relief that the strange events of tonight were nothing more than the usual complications of life with Sherlock Holmes. Even then, at least there was no bloodshed.
“Good night, Watson,” Holmes offered, setting the limb closely within Watson’s reach from his bed.
“Good night, Holmes.”
He hurried away to his rooms, to his violin, to his thoughts.
Sleep overcame him at some point, but he woke with a start in the sitting room with his violin still in his hand. He hurried to his room to conceal this fact from anyone who may have ventured in. Mrs. Hudson rose at four to begin preparing his breakfast. Holmes could only hope that she had not passed through the sitting room at any point since rising, as it was after four according to the clock on the mantel. It was much earlier than Watson ever rose and it would be simple to conceal that he had slept in the sitting room. Watson had been here for some months and had not yet noticed that peculiarity in Holmes’ habits, especially those that involved sleeping nearer to Watson’s rooms than his own. In his own defense, it rarely happened. Holmes would never make a point of it, but if he had to he would point out that Watson was a great deal more vocal in his nightmares than he knew. It was terribly unfair to hold the oddities of a man’s sleep against him, but Holmes did not doubt that Watson would have a fuss if he found Holmes sleeping in an armchair instead of a bed. He was that sort of a man.
That day, after a quiet breakfast alone, Sherlock Holmes left the house looking rather less like a famous detective and rather more like an accountant at least a decade Mr. Holmes’ senior. He even had the glasses for the job, with formulas etched into the glass around the edges. It would be very convenient.
He returned that night looking more like himself and, self-satisfied, he lit a pipe.
“Will you deign to tell me where you have been all day?” Watson asked. “And what you have been doing?”
“Accounting,” Holmes said. Watson made a face.
“I cannot imagine a dryer occupation,” he admitted when Holmes gave him a questioning look.
“At your level of education, Watson, I would have thought you would be quite comfortable with numbers,” Holmes said.
“I am,” Watson said, clearly on the defensive. “But they bore me. I do not understand how you could have not been bored beyond reason.”
“I am never beyond reason,” Holmes said proudly. “Though a certain amount of blood makes accounting a much more interesting hobby.”
Watson rolled his eyes at Holmes’ morbid little quirk and pardoned himself from helping out Holmes today or any of the following days when he would be elbow deep in the client’s and suspects’ accounts. Over the course of these days, Holmes seemed to make up his absence during the day by visiting Watson’s room after dinner to toil away with the limb. He would hover at the door until Watson was washed and dressed for bed, then he would let himself in and go to work without looking at the doctor.
After Watson had settled in bed, Holmes might come over and sit on top of the sheets and show off anything interesting, chattering the entire time. If one hand was free, it was always resting on the sudden stop of Watson’s thigh. Holmes’ thumb left grease and acid stains on Mrs. Hudson’s sheets right where the cleft of Watson’s scar rested beneath them.
On the eight night of this, Holmes turned to him and said, “I want to see it on you.”
Watson arched a brow and watched the detective, also accountant, also mechanic, cough slightly and point the artificial socket in his direction.
“To understand how it works,” Holmes said. “Of course.” His hand was warm on Watson’s leg, even through sheets and a nightgown.
“All right,” Watson consented, though he couldn’t have explained why, except that it was Sherlock Holmes and the man held some kind of sway over him. “Hand it back to me then.”
Watson took the proffered limb back and was a bit astonished at the way that Holmes yanked down the bed sheets. Watson tucked the limb under his nightgown rather than bare his thigh as he would have without Holmes there. He couldn’t have said why exactly, but the intensity of Holmes’ focus… He did not want that on his bare flesh, that was all.
After pulling the leather strap about the flesh of his thigh and tightening it, rather like a woman’s garter, and then twisted the mechanism that connected the limb physically into the flesh of his thigh. It only hurt for a moment and he did not even wince, though Holmes did.
Sherlock Holmes’ hands were efficient and interested, he kept his eyes on everything he touched. The awful feeling of objectification fell over Watson again, especially as Holmes’ hands crept higher and higher. The man inched closer towards him on the bed and Watson kept himself calm and reclined. Holmes was only being himself, he thought, there was no reason to be uncomfortable. He was perfectly able to lay down the law if it was required. But then Holmes’ fingers brushed the edge where metal met skin, blindly exploring the whole circumference, and Watson realized that, though Holmes was certainly applying his strange aesthetic principles of beauty and fully engrossed in his own curiosity and, therefore, did not know what he was doing, he was totally unable to tell the man he should stop.
Half of Holmes’ palm rested against Watson’s leg and he did his best to pretend he was ignoring it, though by then his single-minded friend was well leaning over him on the bed. Holmes knew that he had gone too far and, once again, his mind was plagued with images of Watson packing up all his journals and his cane and leaving him in quite the lurch. At this point, though, he probably deserved it. But if he was going to deserve it, he theorized, he might as well deserve it wholeheartedly.
He lifted a hand to tug at his undone collar and leaned towards his dear ol’ Watson’s face until they shared one breath.
“My experience in the back alleys of London and the Common Law of the Empire suggest to me that what I am about to do is a rather inadvisable course of action, however,” Holmes said, without pausing for a breath. “All that is based upon a lot of things which I cannot be bothered to care about and it forbids something which I seem to care quite a bit for right now.”
“You’re rambling, Holmes,” Watson said, struggling to keep his face calm and mildly disapproving.
“I know,” he confessed. “I’m rather excited at the moment.”
There was a difficult moment for them both, which was quite smashed by Holmes’ declaration of “Inadvisable or not, I’m going to do it.” And then they kissed.
Certainly, Holmes lead the kiss at first, having leaned in and taken it, but Watson had, by that time, almost expected it. He felt as if he must have leaned up into that kiss and he quickly found his hands gripping Holmes by his shirtfront to hold him in place.
“I,” Holmes began to say. There was a long pause after they broke the kiss. Watson was shocked by it, but clearly not as shocked as Holmes himself. Having the upper hand, Watson took it, though Holmes seemed to expect that.
“You’ve rendered me rather speechless,” Holmes admitted, ironically enough. His mind rushed ahead of himself so quickly, excited as it was by the occurrence of the impossible that it was ultimately unable to form a single coherent thought.
