What is Already Yours (2/3)
Title: What is Already Yours (2/3)
Fandom: BBC Sherlock
Pairing/Characters: John/Sherlock
Warnings/Spoilers: Consensual BDSM
Rating: R
Word Count: 2200
Summary: Sometimes it's not just the sub who needs aftercare.
Note: Written for the Sherlock Kink Meme prompt asking for a BDSM relationship with Sherlock as the Dom with lots of slow trust-building and aftercare.
"I have to admit, I will rather miss the scarf," Sherlock said idly, producing a pair of neoprene cuffs from a black bag on the floor and twirling them on one finger.
"Well, we don't have to retire it just yet," John said.
"No, the next item on your list is moving on to cuffs. I've graduated from the first three items--with, I might add, flying colors--and it's time to put some real restraints to the test," Sherlock said.
John bit back an impulse to cling to The Scarf. Sometimes Sherlock's methodical tendencies were not exactly an advantage. But he folded it carefully and put it next to the bed.
"Let's start with you unclothed this time," Sherlock announced. "I'm going to restrain your legs as well, and I can't get your clothes off once you're all tied up." He watched, bright-eyed, as John slowly undressed, and the mere act of removing all his clothing bit by bit, becoming more and more vulnerable, was enough to leave John rather glassy-eyed and aroused by the end.
Sherlock took in that bit of information like he took in all the others, and John watched his eyes as that careening mind made ineffable connections. "Lie down," Sherlock said, nudging him with his smile.
The cuffs were soft but implacable, and although John could pull against them without any discomfort there was no getting out of them on his own. That knowledge alone sent a spike of adrenaline and arousal stammering through him, and he closed his eyes and took some deep breaths.
He opened them again when he felt another cuff closing over his ankle and heard a faint clink of metal. Peering down, he saw that Sherlock had bound his foot to a metal bar.
"Spreader bar," Sherlock said cheerfully at his questioning sound. He closed the last cuff around John's other ankle, leaving the bar between his feet. Reflexively, John tried to pull his legs closed, but the bar made it impossible. "Oh, don't worry," said Sherlock at his expression. "I know penetration is much later on the list. But I wanted you to feel more vulnerable."
"Ah," said John. It certainly had the desired effect, he thought as Sherlock slid his hands up the inside of his legs until his thumbs brushed against John's balls.
Clink. Clink. The connections on the spreader bar chimed as John tried to bring his legs together and failed again, and Sherlock smirked.
"So handy for overcoming reflexive defenses," he noted. "And you have so many of those, don't you?"
John glared at him. "Armchair psychology doesn't suit you," he said. "Stick to the tobacco ash and footprints."
Sherlock ignored him entirely, his fingers tracing patterns over John's hipbones. "A tight-wound, prickly ball of self-sacrifice and duty: doctor, soldier, blogger for justice. All superego."
It was difficult to snort dismissively with Sherlock's hands doing increasingly demanding things to him, sensation skirting right up to the boundaries of pain without ever quite going there, but John managed it. "You think Freud is bullshit."
"Of course he is," Sherlock breathed in his ear. "But it's rather sexy to imagine your poor id just begging for someone to pay some attention to it for a change, since you apparently won't." He nipped at John's earlobe and John hissed through his teeth. "Always ready to drop everything and run off to help someone who needs helping. Not that I mind--well, as long as it's me you're dropping everything for. It's annoying when you do it for someone else, though." He leaned back and smirked at John. "No chance of that for a little while, is there?"
He reached out and slid a finger from John's navel up to a nipple, adding a sharp pressure that made John gasp out loud. "What--oh." It was the strangest thing: part of him knew that what Sherlock was doing was technically painful, but another part was just aware of the sensation, the pure laser-bright intensity of it. His thoughts seemed to be spiralling inward, focused on that point of contact as if it were the only thing in the world that mattered. "Mm."
"That's it," Sherlock said, his voice clinical and caressing at the same time. "You don't like pain for its own sake, you're no masochist--"
John managed to dredge his mind up from the sweetness that threatened to dissolve it completely long enough to mutter something about how, considering his living arrangements, that was debatable.
Sherlock chuckled but continued as if he hadn't heard him, his fingers tenderly cruel. "--you're no masochist, but that point where pain becomes nothing but sensation and you can lose yourself in it, that's the goal." Everywhere he touched was a point of searing light that drew John's mind to it like a fluttering moth, dragging his thoughts away from anything else. "Let me take you there." His hands, his voice. There was nothing else. "That's what you need."
"Need," John heard himself say, and wasn't sure if he was speaking for himself or simply echoing Sherlock. He wasn't sure it made much difference anymore. It all felt so good, and he wanted more of it, of what Sherlock was doing to him, he knew Sherlock could bring him even more.
