FIC: Under the Influence (BBC Sherlock, Sherlock/John)
Title: Under the Influence
Pairing/Characters: John/Sherlock, Greg Lestrade
Rating: R
Warnings/Spoilers: Consensual D/S
Fandom: BBC Sherlock
Summary: It's all fun and bedroom games...until D.I. Lestrade stops by without warning.
Word Count: 3000
There was an angel bending over the back of John Watson's chair and murmuring in his ear.
"--not certain if the benefits outweigh the costs, though. On the plus side, being out of your range of vision controls certain variables." Unseen fingers started at his chin, lifting it slightly, and slid down his throat, making two precise circles around his Adam's apple before descending to nestle in the hollow of his collarbone for a moment. "I can be more certain your reactions are to my voice and touch and not to any visual stimulus."
The voice might be angelic, but the fingers had more in common with the daemonic, John thought muzzily. He swallowed hard and the tormenting touch flickered back up to his throat and then cupped his chin again, stroking along his jawline.
"However, I miss out on important information this way," his infernal angel mused. "Which is a shame. Some things I can still observe, like your breathing. There's always a delicious moment where your breathing hitches and goes from fast and shallow to very deep, slow breaths. That's usually the first indication that you've moved from ordinary, rather boring sexual arousal to that special state of relaxed focus that's so intriguing. It used to take a while, but recently I've been able to get it to happen just by telling you to go there."
Sherlock paused, and John felt all of his attention sharpen, the world narrowing down to the pinpoint of awareness that was Sherlock's voice. God, he wanted--he wanted--
"Relax, John," Sherlock said, low and gentle and utterly commanding. "Let go."
He heard himself made a sound caught somewhere between a gasp and a sigh, and all of his limbs went heavy with a lassitude so intense it was nearly ecstasy. Everything seemed to go bright around the edges, luminous with meaning. Sherlock made a satisfied noise, and John lost himself in the delightful knowledge that he had elicited that smug, velvety sound.
"Oh yes," murmured Sherlock, "That's it exactly. Just breathe like that and listen to me and do as I say."
This seemed like an excellent plan to John.
Sherlock's fingers brushed his cheek, scraping over stubble, and each hair follicle seemed to blaze into pleasure at the sensation. "Sadly, my quest for variable control means I can't see your face easily, which is a shame, for the effects are remarkable. Still, I can feel it, how the muscles of your face lose that guarded control. Your eyelids slide half-shut--" A moth-light touch at the corners of his eyes, "--no longer wary, no longer cautious. That stubborn fierce jaw relaxes, your lips tend to part. Yes," Sherlock murmured, and his fingers traced John's lower lip. "Like that." John's tongue darted out involuntarily at the touch, and he tasted soap and salt for an instant before Sherlock made a small sound in his throat and the fingers withdrew, caressing his jawline as they moved to the back of his head. "Touch can be a...quite pleasurable thing, but it is notoriously unreliable for precision." John heard him take a long breath, then another. "It also can be distracting to the observer."
John leaned into the touch, savoring it. He no longer had to control the impulse to turn and look at Sherlock; he didn't need to see anything at all, just let that cool voice carry him along like a river of light, let those perfect hands guide him.
"It's also infuriatingly difficult to assess how dilated your pupils are. When you're well and truly under, it can be quite striking." Sherlock's fingers traced circles along the nape of John's neck, tugging at his hair, and a slow, languorous shiver ran through John's body. "I don't suppose you could estimate the current extent of your pupillary dilation, John?"
John was fairly sure that at other times, the words Sherlock was saying would have meaning. At the moment, however, he could only seem to focus on how Sherlock managed to make "pupillary" sound like the most sensual word in the English language. He closed his eyes and imagined how Sherlock's lips would have shaped each sound: the dual kisses of the beginning, the glimpse of tongue in the middle
The fingers in his hair tugged peremptorily. "Say something, John."
"Something," John said obediently. "Something, John." From behind him he heard Sherlock snort and let his head loll back against Sherlock's hand, giggling slightly.
"You also exhibit an increased tendency to giggle," Sherlock observed. "No, don't fight it," he said as John clamped his lips shut. "Euphoria is rather the goal, after all. Though difficult to operationalize." He leaned closer; John could feel his breath against his earlobe. "Are you feeling at all euphoric, John?"