Watson sighed.
“Well, then, shut up,” he said and his third kiss was quite violent. His wonderfully attractive mustache scratched against the day’s accumulation of stubble on Holmes’ upper lip. Holmes could feel his pupils dilating, his heart pounding, and his breath becoming quite labored. Watson worried slightly for the way Holmes seemed to shake, except for that hand that dug its fingers into the remaining muscle of his leg, which was quite steady.
“Holmes?” he asked. “Are you quite alright?” It was a natural impulse, as the only man alive who seemed to care for Holmes, occasionally, rather delicate disposition, the result of too many mysterious substances and not enough sleep or food. Still, he felt foolish for having asked while they were in such an intimate position.
“I am not alright,” Holmes confessed. His words were a hot caress of breath against Watson’s lips.
“What?” Watson asked. His body tensed and he found himself groping away at Holmes’ body for some invisible infirmity. At this Sherlock Holmes, the manipulative prick that he could be, smirked sharply and pressed the surprisingly stiff length of his arousal against Watson’s hip.
John Watson could not restrain his exasperated sigh.
“You should not be so aroused from three kisses,” Watson pointed out. “But I wouldn’t be surprised if you were a quick shot.”
Holmes pouted at him, pressing in for another kiss. “It is your prowess, Doctor, as a man.”
Watson scoffed, “No, it is your perversion clearly.”
Holmes’ lascivious was his only reply, though he seemed to nod in agreement as he pulled the sheets away. John Watson had not blushed at another man see his nakedness since his earliest childhood, as a result of military life and injury, but the palpable lust in the look that Holmes’ gave his naked legs, flesh and mechanical equally, made him feel confused, slightly afraid, and terribly aroused. It brought a stinging flush to his face, which only made Holmes’ look grow stronger when he observed it.
“To think,” Watson said. “A week ago, I feared you would be disgusted by me.”
Holmes only smiled. “A week ago, my friend, I thought you would be disgusted by me. And the week before that, and that and that and that.”
“I am frequently disgusted by you, Holmes,” Watson confessed. “But only when you work with the sulfur in your lab.”
“Well then I am also disgusted with myself,” Holmes laughed. “It’s quite foul.”
He said all this as if he was not urgently pressing hot arousal against Watson’s skin through is trousers and as if his eyes did not rake across Watson’s body like devil’s claws. Holmes lifted the mechanical leg, which Watson obligingly bent up towards him, and pressed his mouth against the same arched foot he had previously taken to bits. The flash of Holmes tongue against the brass and the way the weight of metal pressed against the man’s lips made Watson’s breath come short. A very talented, if scarred and calloused hand, began to massage his member, rousing it from sleepy interest to turgid need faster than Watson was prepared for.
“Do you know what you’re doing?” Watson asked.
“No,” Holmes admitted. “I’ve never done anything like this before.”
“I have,” Watson said. Holmes swallowed and his breath grew stuttered. He seemed to be imaging just such a thing in his quick mind and, indeed, he was. The idea that Watson had desired and even been with other men seemed impossible, considering the pure character of the man that endured all flexibilities that Holmes required in the morals of others. Preferring to ignore his partner’s other lovers, Holmes instead, finally, allowed his rich imagination to explore the reality of Watson as a sensually debauched creature, capable of buggery and sodomy and a great deal things ending in -y. He wanted them all right away, of course, but settled for flipping Watson’s gown up over his belly as the man unbuttoned his shirt and trousers.
Irene teased him often as she could, but Holmes was shaking with the touch of Watson’s hand firmly gripping his arousal. Watson knew, from the look in his eyes, that it was something novel-very interesting evidence often elicited the same look, a realization which immediately stripped every future case they would have of some previous innocence.
His figure had a lean look to it, with muscles laid bare on bones and nothing comforting to him. Still, Holmes was as captivating as he was eccentric, in his beauty as well as his behavior. He was stubbornly holding in some pleading as Watson caressed muscles as sharply defined as an anatomical model’s, but that stubbornness crumbled into whimpers once he’d wrapped the mechanical leg about Holmes’ waist and drawn their bodies so closely together that their pricks ground against each other.
“Oh, Watson,” Holmes begged against the flesh of his clothed shoulder. “Please, I need you.” As always, Holmes’ desperation made him feel quite flattered and inclined to oblige him, whatever madness it might bring.
Holmes’ urgent arousal, brought on by some unnatural desire for Watson’s mechanical limb, by the intimate position they’d shared for a week of nights, and by the machinations of his fevered mind, ground hard against Watson’s. He thrust his hips with abandoned and, though aroused, Watson kept his wits about him, coaxing Holmes along with the filthiest encouragement he could muster.
“Come already, Holmes. I know you want more, want me to bugger you. Tomorrow night, I promise, I’ll give you the fuck of your life.” Well, he had been an army man, after all.
Holmes dug his fingers almost painfully into the ridges of Watson’s hips, hard enough that they both knew that there would be terribly bruises in a day’s time, but neither was sorry for it. Watson took a fistful of Holmes’ wild hair and held him tight as he spilled his seed across their hips and up Watson’s belly. He hissed, keeping his jaw and teeth tightly shut around whatever cry he wanted to make, and only relaxed after he was quite spent.
“I,” Holmes panted into Watson’s ear. It seemed at first to me a simple noise, the meaningless babble of a man overcome with fleshy pleasure. But then it became a word, “I want.”
“What?” Watson asked, his member achingly stiff under Holmes’ limp weight. Holmes kissed him then, with a hungry, open mouth that begged for Watson’s firmest attentions. Holmes scraped his teeth against Watson’s lower lip, sucked hungrily on his tongue, as if he had not just found his release.
“Never mind,” Holmes said, his breath coming in heavy pants still. “No talking. Just trust me.”
Watson wanted to protest, but Holmes was quite nimble for a man covered in the sweat of sex and still trying to catch his breath. The man arranged himself with a metal knee over his shoulder and one hand pressing Watson’s other leg against the mattress.