Sherlock made a pleased purring sound in his throat that seemed to stroke along him like velvet. "You drop down so fast, John, it's really quite flattering." The words didn't have much meaning anymore, but the satisfied tone filtered through the haze cradling him and pulled an answering, needy sound from him. "Next item on the list, then."
The lovely fierce hands left his body, and John gasped at the emptiness they left behind. After a moment there was a small, sharp noise, and he focused his eyes on Sherlock to find him with a short strap of leather in his hands. He blinked and tried to clear his mind enough to speak. "I thought...the crop?"
Sherlock wrinkled his nose. "That's for work," he said as though stating the obvious. "I thought a strap would let me perform at a more...intimate proximity."
"Ah." John tugged at the unyielding cuffs, his eyes fixed on Sherlock's. "I guess--"
Sherlock smiled at him as if at a delightfully promising clue and brought the strap down across his upper thigh with a brisk crack that cut his words off into a gasp before he realized the blow had been a light one, more sound than impact.
"That--didn't hurt much," John said.
"Well, one must start slowly," said Sherlock. "Otherwise it just hurts, and what's the fun of that? Any idiot can hurt someone," he said with an offended sniff. "This, though--" Another impact, this one just a bit harder, "--this takes skill and intelligence and focus." The third blow landed on his other thigh, a bright lick of silken flame that made him close his eyes for a moment. "You're really quite lucky you have me, John."
Any other time John might have argued the point, but right now it seemed far too much effort. The impacts were coming faster and harder, precise and exact, placed unerringly where he needed them to be to drive him further and further from rational thought. It was good, so good, it was what he'd craved for so long--
And then in between one blow and another, something clicked over in John's mind, some cold intellectual process taking over unwanted, and it was pain again, and the next strike was going to hurt. Without thinking--too late, no one could respond so fast--he blurted "Anderson!" as the strap was descending--
The strap stopped a breath away from his body, all momentum arrested, leather brushing his skin like the gentlest kiss.
Sherlock tossed it to the side unceremoniously. "Are you all right?" he asked, his hands already busy on the cuffs, opening them.
"I'm--I'm fine," John said, and Sherlock was kind enough for once not to point out the lie as he rubbed at John's shivering arms and gathered him close. "I just--I don't know what happened, but--I'm sorry."
He half-expected Sherlock to argue, to point out that he hadn't been doing any lasting damage, that he had been staying scrupulously within the boundaries John himself had set. But instead he just murmured, "No apologies. That's why we have safewords." John followed his gaze to his bare thighs, the long reddening stripes garish against the pale skin. Sherlock reached out and followed one line with his finger, his eyes opaque. Then he seemed to pull his thoughts back from some distant place and rolled off of the bed and onto his feet. "Wait here, I'll be just a moment." He stopped. "If that's all right?"
John nodded, and Sherlock was back almost before he could finish pulling the blankets up, carrying a tray on one uplifted hand. With a flourish, he put it down on the bedstand to reveal a heap of strawberries and grapes, a teapot covered with a tea cozy, a pot of honey and two mugs. "I had Mrs. Hudson put together a little platter for us."
"Good God, you didn't tell her what we were--"
Sherlock gave him an terrifyingly angelic look, then marred it by snickering. "Of course not." He picked up a strawberry and tapped it against John's lips until John opened his mouth. "Good boy," he said blithely, popping it in.
When he had watched John drain the last of his tea and polish off enough of the fruit, Sherlock put the tray aside. "So," he said with the airy casualness he reserved for either entirely frivolous or deadly serious topics, "Are we done?"
John snorted. "You've got work to do, I gather?"
Sherlock looked blank for a moment, then frowned. "No, I mean done. With this. Not for tonight. For always."
"What? Why?"
"Well, you had to use the safeword. You--it didn't go well." Sherlock's eyes flicked to John's thighs, hidden now by the blanket, and his voice was precise and brittle.
"That's not--" Sherlock so rarely needed reassurance that John felt himself floundering. "Using a safeword isn't a failure. If you'd ignored it, we'd be done. But we're not done. At least--I mean, I'm not. You did everything right."
Sherlock looked at him for a long moment, his face opaque, his eyes scanning John's face, assessing. Then his shoulders relaxed slightly, an almost imperceptible tension unstrung from his tendons.
"I do think my timing especially was quite good," he said. "Just the right pace to achieve maximal sensory overload." He looked thoughtful. "Though I've had a few thoughts about ways to improve the flow and impact of the strokes." He made some experimental whipping motions, his eyes abstracted, and was muttering something about kinetic energy and conservation of momentum when John leaned in and kissed him.