John made a helpless noise: he had the vague impression that he didn't always feel this way, but he couldn't for the life of him remember anything else. The past was a dark tunnel, and all that mattered was this room full of the light of Sherlock's voice. "Aren't you going to tell me to do something?" he asked at last, his tongue slow and clumsy with pleasure. Everything was so bright and clear around him, like he was drowning in radiance. "I'd feel more euph--euphri--I'd feel even better if you told me to do something."
"Patience," Sherlock chided him, laughter running beneath the words in a sweet caustic ripple. "I'm considering my options. Let's see…" Fingers drummed on his shoulder. "I rather liked when I had you read aloud from the Journal of Organic Chemistry and get more aroused with each sentence you completed until you climaxed."
John had enjoyed that one as well, although it left him with an unfortunate tendency to find any discussion of organotrifluoroborates unbearably erotic. Luckily for him it wasn't a topic that came up too often in casual conversation, but Sherlock had been known to mention them sometimes just to make him go glassy-eyed.
"And that time when you took dictation from me was eminently pleasing to us both, I believe."
John sighed luxuriously at the memory of Sherlock telling him what to type, commanding his hands and his words: starting with the mundane ("I, John Watson, am wearing a truly hideous jumper") and moving slowly on to the much less mundane topics of the overwhelming brilliance of one Sherlock Holmes and his masterful qualities that drove ex-Army doctors mad with desire. In the cool sane light of the next morning, John had read what Sherlock had dictated to him and briefly considered publishing it to his blog just to punish him, but he was feeling too sated and happy to bother (also, he wasn't exactly certain Sherlock would mind).
Sherlock was still lost in thought; eventually John muttered "Or you could just tell me to suck your cock, that generally goes well."
"Oh, let's leave my penis out of it this time," Sherlock sniffed, which made John start to giggle again.
"God, Sherlock," he managed to say through the conflicting laughter and lust, "Don't make me wait any longer, you're torturing me, give me something to do for you, I just want--" All the words that he could never say whole-heartedly tangled on his tongue, blissfully sweet, "--I just want to serve you, to help you, to do everything you want, to--"
There was a knock on the door.
Sherlock's hands left his shoulders. "Yes?"
"It's me," came Lestrade's voice. "We've got a lead on that murder case."
"Oh," Sherlock breathed, delighted. "Come in, of course!"
John heard the door open as if from far away; he dragged himself out of his chair to stand up and nod at Lestrade and the two underlings bringing in two boxes of what seemed to be bits of broken plaster. Sherlock was already lost in contemplation of the white fragments, muttering about gypsum and desulfurization and potential mining locations and weather patterns in Brazil.
John rubbed at his face, trying to gather his wits. Everything still felt cloudy and dim, like he was struggling to come up from deep water. Lestrade rolled his eyes meaningfully at John and seemed to be waiting for John to respond in kind, but John was riveted at the sight of Sherlock's rapt face, the long fingers lifting chunks of plaster to the light. There was a smudge of white powder on his index finger; Sherlock touched it thoughtfully to his tongue and closed his eyes, and John's knees went rather wobbly. "Oh damn," he muttered under his breath. A small, chattering part of his brain was telling him that needed to pull up out of this dizzying spiral, needed not to be utterly entranced at the sight of Sherlock in action, needed to--
Sherlock snapped his fingers impatiently, still contemplating his evidence. "John. Knife," he announced, and the nattering voice in the back of John's mind went out like a snuffed candle, obliterated in the bliss of having something to do. He lifted the knife from the table and handed it to Sherlock, who took it without thanks or even acknowledgement, but John didn't need that, it was ludicrous to think that Sherlock would notice anything but the evidence right now. All John needed was to watch him, to be useful, to serve his trickster daemon as he hunted down the truth.
Sherlock changed boxes, rummaging: "John. Towel. Magnifier. Tweezers." Yes. Yes. Yes. He couldn't seem to look at anything but Sherlock, pale and luminous with the thrill of the chase: there were other people in the room, but John was only dimly aware of them now. They weren't Sherlock, they weren't important. "Phone." Yes.
One of the other people touched him on the elbow and John resisted the urge to shrug off the superfluous touch. "Are you all right?" said a vaguely familiar voice, and John was about to explain that he was far more than all right, he was perfect, everything was perfect, because he was needed and everything made sense and it felt so good, everything was a blaze of joy--when Sherlock stood up, clapped his hands together in a puff of white dust, and began to speak.