There was a very, very wicked look, full of fire and mischief, and then Holmes flicked his tongue against the wetness of his own release against Watson’s skin. It was such an unexpectedly debauched action from a self-professed virgin that Watson felt himself growing faint, surely from the rush of blood away from the rest of his body towards his cock.
“What are you doing?” Watson asked, knowing full well what Holmes was doing, but unsure whether Holmes knew for certain.
“Hush,” Holmes chided. “I told you, no talking.”
Then he opened his clever, clever mouth and wrapped his lips around Watson’s member and, indeed, there was no talking. For a moment, there could only be shocked gasps. Watson found his fingers in Holmes’ hair again, which was tangled in a way that was extremely tempting for his usually gentle hands. Holmes was not as talented as some partners who had offered this selfless service to Watson, but he was absolutely the most enthusiastic. It was, again, as if he had not been drained of an ounce of that ravenous passion, for he moaned around Watson’s most sensitive flesh and left him in convulsions.
“Holmes,” Watson choked out. “God, Holmes. You needn’t do this.” But clearly he did, for he kept his hands upon both of Watson’s legs, caressing, gripping, and simply touching, and worked at Watson’s arousal with only his very eager mouth. His was quiet loud, with his moaning, compared to Watson’s hitching breath and occasional unheeded protest. He kept his eyes closed in his intense focus, though Watson could not keep his eyes away from the sight of Holmes, such a respectable man for all his indecencies, working his mouth around Watson’s shaft like an East End strumpet.
With a flutter of lashes, Holmes opened his eyes and looked up at Watson for an instant, as if to say, “Allow me to try this.” Then he swallowed around the thickness of Watson’s member, the priapetic head sliding into the tightness of Holmes’ throat, which protested with a sharp gagging. Watson’s arched his back, feeling his thigh muscles tighten. He was, in a moment, overwhelmed before he had even the sense about him to warn Holmes with more than a shout.
Once light and shadow had once again congealed from the clouded joy of release, Watson saw Holmes above him, licking his lips in an extremely pleased manner. Holmes’ face was flushed and the skin under his eyes was smudged with tired bruises. He was sweat covered and looked rather like he had been in a fight, from the way his skin shined and his hair lacked any decorum at all. Watson could not resist kissing him, his own bitter taste still upon the man’s tongue.
“I cannot quite believe this,” he said.
“From you, Holmes,” Watson observed. “I might believe anything at all.”
They rested for a moment, both of them too amazed to speak, before Holmes stirred to rise from the bed. His shirt was quite lost in the sheets and his trousers and shorts were hanging about his knees, so it would not be a dignified departure from Watson’s quarters. It was a disappointment enough that indignity seemed to cut deep. Holmes felt quite exposed as he tried to yank his shorts back on. His skin was taking on a tacky feeling which begged for a bath he could not take at such a cold hour of the night.
“Holmes?” Watson asked. He was dabbing at his flesh with his nightgown and, as Holmes watched, he began to undo the mechanisms by which he kept his leg in place. By the dim light of lamps and his passing romantic fancy, the mechanical leg seemed to be made of gold rather than brass. Holmes paused his departure to watch the scarred flesh that truncated Watson’s leg appear as the mechanical leg was parted from him. It was reddened, that skin, and seemed to shy from exposure. Some day, perhaps soon, Holmes would have liked to lavish it with the affections of his mouth as he had caressed it gently, almost apologetically, with his hand.
He wished to stay, but could not have brought himself to challenge Watson’s propriety so far in one night. Besides, if he remained here, with the smell of metal and grease, sex and sweat, cotton bed sheets and Watson’s skin around him as he slept, he would wake with a heated desire for more carnality. Mrs. Hudson would surely be scandalized, and as surely as he wanted to shock her, he also wanted to keep his lodging with Watson.
“Don’t tell me you plan to return to your room to sleep,” Watson said, setting his mechanical leg beside his bed with his cane. “We both know how little you sleep at all, let alone in your own bed.”
Holmes smiled.
“I was only removing my trousers,” he said. “So that I might rest here a while before I rise for breakfast. There’s still a lot of corruption to uncover for this case.”
“Ah, well then,” Watson said. He knew Holmes was lying, from that particularly creasing around his eyes, but it was a happy falsehood. “I am putting out the light.”
With the trust of darkness and an open invitation offered him, Holmes slipped back into bed, this time without his shirt or his trousers. Watson’s propriety would just have to be a bit more flexible tomorrow morning, and, perhaps, every morning after this. If Holmes had any luck at all, at least, which he knew he did.
---
And today I learned that "coitus" refers only to penis-in-vagina sex. ANNA. I NEED A PRETENTIOUS LATIN WORD FOR ALL OTHER KINDS OF SEX. I KNOW YOU KNOW ONE. BECAUSE CATULLUS.
Rating: NC-17
Fandom; Pairing: Sherlock Holmes 2009 (Steampunk AU with lots of book influence), Holmes/Watson
Word Count: 6,222
Disclaimer: Full disclaimer in my profile. I don't own the story or characters. They belong to Marvel Comics.
Warnings: Steampunk, AU, prosthetic limb as a focal point of the fic, amputated limb, fetishization of disability or of things with gears that go whirr (either way it's suspect), sexual content and language, Britishness, and also, VICTORIAN WRITING STYLE. Oh god.
Happy birthday, skuldchan, you so awesome!!
Summary: So, this was going to be a subplot to a larger story in which Holmes and Watson in a Steampunk London tried to solve the murder of an industrialist and philanthropist whose groundskeeper has been framed for the crime. It involved a villain named Peerybingle, who was a douche, and a really awesome Irish lady who was trying to spare her husband's life and a guy who was too nice to keep in his own money. The social structure was exaggerated from the suckiness of Victorian Britain, as the working class laborers were mostly mechanically modified to be better workers (truly treating the people as machines of production) and it was basically going to be Holmes bitches about why racism and classism and religion are kind of stupid, because they blind people to the truth of things like murder and were also keeping him from banging Watson. He starts poking the mechanical leg with the defense that understanding it will help him understand how mechanical modifications and limbs play a part in the case (which they do, but he's mostly trying to get into Watson's pants).
I failed at writing that, so just have the subplot of romance and PORN.