"Mmf," he said against John's mouth with some surprise, but then his eyes slid closed and he wrapped his arms around John and pulled him close.
John deepened the kiss, startled to discover that it was Sherlock who was trembling now. "Are you okay?"
Sherlock exhaled forcefully. "Sensory overload," he said. "Adrenaline. Physical reaction. It will pass."
"Right." John swung a leg over Sherlock to straddle him.
"Doesn't that hurt?"
"I don't give a damn." John kissed Sherlock's throat where that rich chuckle fluttered, then kissed his hands and the delicate shiver still shaking them. "You're brilliant," he said.
"I am quite aware of that."
Which doesn't mean you don't want to hear it sometimes, John thought but did not say. "Astonishing. Magnificent. Beautiful--" Sherlock wrinkled his nose and John returned hastily to compliments that mattered, "--keen and sharp as a blade, my terrifying towering mind. My genius, my guiding spirit, my lamp in the darkness. You dazzle me." The words came so easily, as if a secret door had been unlocked and swung wide, freeing them. "My enchanter, my magician." Words he needed to say perhaps as much as Sherlock needed to hear. "An unquenchable flame, with hands as fleet and bright as lightning."
He opened Sherlock's shirt, pressed kisses into each rib until the gasping breaths eased beneath his lips. He murmured phrases into his hair that trailed into broken nonsense about angels of intellect and unyielding stars in their spheres, until Sherlock glowed beneath him like a star indeed, burnished once more into blaze. "My unfailing light," he whispered into Sherlock's mouth, as if he could fill his lungs with trust, and Sherlock made a small sound and gathered him close.
"I think I might have something of a talent for this," Sherlock murmured somewhat later. He stroked John's hair absently, his hands steady and sure once more: hands deft enough to pluck one thread of truth from a tangle of facts, controlled enough to cut reality like a diamond.
Masterful enough to halt an unwanted blow in midair as fast as thought.
"Well, there's no reason to be smug about it," John grumbled instead of saying any of these things, and felt the last bit of tension ease from Sherlock's frame. The chest beneath him shook with a low chuckle that trailed off into something like a sigh.
John waited for Sherlock's retort, but all he eventually got was a small snore and the satisfaction of knowing he had gotten the last word this time.
---
( Part 3)
Fandom: BBC Sherlock
Pairing/Characters: John/Sherlock
Warnings/Spoilers: Consensual BDSM
Rating: R
Word Count: 2200
Summary: Sometimes it's not just the sub who needs aftercare.
Note: Written for the Sherlock Kink Meme prompt asking for a BDSM relationship with Sherlock as the Dom with lots of slow trust-building and aftercare.
"I have to admit, I will rather miss the scarf," Sherlock said idly, producing a pair of neoprene cuffs from a black bag on the floor and twirling them on one finger.
"Well, we don't have to retire it just yet," John said.
"No, the next item on your list is moving on to cuffs. I've graduated from the first three items--with, I might add, flying colors--and it's time to put some real restraints to the test," Sherlock said.
John bit back an impulse to cling to The Scarf. Sometimes Sherlock's methodical tendencies were not exactly an advantage. But he folded it carefully and put it next to the bed.
"Let's start with you unclothed this time," Sherlock announced. "I'm going to restrain your legs as well, and I can't get your clothes off once you're all tied up." He watched, bright-eyed, as John slowly undressed, and the mere act of removing all his clothing bit by bit, becoming more and more vulnerable, was enough to leave John rather glassy-eyed and aroused by the end.
Sherlock took in that bit of information like he took in all the others, and John watched his eyes as that careening mind made ineffable connections. "Lie down," Sherlock said, nudging him with his smile.
The cuffs were soft but implacable, and although John could pull against them without any discomfort there was no getting out of them on his own. That knowledge alone sent a spike of adrenaline and arousal stammering through him, and he closed his eyes and took some deep breaths.
He opened them again when he felt another cuff closing over his ankle and heard a faint clink of metal. Peering down, he saw that Sherlock had bound his foot to a metal bar.
"Spreader bar," Sherlock said cheerfully at his questioning sound. He closed the last cuff around John's other ankle, leaving the bar between his feet. Reflexively, John tried to pull his legs closed, but the bar made it impossible. "Oh, don't worry," said Sherlock at his expression. "I know penetration is much later on the list. But I wanted you to feel more vulnerable."
"Ah," said John. It certainly had the desired effect, he thought as Sherlock slid his hands up the inside of his legs until his thumbs brushed against John's balls.