It was the customary torrent of words, the intricate dance of illumination and contempt for his rapt audience. Well, John was rapt--the others looked various levels of annoyed and disbelieving as Sherlock unraveled their mystery and told them where to go next: "--obviously, Detective-Inspector, considering that gypsum is often used as a coagulant in making tofu, even your lot should have been able to figure this out if you'd just thought about it--" He moved on to a rapid-fire summary of Italian medieval painting techniques: "Modern acrylic gesso smells entirely different, it's the presence of ammonia as a preservative, don't you know anything about--"
For a moment, his exalted eyes focused on John's face, and his voice abruptly wavered and vanished. John blinked at him, bereft at the silence: Go on, don't stop, it was beautiful, you're beautiful.
Sherlock cleared his throat and looked back at Lestrade, raising his shoulders in an elaborately nonchalant shrug. "And really that's it," he muttered. Lestrade's face creased in a puzzled frown at the anticlimax, but Sherlock seized a pencil and pad from the table (That's my job, John wanted to protest) and scribbled something. "You'll find the bodies at this address."
Lestrade took the paper and bowed with a flourish; John felt another, different stab of jealousy until he saw the mocking irony in Lestrade's eyes. He doesn't understand, he realized with relief. "Our thanks," Lestrade said. "Are you sure you're all right?" he added in a low undertone to John as the assistants started to take the boxes of fragments out.
John nodded.
"Is he all right, then?" Lestrade indicated Sherlock with his head. "'Cause you haven't taken your eyes off him the whole time we've been here."
"John's perfectly fine, Detective-Inspector," said Sherlock. There was plaster dust caught in his curls and his smile was angelic and dismissive.
"Then I guess I'll be going," said Lestrade. John caught the side edge of a glance directed at him as the door opened and closed, but he was watching Sherlock, who was dabbling his fingers in the white powder he'd collected, peering closely at it.
Heavy steps down the stairs, and then silence.
Sherlock looked up from the plaster powder and grinned at John like a boy who'd gotten away with something naughty. "Good job, John," he said. John's knees went weak, and Sherlock was next to him in a second, his arm around him. "Sorry," he said, "I forget that compliments tend to have that effect on you when you're in this state. But you hid it well."
"Hid what well?" John leaned hard on Sherlock, wobbling.
"That--you know, that--" Sherlock broke off as if he wasn't certain how to express himself, which made a bewitching contrast with his deductive certainty in front of his audience. John waited patiently for him to go on, serenely confident as he relaxed into Sherlock's embrace. "Anyway," Sherlock continued after a moment, "I don't think Lestrade noticed anything too out of the ordinary."
John frowned at his reassuring tone. "Well, he should have," he snapped. How could anyone miss his current state of radiance, the beautiful second-hand glow suffusing him? "I'm--I'm going to go tell him how amazing and masterful and lovable you are, and how lucky we all are to have you in our lives, although of course I'm a damn sight luckier than he is--"
He was heading for the door when Sherlock caught his arm and swung him away. "John, no, you can't--"
"You're right, he's got too much of a head start, but I bet if I hollered from the window," John said, arcing at the end of Sherlock's grip like an ecstatic yo-yo and heading with determination for said window. "I want to tell everyone, Sherlock, everyone should know that you're the most fantastic, brilliant, mesmerizing--"
And then he was flat on his back on the sofa and Sherlock had a knee on his chest, holding him down. "John, don't be stupid, I don't want you to announce all that to Lestrade--"
"--of course you do," John said, and Sherlock's face went still, looking down at him. "Don't you want everyone to know how I feel about you?" The thought seemed tragic, somehow. "Don't you want everyone to know the truth?"
After a moment, Sherlock smiled wryly. "So this is how it feels for you," he said, more to himself than to John. John tried to sit up, but Sherlock shifted his weight to keep him pinned down. "No, John. I'm not going to let you say something you're going to regret later," he said.
John tried to squirm out from under Sherlock's knee and managed to throw him off-balance, but when he tried to lunge for the window once more Sherlock tackled him around his knees and brought him down hard onto the rug. What followed was a rather undignified bout of wrestling in which neither could quite seem to get the upper hand: John was perhaps more determined and had the advantage of military training, but Sherlock had the clearer head and a better grasp of judo tactics. Eventually John found himself more or less on top of Sherlock, both of them breathing quite heavily, their hips pressed tightly together, and oh. Yes. John wriggled experimentally, and Sherlock groaned and bit his lip.