It was Dr. John H. Watson’s daily ritual to go to bed early and rise late for a separate breakfast prepared by Mrs. Hudson. As a matter of his nightly rituals, he washed his hands, arms, neck, and face after stripping down to his braces and trousers. He hid his deformity at all costs, Holmes knew, lest he should happen to rap upon the door and call Watson away from his toliet. To his own admittance, Holmes had occasionally done just such a thing as this and so, if Watson’s goal was to conceal his leg from Holmes’ eyes, he made an effort worthy of a man of the Queen’s army.
But what he concealed from Holmes’ eyes, he could not conceal from his mind or, for that matter, his ears. They were, after all, exceedingly sensitive, particularly to sounds which were out of place in their surroundings. For instance, the sliding of greased metal, the tightening of springs, and the whir of precision cogs were all very curious sounds to be heard in the vicinity of a lamed surgeon’s knee.
The hour was creeping past eleven and Holmes knew Watson was asleep, could hear the calmness of it all even through the door. He gently tested the lock while the doctor started a bit of snoring and rubbed unconsciously at his mustache, mussing all the trim hairs. The lock was easy to pick, being an indoor lock. Honestly, a harsh tug would have probably jostled the levers out of place and opened the lock, but the same would have easily woken Watson from a restless sleep.
Indeed, Watson turned this way and that on his bed, throwing sheets off and then pulling them back, like a feverish child. Holmes’ natural curiosity often wondered what dreams fevered him so, but Watson’s propriety would never admit to such secrets, just as he had said, “It’s only a limp, the result of a bullet graze to the thigh. ” Certainly, it was not a lie, but it was also not a whole truth.
He slid the door open very delicately and Watson was none the wiser. He lifted it like a common criminal takes a monogrammed bit of fabric from a pocket in the busy streets of the city, and then settled into the chair by Watson’s metal rack for his polished shoes.
Holmes set his leather tool case against the sill with a little clatter and, after a moment of sheer amazement and self-centered pleasure, went to work. Watson, for his part, tossed a bit in bed, snoring softly. He coughed a bit and pawed at his own face in his sleep. He heard the clicking and scraping of metal in his dreams and it made his flesh crawl, until the insect like feeling of small metallic sounds was too much to ignore.
Blearily, Watson opened his eyes. At first, the vision of Holmes sitting in the corner with his leg-his leg-upon his lap seemed like only another part of some strange, terrible dream. The mud and fog of a restless sleep cleared, as if with warm sun, and he saw that Holmes had even lit himself a lamp. Watson rolled onto his good hip and fumbled for the striker of the oil lamp on his nightstand. Once there was further light upon the situation, Watson cleared his throat to speak.
“Return that to me at once, Holmes.”
Holmes spared Watson a glance and then returned to his work explaining, “Really, I can’t. It would be of no use to you until I replaced the component parts of the knee and reconnected the socket to this unidentifiable apparatus here.”
Watson cleared his throat and repeated, “Holmes.”
This time the detective, hard at work unraveling the mysteries of his friend’s mechanical limb, did not even look up. He continued to pull out cogs and springs, setting them without a semblance of order-though Watson knew that was not the case, it only appeared to be a total catastrophe.
“Now, now, Watson, this is purely a scientific inquiry, very significant to our current case,” he offered. It was what passed for reassurance, but the quirk of a smile upon Holmes’ lips showed him to be a liar. Even to someone without Sherlock Holmes’ skills for deduction.
“I assure you, I had already assumed as much,” Watson replied, dry and curt.
Holmes took a deep breath, about to lie to Watson as he did to all number of people in the name of what Watson usually recognized as justice. This time it did not sit so comfortably with him.
“Who knows what scientific benefits such a sophisticated prosthesis, previously unknown of that I can assure you, would bring about? It is quite beyond the enhancements offered to the working class, Watson,” Holmes began to prattle on. “But it is comparable enough to serve useful in the increase of strength compared to a fleshy body. Yet, with this limb, you retain a limp. I have some mechanical skill, you know, and I might be able to resolve that.”
“And it had nothing to do with fulfilling your personal curiosity,” Watson offered. “Of course.”
Holmes looked up then and smiled, as if he was charmed by Watson’s knowledge of his character. Sherlock Holmes took a great deal of time getting to know people, from a distance, but few people took any time to know him. It was still a bit shocking that Watson knew him so well.
“Oh, Dr. Watson, it had everything to do with fulfilling my personal curiosity,” he explained. “I held out quite a long time, though, did I not?”
The look on Holmes’ face said that he was very proud of himself. Watson considered throwing a pillow at his smug countenance, but the small satisfaction of an act like that would demean the severity of this invasion of his privacy and might endanger his leg’s delicate mechanisms.
“You did. Now,” Watson explained. “I ask that you please leave.”
Holmes had already turned back to his work.
“Since the choice is rather in my hands, I would prefer not to,” he said. Some part of him recognized that Watson was becoming incensed. But, Holmes rationalized, if Watson was already growing angry with him, then it was already too late. It had been too late, he surmised, from the very moment that Watson had awakened. He should have been prepared for this. He should have taken the leg into the sitting room. But then again, who knew how many hours he might pass in distraction? Watson would surely have been even angrier if he’d woken to no leg at all, rather than this incriminating tableau.
This was, in Holmes’ understanding, the last opportunity he’d have to unravel the secrets of Dr. John Watson before he doubtlessly caught the first coach out of the city.
“Leave,” Watson demanded. He pulled the sheets about himself like a woman caught indecently and glowered at Holmes, who refused to meet his eyes. He hated him for remaining so calm, so very calm, picking apart the object that felt, by now, as much a part of him as his own flesh. It was, Watson thought, only a thing to Holmes, as a corpse was. The inevitable would come after this, Watson knew, and he would prefer to be left to rest, have his leg unharmed, and be able to pack his things in the morning instead of at midnight.
“No,” Holmes replied.
“And why not?” Watson asked. Holmes refused to look at him, making Watson feel even more like a thing. He considered the location of his service pistol, but he had too much respect for Holmes, he hoped, to resort to frightening him off with a misaimed gunshot, like a common thug.