Clink. Clink. The connections on the spreader bar chimed as John tried to bring his legs together and failed again, and Sherlock smirked.
"So handy for overcoming reflexive defenses," he noted. "And you have so many of those, don't you?"
John glared at him. "Armchair psychology doesn't suit you," he said. "Stick to the tobacco ash and footprints."
Sherlock ignored him entirely, his fingers tracing patterns over John's hipbones. "A tight-wound, prickly ball of self-sacrifice and duty: doctor, soldier, blogger for justice. All superego."
It was difficult to snort dismissively with Sherlock's hands doing increasingly demanding things to him, sensation skirting right up to the boundaries of pain without ever quite going there, but John managed it. "You think Freud is bullshit."
"Of course he is," Sherlock breathed in his ear. "But it's rather sexy to imagine your poor id just begging for someone to pay some attention to it for a change, since you apparently won't." He nipped at John's earlobe and John hissed through his teeth. "Always ready to drop everything and run off to help someone who needs helping. Not that I mind--well, as long as it's me you're dropping everything for. It's annoying when you do it for someone else, though." He leaned back and smirked at John. "No chance of that for a little while, is there?"
He reached out and slid a finger from John's navel up to a nipple, adding a sharp pressure that made John gasp out loud. "What--oh." It was the strangest thing: part of him knew that what Sherlock was doing was technically painful, but another part was just aware of the sensation, the pure laser-bright intensity of it. His thoughts seemed to be spiralling inward, focused on that point of contact as if it were the only thing in the world that mattered. "Mm."
"That's it," Sherlock said, his voice clinical and caressing at the same time. "You don't like pain for its own sake, you're no masochist--"
John managed to dredge his mind up from the sweetness that threatened to dissolve it completely long enough to mutter something about how, considering his living arrangements, that was debatable.
Sherlock chuckled but continued as if he hadn't heard him, his fingers tenderly cruel. "--you're no masochist, but that point where pain becomes nothing but sensation and you can lose yourself in it, that's the goal." Everywhere he touched was a point of searing light that drew John's mind to it like a fluttering moth, dragging his thoughts away from anything else. "Let me take you there." His hands, his voice. There was nothing else. "That's what you need."
"Need," John heard himself say, and wasn't sure if he was speaking for himself or simply echoing Sherlock. He wasn't sure it made much difference anymore. It all felt so good, and he wanted more of it, of what Sherlock was doing to him, he knew Sherlock could bring him even more.
Sherlock made a pleased purring sound in his throat that seemed to stroke along him like velvet. "You drop down so fast, John, it's really quite flattering." The words didn't have much meaning anymore, but the satisfied tone filtered through the haze cradling him and pulled an answering, needy sound from him. "Next item on the list, then."
The lovely fierce hands left his body, and John gasped at the emptiness they left behind. After a moment there was a small, sharp noise, and he focused his eyes on Sherlock to find him with a short strap of leather in his hands. He blinked and tried to clear his mind enough to speak. "I thought...the crop?"
Sherlock wrinkled his nose. "That's for work," he said as though stating the obvious. "I thought a strap would let me perform at a more...intimate proximity."
"Ah." John tugged at the unyielding cuffs, his eyes fixed on Sherlock's. "I guess--"
Sherlock smiled at him as if at a delightfully promising clue and brought the strap down across his upper thigh with a brisk crack that cut his words off into a gasp before he realized the blow had been a light one, more sound than impact.
"That--didn't hurt much," John said.
"Well, one must start slowly," said Sherlock. "Otherwise it just hurts, and what's the fun of that? Any idiot can hurt someone," he said with an offended sniff. "This, though--" Another impact, this one just a bit harder, "--this takes skill and intelligence and focus." The third blow landed on his other thigh, a bright lick of silken flame that made him close his eyes for a moment. "You're really quite lucky you have me, John."
Any other time John might have argued the point, but right now it seemed far too much effort. The impacts were coming faster and harder, precise and exact, placed unerringly where he needed them to be to drive him further and further from rational thought. It was good, so good, it was what he'd craved for so long--
And then in between one blow and another, something clicked over in John's mind, some cold intellectual process taking over unwanted, and it was pain again, and the next strike was going to hurt. Without thinking--too late, no one could respond so fast--he blurted "Anderson!" as the strap was descending--
The strap stopped a breath away from his body, all momentum arrested, leather brushing his skin like the gentlest kiss.
Sherlock tossed it to the side unceremoniously. "Are you all right?" he asked, his hands already busy on the cuffs, opening them.
"I'm--I'm fine," John said, and Sherlock was kind enough for once not to point out the lie as he rubbed at John's shivering arms and gathered him close. "I just--I don't know what happened, but--I'm sorry."