"If you don't want me to call Lestrade and tell him how utterly I am your devoted servant in all things--" John thrust his hips again and Sherlock made an imperative pleading noise, "--you'd better give me something else to do."
"Extortion, John?" Sherlock's voice was breathless and his eyes were dancing. "That's beneath you."
"No, you are beneath me," John pointed out.
And then of course he wasn't, and Sherlock was looking down at him, unbearably and beautifully smug. "I'll give you something to do, you insufferable man," Sherlock gloated.
Indeed he did, and although Sherlock's commands did not technically include "Make me say your name as if it were the only thing in the world that mattered," John considered it implied. After all, with Sherlock Holmes, there were always multiple layers of commands, both quite explicit: "Yes, exactly that, but harder, and with--yes--more teeth"; and deliriously implicit: Admire me. Adore me. Trust me. Love me.
Fulfilling the former was a pleasure, but fulfilling the unspoken latter--ah, there was joy.
: : :
"Sorry about the other day," Greg Lestrade said the next time John stopped by to pick up some files. "When we stopped by with the plaster and you were kind of...you know, out of it. I asked Sherlock if you were okay and he explained everything."
"He--he did?"
Lestrade didn't seem to notice John's sudden worry. "Oh sure. I understand totally, my allergies flare up this time of year too, and the medication can practically turn me into a zombie." He chuckled. "The cure can be worse than the disease, huh?"
"Ah, yes, right."
"Anyway, he made me promise to call ahead instead of just barging in on you, so I'm less likely to show up and find you seriously under the influence in the future," Lestrade said.
"Oh, well. I appreciate it," said John. For a brief, utterly mad instant he suddenly wanted once more to tell Lestrade how amazing Sherlock was, how utterly commanding and admirable and adorable, and how lucky John was--
"He can be a bit all right sometimes, can't he?" Lestrade said.
"A bit," John said.
---
And now I'm tempted to actually write "Erotic Readings from the Journal of Organic Chemistry" and "John Takes Sexy Dictation," God help me.
Pairing/Characters: John/Sherlock, Greg Lestrade
Rating: R
Warnings/Spoilers: Consensual D/S
Fandom: BBC Sherlock
Summary: It's all fun and bedroom games...until D.I. Lestrade stops by without warning.
Word Count: 3000
There was an angel bending over the back of John Watson's chair and murmuring in his ear.
"--not certain if the benefits outweigh the costs, though. On the plus side, being out of your range of vision controls certain variables." Unseen fingers started at his chin, lifting it slightly, and slid down his throat, making two precise circles around his Adam's apple before descending to nestle in the hollow of his collarbone for a moment. "I can be more certain your reactions are to my voice and touch and not to any visual stimulus."
The voice might be angelic, but the fingers had more in common with the daemonic, John thought muzzily. He swallowed hard and the tormenting touch flickered back up to his throat and then cupped his chin again, stroking along his jawline.
"However, I miss out on important information this way," his infernal angel mused. "Which is a shame. Some things I can still observe, like your breathing. There's always a delicious moment where your breathing hitches and goes from fast and shallow to very deep, slow breaths. That's usually the first indication that you've moved from ordinary, rather boring sexual arousal to that special state of relaxed focus that's so intriguing. It used to take a while, but recently I've been able to get it to happen just by telling you to go there."
Sherlock paused, and John felt all of his attention sharpen, the world narrowing down to the pinpoint of awareness that was Sherlock's voice. God, he wanted--he wanted--
"Relax, John," Sherlock said, low and gentle and utterly commanding. "Let go."
He heard himself made a sound caught somewhere between a gasp and a sigh, and all of his limbs went heavy with a lassitude so intense it was nearly ecstasy. Everything seemed to go bright around the edges, luminous with meaning. Sherlock made a satisfied noise, and John lost himself in the delightful knowledge that he had elicited that smug, velvety sound.
"Oh yes," murmured Sherlock, "That's it exactly. Just breathe like that and listen to me and do as I say."
This seemed like an excellent plan to John.