“Firstly, because I am not done with your leg here and if I leave now I will never understand how it works,” Holmes explained himself the way he explained his deductions, with an unhealthy helping of patronization and pride that had become normal to Watson’s ears. “Secondly, because with your secrets revealed to me, you will certainly wish to bow out of our domestic arrangement. Thirdly, you can’t rightly have it when I’ve taken it half apart like this.”
Not all of the decorum in the world could restrain John Watson’s bark of laughter.
“Surely you’re joking, Holmes.” At that, Holmes deigned to look up from his work.
“I am quite serious,” he said, looking quite serious indeed. “Your prosthetic is not in functioning order at the moment and your talents are not for the biological repair of objects, not the mechanical. Also, you are two and a quarter meters away, Watson, you would never reach it.”
“I meant.” Watson began to reply. He stopped himself and threw up one open hand in surrender.
“Ah, what does it matter what I meant?” Watson said, feeling something more than frustration. “You’ll take your own meaning regardless.” It was a something that he could not quite identify, but it was tinged with sadness more than anger.
“Perhaps, I would,” Holmes replied. “And, perhaps, I would not. I try not to make presuppositions.” He tried to regard both the mechanical limb and the mechanical limb’s owner at the same time and, failing, decided that, at the moment, the owner was the more interesting case for study.
“Yes, I’m certain you believe that,” Watson said. “But you are only a man, Holmes, and it is in the nature of men to make… certain judgments.”
His face darkened. Shame, Holmes realized, and a touch of anger and regret having to do with Holmes’ work at the mechanical limb. Not the limb itself, for that did not fit the character of Watson-whose propriety could regularly flex for Holmes’ benefit, but some catalytic combination of the limb and himself. Holmes felt as if there were sparks of light or flocks of birds inside his skull. It was a feeling he quite enjoyed, actually, and hungered after the stimulation, the work, and this, this sensation, was the reward.
“Many men, including yourself, have observed that I am less of a man and more of a,” Holmes paused. “What did one fellow say? A calculator on legs.” He regarded Watson carefully and took in the way he shook his head, scoffing.
“Holmes, you seem the last person to take that sort of schoolboy behavior to heart,” Watson argued. Holmes’ subtle strike was not a deep enough cut to disarm this opponent then.
“Oh, I don’t, but it would seem that you do, concealing this leg as you do,” he offered, cutting to the quick.
Watson took a sharp breath that he assumed would not be apparent. Of course, it was.
An uncharacteristic softness overcame Holmes. “It’s a trophy, Watson, not some kind of blight.”
“You would say that.” He laughed. “I have been quite ridiculous about this whole affair, haven’t I?”
“It is quite natural, from what I’ve observed,” Holmes said, looking back to the leg. “I don’t understand it all, but I wouldn’t be concerned over it, mother hen.”
Watson sat up and leaned out over the ledge of his bed towards Holmes.
“You find my leg intriguing, do you?” he asked, his pessimistic mood shifting away.
“It is more than intriguing, Watson,” Holmes offered, unable to remove himself from his subject now. “It is beautiful. Not as efficient as flesh and bone, but flesh and bone are rather unreliable, aren’t they, doctor?”
Watson smiled. He quite agreed, actually. Never had someone so easily captured the truth of the limb. It was a marvel, perhaps not perfection, but his other leg felt its quivers from time to time, just as the mechanical leg occasionally caused him pain or popped a spring.
“Have you ever had a chance to look within it?” Holmes asked.
His excitement was so palatable it seemed to light up the room. He looked up and was unsure what exactly to make of Watson’s expression. It was genuine, but Holmes’ interest in body language was limited to anger, rage, desperation, and the difference between a truth and a lie. Whatever this was, it was beyond him.
“Yes, of course,” Watson said, realizing Holmes’ oddness.
The man carefully gathered up the parts he had extricated from the mechanical leg and moved them first to a careful place upon Watson’s bedspread. Then he lay out his tools. Finally he returned to Watson’s bedside with the limb itself, hollows in the space of its knee joint and the area where it attached to what remained of Watson’s thigh.
All in place, Holmes settled himself on Watson’s bed quite naturally, the mattress sinking under his weight. Watson adjusted himself around Holmes’ body in order to see just what Holmes had done to his limb.
“Now see,” Holmes began. “I can determine from this structure on the socket which you attach to your thigh that the machine relies not only on the contractions of your muscles, but on the electrochemical processes of them, as well.”
As he pointed this out he gathered up the screws, which attached the locking apparatus and put it back in place. Watson huffed a sigh of relief that it went back just exactly as it always had been. The hair on the back of Holmes’ neck stood up. He moved on to the next point of interest.
“These mercury vials and the connected pivots are the means of the exceptional balance it offers. Such structures are used to keep copper automatons from toppling,” he explained, turning his head slightly towards Watson’s. Outside of a coach, perhaps, they had never been so close. Watson was not looking at him, though, but at the mercury vials that Holmes had pointed out.
“But I have not gotten past the knee yet,” Holmes said, putting back the mechanisms that had hidden the mercury vials away. “And so I have no idea what purpose the arch and toes serve, because I am certain such an elaborate construction in them would not simply be to fill a shoe of your size.”
Holmes placed the polished metal cover over the upper thigh of the mechanical leg and deftly screwed it back in place.
“It is another means of balance,” Watson explained. “And aids in the smoothness of walking.”
“Well, of course,” Holmes said, giving him a patronizing look. “The question is not what they do, but how they do it.”
He reached out and rested his hand casually on Watson’s foreshortened thigh underneath his bed sheets.
“You could, perhaps, remove your hand from my thigh,” Watson said.
“Apologies,” Holmes said, removing it slowly. “I was quite distracted. You know how it can be at dissections and such. There are so many parts, all so delicate and beautiful.”
“You continue to call it that,” Watson said. Holmes regarded his furrowed brows and Watson, in turn, regarded the look of curiosity in Holmes’ eyes. They both struggled to understand one another faster than the other.
“Beautiful?” Holmes asked.
“Yes,” Watson said.