He half-expected Sherlock to argue, to point out that he hadn't been doing any lasting damage, that he had been staying scrupulously within the boundaries John himself had set. But instead he just murmured, "No apologies. That's why we have safewords." John followed his gaze to his bare thighs, the long reddening stripes garish against the pale skin. Sherlock reached out and followed one line with his finger, his eyes opaque. Then he seemed to pull his thoughts back from some distant place and rolled off of the bed and onto his feet. "Wait here, I'll be just a moment." He stopped. "If that's all right?"
John nodded, and Sherlock was back almost before he could finish pulling the blankets up, carrying a tray on one uplifted hand. With a flourish, he put it down on the bedstand to reveal a heap of strawberries and grapes, a teapot covered with a tea cozy, a pot of honey and two mugs. "I had Mrs. Hudson put together a little platter for us."
"Good God, you didn't tell her what we were--"
Sherlock gave him an terrifyingly angelic look, then marred it by snickering. "Of course not." He picked up a strawberry and tapped it against John's lips until John opened his mouth. "Good boy," he said blithely, popping it in.
When he had watched John drain the last of his tea and polish off enough of the fruit, Sherlock put the tray aside. "So," he said with the airy casualness he reserved for either entirely frivolous or deadly serious topics, "Are we done?"
John snorted. "You've got work to do, I gather?"
Sherlock looked blank for a moment, then frowned. "No, I mean done. With this. Not for tonight. For always."
"What? Why?"
"Well, you had to use the safeword. You--it didn't go well." Sherlock's eyes flicked to John's thighs, hidden now by the blanket, and his voice was precise and brittle.
"That's not--" Sherlock so rarely needed reassurance that John felt himself floundering. "Using a safeword isn't a failure. If you'd ignored it, we'd be done. But we're not done. At least--I mean, I'm not. You did everything right."
Sherlock looked at him for a long moment, his face opaque, his eyes scanning John's face, assessing. Then his shoulders relaxed slightly, an almost imperceptible tension unstrung from his tendons.
"I do think my timing especially was quite good," he said. "Just the right pace to achieve maximal sensory overload." He looked thoughtful. "Though I've had a few thoughts about ways to improve the flow and impact of the strokes." He made some experimental whipping motions, his eyes abstracted, and was muttering something about kinetic energy and conservation of momentum when John leaned in and kissed him.
"Mmf," he said against John's mouth with some surprise, but then his eyes slid closed and he wrapped his arms around John and pulled him close.
John deepened the kiss, startled to discover that it was Sherlock who was trembling now. "Are you okay?"
Sherlock exhaled forcefully. "Sensory overload," he said. "Adrenaline. Physical reaction. It will pass."
"Right." John swung a leg over Sherlock to straddle him.
"Doesn't that hurt?"
"I don't give a damn." John kissed Sherlock's throat where that rich chuckle fluttered, then kissed his hands and the delicate shiver still shaking them. "You're brilliant," he said.
"I am quite aware of that."
Which doesn't mean you don't want to hear it sometimes, John thought but did not say. "Astonishing. Magnificent. Beautiful--" Sherlock wrinkled his nose and John returned hastily to compliments that mattered, "--keen and sharp as a blade, my terrifying towering mind. My genius, my guiding spirit, my lamp in the darkness. You dazzle me." The words came so easily, as if a secret door had been unlocked and swung wide, freeing them. "My enchanter, my magician." Words he needed to say perhaps as much as Sherlock needed to hear. "An unquenchable flame, with hands as fleet and bright as lightning."
He opened Sherlock's shirt, pressed kisses into each rib until the gasping breaths eased beneath his lips. He murmured phrases into his hair that trailed into broken nonsense about angels of intellect and unyielding stars in their spheres, until Sherlock glowed beneath him like a star indeed, burnished once more into blaze. "My unfailing light," he whispered into Sherlock's mouth, as if he could fill his lungs with trust, and Sherlock made a small sound and gathered him close.
"I think I might have something of a talent for this," Sherlock murmured somewhat later. He stroked John's hair absently, his hands steady and sure once more: hands deft enough to pluck one thread of truth from a tangle of facts, controlled enough to cut reality like a diamond.
Masterful enough to halt an unwanted blow in midair as fast as thought.
"Well, there's no reason to be smug about it," John grumbled instead of saying any of these things, and felt the last bit of tension ease from Sherlock's frame. The chest beneath him shook with a low chuckle that trailed off into something like a sigh.
John waited for Sherlock's retort, but all he eventually got was a small snore and the satisfaction of knowing he had gotten the last word this time.
---
( Part 3)