Sherlock's fingers brushed his cheek, scraping over stubble, and each hair follicle seemed to blaze into pleasure at the sensation. "Sadly, my quest for variable control means I can't see your face easily, which is a shame, for the effects are remarkable. Still, I can feel it, how the muscles of your face lose that guarded control. Your eyelids slide half-shut--" A moth-light touch at the corners of his eyes, "--no longer wary, no longer cautious. That stubborn fierce jaw relaxes, your lips tend to part. Yes," Sherlock murmured, and his fingers traced John's lower lip. "Like that." John's tongue darted out involuntarily at the touch, and he tasted soap and salt for an instant before Sherlock made a small sound in his throat and the fingers withdrew, caressing his jawline as they moved to the back of his head. "Touch can be a...quite pleasurable thing, but it is notoriously unreliable for precision." John heard him take a long breath, then another. "It also can be distracting to the observer."
John leaned into the touch, savoring it. He no longer had to control the impulse to turn and look at Sherlock; he didn't need to see anything at all, just let that cool voice carry him along like a river of light, let those perfect hands guide him.
"It's also infuriatingly difficult to assess how dilated your pupils are. When you're well and truly under, it can be quite striking." Sherlock's fingers traced circles along the nape of John's neck, tugging at his hair, and a slow, languorous shiver ran through John's body. "I don't suppose you could estimate the current extent of your pupillary dilation, John?"
John was fairly sure that at other times, the words Sherlock was saying would have meaning. At the moment, however, he could only seem to focus on how Sherlock managed to make "pupillary" sound like the most sensual word in the English language. He closed his eyes and imagined how Sherlock's lips would have shaped each sound: the dual kisses of the beginning, the glimpse of tongue in the middle
The fingers in his hair tugged peremptorily. "Say something, John."
"Something," John said obediently. "Something, John." From behind him he heard Sherlock snort and let his head loll back against Sherlock's hand, giggling slightly.
"You also exhibit an increased tendency to giggle," Sherlock observed. "No, don't fight it," he said as John clamped his lips shut. "Euphoria is rather the goal, after all. Though difficult to operationalize." He leaned closer; John could feel his breath against his earlobe. "Are you feeling at all euphoric, John?"
John made a helpless noise: he had the vague impression that he didn't always feel this way, but he couldn't for the life of him remember anything else. The past was a dark tunnel, and all that mattered was this room full of the light of Sherlock's voice. "Aren't you going to tell me to do something?" he asked at last, his tongue slow and clumsy with pleasure. Everything was so bright and clear around him, like he was drowning in radiance. "I'd feel more euph--euphri--I'd feel even better if you told me to do something."
"Patience," Sherlock chided him, laughter running beneath the words in a sweet caustic ripple. "I'm considering my options. Let's see…" Fingers drummed on his shoulder. "I rather liked when I had you read aloud from the Journal of Organic Chemistry and get more aroused with each sentence you completed until you climaxed."
John had enjoyed that one as well, although it left him with an unfortunate tendency to find any discussion of organotrifluoroborates unbearably erotic. Luckily for him it wasn't a topic that came up too often in casual conversation, but Sherlock had been known to mention them sometimes just to make him go glassy-eyed.
"And that time when you took dictation from me was eminently pleasing to us both, I believe."
John sighed luxuriously at the memory of Sherlock telling him what to type, commanding his hands and his words: starting with the mundane ("I, John Watson, am wearing a truly hideous jumper") and moving slowly on to the much less mundane topics of the overwhelming brilliance of one Sherlock Holmes and his masterful qualities that drove ex-Army doctors mad with desire. In the cool sane light of the next morning, John had read what Sherlock had dictated to him and briefly considered publishing it to his blog just to punish him, but he was feeling too sated and happy to bother (also, he wasn't exactly certain Sherlock would mind).
Sherlock was still lost in thought; eventually John muttered "Or you could just tell me to suck your cock, that generally goes well."
"Oh, let's leave my penis out of it this time," Sherlock sniffed, which made John start to giggle again.
"God, Sherlock," he managed to say through the conflicting laughter and lust, "Don't make me wait any longer, you're torturing me, give me something to do for you, I just want--" All the words that he could never say whole-heartedly tangled on his tongue, blissfully sweet, "--I just want to serve you, to help you, to do everything you want, to--"
There was a knock on the door.
Sherlock's hands left his shoulders. "Yes?"
"It's me," came Lestrade's voice. "We've got a lead on that murder case."