Then he stopped, his brow furrowing in a way that made Holmes slightly agitated, and smiled. The agitation did not fade, unfortunately, and he sense the time was growing to return Watson’s limb to him and let the other man sleep.
“You are a most exceptional man,” Watson said, stroking his pride like a housecat.
“Of course I am,” Holmes said, smiling back.
Slowly, he turned back to the limb and continued to put the pieces of it back exactly as he had found them. Watson watched, continually impressed by the chaos of Holmes’ chosen organizational system. Still, he didn’t misplace a single screw or cog, he barely even smudged the metal plates with his fingerprints. He was meticulous and it was fascinating. He was himself fascinated with his limb, though he understood implicitly that no other man would feel the same. Now, here was Sherlock Holmes. He had his flaws, but they were tolerable things, which Holmes himself tried to compensate for and which could only inspire sympathy once a man realized how intelligent and humorous the man was.
He thought it was beautiful.
Holmes couldn’t help but note that Watson had not backed away, though in his excitement he had crossed more lines than he thought even the most flexible John Watson would tolerate. Perhaps he had underestimated the doctor. If that was the case, then he was even a more worthy acquaintance than he had been assessed as initially. It made Holmes smile to himself in a stilted way. Then he looked at Watson and Watson was looking at him. His mind rushed ahead of him again.
“I ought to leave you to your rest,” Holmes offered. “You seem to require a great deal of it.”
“Yes, I suppose I do in comparison to you,” Watson said, not at all sensing some discomfort in the atmosphere. Perhaps it was because he was so tired, or because of his profound relief that the strange events of tonight were nothing more than the usual complications of life with Sherlock Holmes. Even then, at least there was no bloodshed.
“Good night, Watson,” Holmes offered, setting the limb closely within Watson’s reach from his bed.
“Good night, Holmes.”
He hurried away to his rooms, to his violin, to his thoughts.
Sleep overcame him at some point, but he woke with a start in the sitting room with his violin still in his hand. He hurried to his room to conceal this fact from anyone who may have ventured in. Mrs. Hudson rose at four to begin preparing his breakfast. Holmes could only hope that she had not passed through the sitting room at any point since rising, as it was after four according to the clock on the mantel. It was much earlier than Watson ever rose and it would be simple to conceal that he had slept in the sitting room. Watson had been here for some months and had not yet noticed that peculiarity in Holmes’ habits, especially those that involved sleeping nearer to Watson’s rooms than his own. In his own defense, it rarely happened. Holmes would never make a point of it, but if he had to he would point out that Watson was a great deal more vocal in his nightmares than he knew. It was terribly unfair to hold the oddities of a man’s sleep against him, but Holmes did not doubt that Watson would have a fuss if he found Holmes sleeping in an armchair instead of a bed. He was that sort of a man.
That day, after a quiet breakfast alone, Sherlock Holmes left the house looking rather less like a famous detective and rather more like an accountant at least a decade Mr. Holmes’ senior. He even had the glasses for the job, with formulas etched into the glass around the edges. It would be very convenient.
He returned that night looking more like himself and, self-satisfied, he lit a pipe.
“Will you deign to tell me where you have been all day?” Watson asked. “And what you have been doing?”
“Accounting,” Holmes said. Watson made a face.
“I cannot imagine a dryer occupation,” he admitted when Holmes gave him a questioning look.
“At your level of education, Watson, I would have thought you would be quite comfortable with numbers,” Holmes said.
“I am,” Watson said, clearly on the defensive. “But they bore me. I do not understand how you could have not been bored beyond reason.”
“I am never beyond reason,” Holmes said proudly. “Though a certain amount of blood makes accounting a much more interesting hobby.”
Watson rolled his eyes at Holmes’ morbid little quirk and pardoned himself from helping out Holmes today or any of the following days when he would be elbow deep in the client’s and suspects’ accounts. Over the course of these days, Holmes seemed to make up his absence during the day by visiting Watson’s room after dinner to toil away with the limb. He would hover at the door until Watson was washed and dressed for bed, then he would let himself in and go to work without looking at the doctor.
After Watson had settled in bed, Holmes might come over and sit on top of the sheets and show off anything interesting, chattering the entire time. If one hand was free, it was always resting on the sudden stop of Watson’s thigh. Holmes’ thumb left grease and acid stains on Mrs. Hudson’s sheets right where the cleft of Watson’s scar rested beneath them.
On the eight night of this, Holmes turned to him and said, “I want to see it on you.”
Watson arched a brow and watched the detective, also accountant, also mechanic, cough slightly and point the artificial socket in his direction.
“To understand how it works,” Holmes said. “Of course.” His hand was warm on Watson’s leg, even through sheets and a nightgown.
“All right,” Watson consented, though he couldn’t have explained why, except that it was Sherlock Holmes and the man held some kind of sway over him. “Hand it back to me then.”
Watson took the proffered limb back and was a bit astonished at the way that Holmes yanked down the bed sheets. Watson tucked the limb under his nightgown rather than bare his thigh as he would have without Holmes there. He couldn’t have said why exactly, but the intensity of Holmes’ focus… He did not want that on his bare flesh, that was all.
After pulling the leather strap about the flesh of his thigh and tightening it, rather like a woman’s garter, and then twisted the mechanism that connected the limb physically into the flesh of his thigh. It only hurt for a moment and he did not even wince, though Holmes did.
Sherlock Holmes’ hands were efficient and interested, he kept his eyes on everything he touched. The awful feeling of objectification fell over Watson again, especially as Holmes’ hands crept higher and higher. The man inched closer towards him on the bed and Watson kept himself calm and reclined. Holmes was only being himself, he thought, there was no reason to be uncomfortable. He was perfectly able to lay down the law if it was required. But then Holmes’ fingers brushed the edge where metal met skin, blindly exploring the whole circumference, and Watson realized that, though Holmes was certainly applying his strange aesthetic principles of beauty and fully engrossed in his own curiosity and, therefore, did not know what he was doing, he was totally unable to tell the man he should stop.
Half of Holmes’ palm rested against Watson’s leg and he did his best to pretend he was ignoring it, though by then his single-minded friend was well leaning over him on the bed. Holmes knew that he had gone too far and, once again, his mind was plagued with images of Watson packing up all his journals and his cane and leaving him in quite the lurch. At this point, though, he probably deserved it. But if he was going to deserve it, he theorized, he might as well deserve it wholeheartedly.