"Oh," Sherlock breathed, delighted. "Come in, of course!"
John heard the door open as if from far away; he dragged himself out of his chair to stand up and nod at Lestrade and the two underlings bringing in two boxes of what seemed to be bits of broken plaster. Sherlock was already lost in contemplation of the white fragments, muttering about gypsum and desulfurization and potential mining locations and weather patterns in Brazil.
John rubbed at his face, trying to gather his wits. Everything still felt cloudy and dim, like he was struggling to come up from deep water. Lestrade rolled his eyes meaningfully at John and seemed to be waiting for John to respond in kind, but John was riveted at the sight of Sherlock's rapt face, the long fingers lifting chunks of plaster to the light. There was a smudge of white powder on his index finger; Sherlock touched it thoughtfully to his tongue and closed his eyes, and John's knees went rather wobbly. "Oh damn," he muttered under his breath. A small, chattering part of his brain was telling him that needed to pull up out of this dizzying spiral, needed not to be utterly entranced at the sight of Sherlock in action, needed to--
Sherlock snapped his fingers impatiently, still contemplating his evidence. "John. Knife," he announced, and the nattering voice in the back of John's mind went out like a snuffed candle, obliterated in the bliss of having something to do. He lifted the knife from the table and handed it to Sherlock, who took it without thanks or even acknowledgement, but John didn't need that, it was ludicrous to think that Sherlock would notice anything but the evidence right now. All John needed was to watch him, to be useful, to serve his trickster daemon as he hunted down the truth.
Sherlock changed boxes, rummaging: "John. Towel. Magnifier. Tweezers." Yes. Yes. Yes. He couldn't seem to look at anything but Sherlock, pale and luminous with the thrill of the chase: there were other people in the room, but John was only dimly aware of them now. They weren't Sherlock, they weren't important. "Phone." Yes.
One of the other people touched him on the elbow and John resisted the urge to shrug off the superfluous touch. "Are you all right?" said a vaguely familiar voice, and John was about to explain that he was far more than all right, he was perfect, everything was perfect, because he was needed and everything made sense and it felt so good, everything was a blaze of joy--when Sherlock stood up, clapped his hands together in a puff of white dust, and began to speak.
It was the customary torrent of words, the intricate dance of illumination and contempt for his rapt audience. Well, John was rapt--the others looked various levels of annoyed and disbelieving as Sherlock unraveled their mystery and told them where to go next: "--obviously, Detective-Inspector, considering that gypsum is often used as a coagulant in making tofu, even your lot should have been able to figure this out if you'd just thought about it--" He moved on to a rapid-fire summary of Italian medieval painting techniques: "Modern acrylic gesso smells entirely different, it's the presence of ammonia as a preservative, don't you know anything about--"
For a moment, his exalted eyes focused on John's face, and his voice abruptly wavered and vanished. John blinked at him, bereft at the silence: Go on, don't stop, it was beautiful, you're beautiful.
Sherlock cleared his throat and looked back at Lestrade, raising his shoulders in an elaborately nonchalant shrug. "And really that's it," he muttered. Lestrade's face creased in a puzzled frown at the anticlimax, but Sherlock seized a pencil and pad from the table (That's my job, John wanted to protest) and scribbled something. "You'll find the bodies at this address."
Lestrade took the paper and bowed with a flourish; John felt another, different stab of jealousy until he saw the mocking irony in Lestrade's eyes. He doesn't understand, he realized with relief. "Our thanks," Lestrade said. "Are you sure you're all right?" he added in a low undertone to John as the assistants started to take the boxes of fragments out.
John nodded.
"Is he all right, then?" Lestrade indicated Sherlock with his head. "'Cause you haven't taken your eyes off him the whole time we've been here."
"John's perfectly fine, Detective-Inspector," said Sherlock. There was plaster dust caught in his curls and his smile was angelic and dismissive.
"Then I guess I'll be going," said Lestrade. John caught the side edge of a glance directed at him as the door opened and closed, but he was watching Sherlock, who was dabbling his fingers in the white powder he'd collected, peering closely at it.
Heavy steps down the stairs, and then silence.
Sherlock looked up from the plaster powder and grinned at John like a boy who'd gotten away with something naughty. "Good job, John," he said. John's knees went weak, and Sherlock was next to him in a second, his arm around him. "Sorry," he said, "I forget that compliments tend to have that effect on you when you're in this state. But you hid it well."
"Hid what well?" John leaned hard on Sherlock, wobbling.
"That--you know, that--" Sherlock broke off as if he wasn't certain how to express himself, which made a bewitching contrast with his deductive certainty in front of his audience. John waited patiently for him to go on, serenely confident as he relaxed into Sherlock's embrace. "Anyway," Sherlock continued after a moment, "I don't think Lestrade noticed anything too out of the ordinary."
John frowned at his reassuring tone. "Well, he should have," he snapped. How could anyone miss his current state of radiance, the beautiful second-hand glow suffusing him? "I'm--I'm going to go tell him how amazing and masterful and lovable you are, and how lucky we all are to have you in our lives, although of course I'm a damn sight luckier than he is--"
He was heading for the door when Sherlock caught his arm and swung him away. "John, no, you can't--"
"You're right, he's got too much of a head start, but I bet if I hollered from the window," John said, arcing at the end of Sherlock's grip like an ecstatic yo-yo and heading with determination for said window. "I want to tell everyone, Sherlock, everyone should know that you're the most fantastic, brilliant, mesmerizing--"
And then he was flat on his back on the sofa and Sherlock had a knee on his chest, holding him down. "John, don't be stupid, I don't want you to announce all that to Lestrade--"
"--of course you do," John said, and Sherlock's face went still, looking down at him. "Don't you want everyone to know how I feel about you?" The thought seemed tragic, somehow. "Don't you want everyone to know the truth?"
After a moment, Sherlock smiled wryly. "So this is how it feels for you," he said, more to himself than to John. John tried to sit up, but Sherlock shifted his weight to keep him pinned down. "No, John. I'm not going to let you say something you're going to regret later," he said.
John tried to squirm out from under Sherlock's knee and managed to throw him off-balance, but when he tried to lunge for the window once more Sherlock tackled him around his knees and brought him down hard onto the rug. What followed was a rather undignified bout of wrestling in which neither could quite seem to get the upper hand: John was perhaps more determined and had the advantage of military training, but Sherlock had the clearer head and a better grasp of judo tactics. Eventually John found himself more or less on top of Sherlock, both of them breathing quite heavily, their hips pressed tightly together, and oh. Yes. John wriggled experimentally, and Sherlock groaned and bit his lip.
"If you don't want me to call Lestrade and tell him how utterly I am your devoted servant in all things--" John thrust his hips again and Sherlock made an imperative pleading noise, "--you'd better give me something else to do."
"Extortion, John?" Sherlock's voice was breathless and his eyes were dancing. "That's beneath you."
"No, you are beneath me," John pointed out.
And then of course he wasn't, and Sherlock was looking down at him, unbearably and beautifully smug. "I'll give you something to do, you insufferable man," Sherlock gloated.
Indeed he did, and although Sherlock's commands did not technically include "Make me say your name as if it were the only thing in the world that mattered," John considered it implied. After all, with Sherlock Holmes, there were always multiple layers of commands, both quite explicit: "Yes, exactly that, but harder, and with--yes--more teeth"; and deliriously implicit: Admire me. Adore me. Trust me. Love me.
Fulfilling the former was a pleasure, but fulfilling the unspoken latter--ah, there was joy.
: : :
"Sorry about the other day," Greg Lestrade said the next time John stopped by to pick up some files. "When we stopped by with the plaster and you were kind of...you know, out of it. I asked Sherlock if you were okay and he explained everything."
"He--he did?"
Lestrade didn't seem to notice John's sudden worry. "Oh sure. I understand totally, my allergies flare up this time of year too, and the medication can practically turn me into a zombie." He chuckled. "The cure can be worse than the disease, huh?"
"Ah, yes, right."
"Anyway, he made me promise to call ahead instead of just barging in on you, so I'm less likely to show up and find you seriously under the influence in the future," Lestrade said.
"Oh, well. I appreciate it," said John. For a brief, utterly mad instant he suddenly wanted once more to tell Lestrade how amazing Sherlock was, how utterly commanding and admirable and adorable, and how lucky John was--
"He can be a bit all right sometimes, can't he?" Lestrade said.
"A bit," John said.
---
And now I'm tempted to actually write "Erotic Readings from the Journal of Organic Chemistry" and "John Takes Sexy Dictation," God help me.