He lifted a hand to tug at his undone collar and leaned towards his dear ol’ Watson’s face until they shared one breath.
“My experience in the back alleys of London and the Common Law of the Empire suggest to me that what I am about to do is a rather inadvisable course of action, however,” Holmes said, without pausing for a breath. “All that is based upon a lot of things which I cannot be bothered to care about and it forbids something which I seem to care quite a bit for right now.”
“You’re rambling, Holmes,” Watson said, struggling to keep his face calm and mildly disapproving.
“I know,” he confessed. “I’m rather excited at the moment.”
There was a difficult moment for them both, which was quite smashed by Holmes’ declaration of “Inadvisable or not, I’m going to do it.” And then they kissed.
Certainly, Holmes lead the kiss at first, having leaned in and taken it, but Watson had, by that time, almost expected it. He felt as if he must have leaned up into that kiss and he quickly found his hands gripping Holmes by his shirtfront to hold him in place.
“I,” Holmes began to say. There was a long pause after they broke the kiss. Watson was shocked by it, but clearly not as shocked as Holmes himself. Having the upper hand, Watson took it, though Holmes seemed to expect that.
“You’ve rendered me rather speechless,” Holmes admitted, ironically enough. His mind rushed ahead of himself so quickly, excited as it was by the occurrence of the impossible that it was ultimately unable to form a single coherent thought.
Watson sighed.
“Well, then, shut up,” he said and his third kiss was quite violent. His wonderfully attractive mustache scratched against the day’s accumulation of stubble on Holmes’ upper lip. Holmes could feel his pupils dilating, his heart pounding, and his breath becoming quite labored. Watson worried slightly for the way Holmes seemed to shake, except for that hand that dug its fingers into the remaining muscle of his leg, which was quite steady.
“Holmes?” he asked. “Are you quite alright?” It was a natural impulse, as the only man alive who seemed to care for Holmes, occasionally, rather delicate disposition, the result of too many mysterious substances and not enough sleep or food. Still, he felt foolish for having asked while they were in such an intimate position.
“I am not alright,” Holmes confessed. His words were a hot caress of breath against Watson’s lips.
“What?” Watson asked. His body tensed and he found himself groping away at Holmes’ body for some invisible infirmity. At this Sherlock Holmes, the manipulative prick that he could be, smirked sharply and pressed the surprisingly stiff length of his arousal against Watson’s hip.
John Watson could not restrain his exasperated sigh.
“You should not be so aroused from three kisses,” Watson pointed out. “But I wouldn’t be surprised if you were a quick shot.”
Holmes pouted at him, pressing in for another kiss. “It is your prowess, Doctor, as a man.”
Watson scoffed, “No, it is your perversion clearly.”
Holmes’ lascivious was his only reply, though he seemed to nod in agreement as he pulled the sheets away. John Watson had not blushed at another man see his nakedness since his earliest childhood, as a result of military life and injury, but the palpable lust in the look that Holmes’ gave his naked legs, flesh and mechanical equally, made him feel confused, slightly afraid, and terribly aroused. It brought a stinging flush to his face, which only made Holmes’ look grow stronger when he observed it.
“To think,” Watson said. “A week ago, I feared you would be disgusted by me.”
Holmes only smiled. “A week ago, my friend, I thought you would be disgusted by me. And the week before that, and that and that and that.”
“I am frequently disgusted by you, Holmes,” Watson confessed. “But only when you work with the sulfur in your lab.”
“Well then I am also disgusted with myself,” Holmes laughed. “It’s quite foul.”
He said all this as if he was not urgently pressing hot arousal against Watson’s skin through is trousers and as if his eyes did not rake across Watson’s body like devil’s claws. Holmes lifted the mechanical leg, which Watson obligingly bent up towards him, and pressed his mouth against the same arched foot he had previously taken to bits. The flash of Holmes tongue against the brass and the way the weight of metal pressed against the man’s lips made Watson’s breath come short. A very talented, if scarred and calloused hand, began to massage his member, rousing it from sleepy interest to turgid need faster than Watson was prepared for.
“Do you know what you’re doing?” Watson asked.
“No,” Holmes admitted. “I’ve never done anything like this before.”
“I have,” Watson said. Holmes swallowed and his breath grew stuttered. He seemed to be imaging just such a thing in his quick mind and, indeed, he was. The idea that Watson had desired and even been with other men seemed impossible, considering the pure character of the man that endured all flexibilities that Holmes required in the morals of others. Preferring to ignore his partner’s other lovers, Holmes instead, finally, allowed his rich imagination to explore the reality of Watson as a sensually debauched creature, capable of buggery and sodomy and a great deal things ending in -y. He wanted them all right away, of course, but settled for flipping Watson’s gown up over his belly as the man unbuttoned his shirt and trousers.
Irene teased him often as she could, but Holmes was shaking with the touch of Watson’s hand firmly gripping his arousal. Watson knew, from the look in his eyes, that it was something novel-very interesting evidence often elicited the same look, a realization which immediately stripped every future case they would have of some previous innocence.
His figure had a lean look to it, with muscles laid bare on bones and nothing comforting to him. Still, Holmes was as captivating as he was eccentric, in his beauty as well as his behavior. He was stubbornly holding in some pleading as Watson caressed muscles as sharply defined as an anatomical model’s, but that stubbornness crumbled into whimpers once he’d wrapped the mechanical leg about Holmes’ waist and drawn their bodies so closely together that their pricks ground against each other.
“Oh, Watson,” Holmes begged against the flesh of his clothed shoulder. “Please, I need you.” As always, Holmes’ desperation made him feel quite flattered and inclined to oblige him, whatever madness it might bring.
Holmes’ urgent arousal, brought on by some unnatural desire for Watson’s mechanical limb, by the intimate position they’d shared for a week of nights, and by the machinations of his fevered mind, ground hard against Watson’s. He thrust his hips with abandoned and, though aroused, Watson kept his wits about him, coaxing Holmes along with the filthiest encouragement he could muster.
“Come already, Holmes. I know you want more, want me to bugger you. Tomorrow night, I promise, I’ll give you the fuck of your life.” Well, he had been an army man, after all.
Holmes dug his fingers almost painfully into the ridges of Watson’s hips, hard enough that they both knew that there would be terribly bruises in a day’s time, but neither was sorry for it. Watson took a fistful of Holmes’ wild hair and held him tight as he spilled his seed across their hips and up Watson’s belly. He hissed, keeping his jaw and teeth tightly shut around whatever cry he wanted to make, and only relaxed after he was quite spent.
“I,” Holmes panted into Watson’s ear. It seemed at first to me a simple noise, the meaningless babble of a man overcome with fleshy pleasure. But then it became a word, “I want.”
“What?” Watson asked, his member achingly stiff under Holmes’ limp weight. Holmes kissed him then, with a hungry, open mouth that begged for Watson’s firmest attentions. Holmes scraped his teeth against Watson’s lower lip, sucked hungrily on his tongue, as if he had not just found his release.
“Never mind,” Holmes said, his breath coming in heavy pants still. “No talking. Just trust me.”
Watson wanted to protest, but Holmes was quite nimble for a man covered in the sweat of sex and still trying to catch his breath. The man arranged himself with a metal knee over his shoulder and one hand pressing Watson’s other leg against the mattress.
There was a very, very wicked look, full of fire and mischief, and then Holmes flicked his tongue against the wetness of his own release against Watson’s skin. It was such an unexpectedly debauched action from a self-professed virgin that Watson felt himself growing faint, surely from the rush of blood away from the rest of his body towards his cock.
“What are you doing?” Watson asked, knowing full well what Holmes was doing, but unsure whether Holmes knew for certain.
“Hush,” Holmes chided. “I told you, no talking.”
Then he opened his clever, clever mouth and wrapped his lips around Watson’s member and, indeed, there was no talking. For a moment, there could only be shocked gasps. Watson found his fingers in Holmes’ hair again, which was tangled in a way that was extremely tempting for his usually gentle hands. Holmes was not as talented as some partners who had offered this selfless service to Watson, but he was absolutely the most enthusiastic. It was, again, as if he had not been drained of an ounce of that ravenous passion, for he moaned around Watson’s most sensitive flesh and left him in convulsions.
“Holmes,” Watson choked out. “God, Holmes. You needn’t do this.” But clearly he did, for he kept his hands upon both of Watson’s legs, caressing, gripping, and simply touching, and worked at Watson’s arousal with only his very eager mouth. His was quiet loud, with his moaning, compared to Watson’s hitching breath and occasional unheeded protest. He kept his eyes closed in his intense focus, though Watson could not keep his eyes away from the sight of Holmes, such a respectable man for all his indecencies, working his mouth around Watson’s shaft like an East End strumpet.
With a flutter of lashes, Holmes opened his eyes and looked up at Watson for an instant, as if to say, “Allow me to try this.” Then he swallowed around the thickness of Watson’s member, the priapetic head sliding into the tightness of Holmes’ throat, which protested with a sharp gagging. Watson’s arched his back, feeling his thigh muscles tighten. He was, in a moment, overwhelmed before he had even the sense about him to warn Holmes with more than a shout.
Once light and shadow had once again congealed from the clouded joy of release, Watson saw Holmes above him, licking his lips in an extremely pleased manner. Holmes’ face was flushed and the skin under his eyes was smudged with tired bruises. He was sweat covered and looked rather like he had been in a fight, from the way his skin shined and his hair lacked any decorum at all. Watson could not resist kissing him, his own bitter taste still upon the man’s tongue.
“I cannot quite believe this,” he said.
“From you, Holmes,” Watson observed. “I might believe anything at all.”
They rested for a moment, both of them too amazed to speak, before Holmes stirred to rise from the bed. His shirt was quite lost in the sheets and his trousers and shorts were hanging about his knees, so it would not be a dignified departure from Watson’s quarters. It was a disappointment enough that indignity seemed to cut deep. Holmes felt quite exposed as he tried to yank his shorts back on. His skin was taking on a tacky feeling which begged for a bath he could not take at such a cold hour of the night.
“Holmes?” Watson asked. He was dabbing at his flesh with his nightgown and, as Holmes watched, he began to undo the mechanisms by which he kept his leg in place. By the dim light of lamps and his passing romantic fancy, the mechanical leg seemed to be made of gold rather than brass. Holmes paused his departure to watch the scarred flesh that truncated Watson’s leg appear as the mechanical leg was parted from him. It was reddened, that skin, and seemed to shy from exposure. Some day, perhaps soon, Holmes would have liked to lavish it with the affections of his mouth as he had caressed it gently, almost apologetically, with his hand.
He wished to stay, but could not have brought himself to challenge Watson’s propriety so far in one night. Besides, if he remained here, with the smell of metal and grease, sex and sweat, cotton bed sheets and Watson’s skin around him as he slept, he would wake with a heated desire for more carnality. Mrs. Hudson would surely be scandalized, and as surely as he wanted to shock her, he also wanted to keep his lodging with Watson.
“Don’t tell me you plan to return to your room to sleep,” Watson said, setting his mechanical leg beside his bed with his cane. “We both know how little you sleep at all, let alone in your own bed.”
Holmes smiled.
“I was only removing my trousers,” he said. “So that I might rest here a while before I rise for breakfast. There’s still a lot of corruption to uncover for this case.”
“Ah, well then,” Watson said. He knew Holmes was lying, from that particularly creasing around his eyes, but it was a happy falsehood. “I am putting out the light.”
With the trust of darkness and an open invitation offered him, Holmes slipped back into bed, this time without his shirt or his trousers. Watson’s propriety would just have to be a bit more flexible tomorrow morning, and, perhaps, every morning after this. If Holmes had any luck at all, at least, which he knew he did.
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And today I learned that "coitus" refers only to penis-in-vagina sex. ANNA. I NEED A PRETENTIOUS LATIN WORD FOR ALL OTHER KINDS OF SEX. I KNOW YOU KNOW ONE. BECAUSE CATULLUS.