more fic: "The English Vice" part 2
Title: The English Vice; or, “Nuthin' But a G Thang” (2/2)
Pairing: John/Sherlock
Rating: NC17/M
Warnings: Explicit sex, power play, caning. No spoilers.
Part One is here.
In the weeks that follow, John applies himself to learning about consensual caning. He furtively thumbs through some books at a shop, but doesn't allow himself more than a basic skim; wouldn't do to be seen lurking too long in the adult section. Knowing the internet is a vast cache of information about anything and everything of a sexual nature, he examines a few websites when he has a moment alone. There doesn’t seem to be much to know; some vaguely comprehensible stuff about “safe and sane”, aftercare, and a surprising lot of very submissive women. He follows some links in an attempt to pick up some technique, but as he's watching a video demonstrating the right grip and swing on the instrument, Mrs Hudson bustles into the flat with milk and the mail, and he has to slam his laptop shut. She shows no signs that she knew what he was up to, but before she leaves the flat again she widens her eyes at him a little, as if to say, Oo-er, get you. Puts John right off the idea.
Nothing that he sees or reads really turns him on, beyond the jolt of instinctive pleasure viewing a pair of bared, shapely buttocks; the red marks on them just say injury, inflammation, hematoma to him. Naturally, he understands the dynamics behind power exchange. They tell him nothing about himself, beyond further muddling his understanding of the nature of his relationship with Sherlock-for they truly are in a relationship now. Partners, lovers, friends, flatmates, a system of two, with John as the ground and Sherlock as the spark. But he is not subbing for Sherlock, and doesn’t want to be, even if he is the one who does the grocery shop, the one who consents, the one who follows. It's much more complicated than the clearly demarcated line between master and slave, the carer and the cared-for. If he canes Sherlock, it'll be as a favor, not because it's something that John needs. All John needs is an interaction, a way to get closer, a way to give Sherlock something that he needs so much that he'll ask for it.
During those weeks, Sherlock makes no indications of interest in anything sexual. He spends his hours instead writing an extended scientific theory on honeybee Colony Collapse, then staying up literally all hours arguing with scientists around the world on instant-messenger, email, and message boards. Lestrade and the police staff at Metro send him no cases that he can't solve in less than thirty minutes with a minimum of effort or information, and he ignores all offers of cases from the outside world. Talking mostly to himself, he barely speaks to John except to demand more tea, and one morning John gets up to see that Sherlock has pissed into an empty specimen jar rather than go to the toilet, so focused on his laptop screen that he has chewed his lower lip bloody and his face is streaked with salt from his watering eyes, fingers flying over the keyboard. When John gets back from work Sherlock has acquired a second laptop, and sits before them both, his hands flying back and forth between the two. The piss-jar, full to the brim and capped, now has two companions.
John spends as much time as he can outside the flat. With no cases coming in, money gets scarce. He picks up work shifts wherever he can, all hours, all days; when he's not at work, he spends some time with Mike Stamford and his family, or walks around London, or sits at Speedy's with a coffee and a newspaper, but his mind is always at 221b, his phone always fully charged and in his pocket, but aggravatingly silent. John starts feeling desperate for a case himself, and wonders why the hell Sherlock would come to such an abrupt halt of his life’s work.
One afternoon, his body missing the warm cliffs and plains of Sherlock's body, John sends Sherlock an impatient text : I'm a honeybee widower. Of course, he gets no reply. That's not how it works, and he knows it. He sighs and goes back to his shift at A & E, setting broken bones, tweezing glass from a broken sliding door from a child's arm, prepping for emergency appendectomies. He can do it in his sleep. He feels nearly asleep. The world is gray and irritating. He asks out a woman he knows, takes her to the cinema to see a thriller, goes back to her place, goes down on her until she thrashingly comes, then begs off home. She is ecstatic enough not to protest. At the last minute he decides that he doesn’t want to fuck her, only please her, maybe to make up for all those slave women he read about and the pain and deprivation they have to go through to please their stern masters. Besides, Sherlock hates it so much when John comes home stinking of fanny with that silly smile of “I’ve just had sex” on his face, and he invariably points out that John doesn’t really care about those women, only unloading unwanted sexual tension and fluids in a socially acceptable way. John can’t ever seem to explain that not only does he have perfectly natural sexual urges, he certainly isn’t going to be able to have them satisfied by the twice a year that seems to be enough for Sherlock. Sherlock forgets all about sex most of the time, and when he wants it from John, he just takes it, knowing John won’t refuse him. It is maddening. John hates him for it.
I am not Sherlock’s slave, damn it. He needs me more than I need him.
When he gets home after that date, Sherlock is gone out, the front room neatly tidied, the piss-jars gone without a trace. It even smells nice in there for the first time that month. John grimaces at the thought of Mrs Hudson clearing up after Sherlock and then putting out some potpourri. He makes a cup of herbal tea, washes the taste of vaginal juices from his mouth, sits dull and purposeless. Sherlock never texted back. Wherever he's gone, whatever he's doing, it doesn't include John.
He goes to bed, curls up with a pillow, stares at the wall. His leg aches. This won't do, he thinks, and falls asleep.
+ + + + +
In the morning John comes downstairs in pajamas and dressing gown, muzzy-headed and caring about nothing but tea. Sherlock sits at the kitchen table with a pile of newspapers, already dressed in his basic black suit and purple pinstripe bespoke shirt. His hair has been brushed into smooth, dark, side-parted swoops. His handsomeness is offensive this early in the morning. "Tea?" John mumbles.
"In the pot, still hot," Sherlock says. He sounds bright but relaxed, and his eyes are shining. John grunts affirmatively, sits, pours, milks, sips. Sherlock watches, waiting, smiling a bit wildly. “Toast, as well.”
There is indeed toast, already buttered, though it’s grown cold. "What have you done?" John finally asks, frowning.
"Tickets," Sherlock says. "Kronos Quartet. Playing Philip Glass. At the Barbican. Tonight."
"All I got out of that was 'tickets, Barbican, tonight'," John remarks, slurping his tea. It is bitingly strong, the way Sherlock likes it, but good; no weird twigs or lichens in it to "infuse it with probiotics," a strange term that generally means “make it taste like shit.”
"The Kronos Quartet, John. Only the most famous and successful new music ensemble in the world; I should have thought even you would have heard of them. And you've never heard of Philip Glass no of course you haven't." Sherlock looks delightedly outraged. "In that case, it is now an imperative that you accompany me to the performance. It is time for your horizons to be broadened."
"Sorry," John responds sheepishly. "I'm much more of a Massive Attack sort of bloke."
"Precisely my point. You merely have a sentimental attachment to that rubbish. Philip Glass composes some of the most purely transcendent and mathematically perfect music ever created. Is your dark-brown jacket in a wearable state? It's not too late to take it to the cleaners', if not. You needn't wear a tie, but please do not wear jeans."
"This sounds very educational," John mutters. "The jacket is clean, and you know it is; you saw it in my closet the other day. Trousers, too. It's not as though I have much cause to wear a suit right now."
"Why should you bother, when you can slump through life looking like a transient and nobody cares?" Sherlock rises from the table and all but flutters around the kitchen, spots of colour high on his cheeks. "I acquired the tickets last evening in a wager; I defeated a Ukranian twenty pounds above my weight class in only two rounds. He never even touched me."
"You beat up a guy to get tickets to a show?"
"I didn't beat him up," Sherlock says, offended. "I let him get tired, and then I silenced him with an effective uppercut. The 'rope-a-dope', as it is known, famously employed by Muhammad Ali during the Rumble in the Jungle. And I won them. He laid me a wager. It was a matter of honor. Besides, the man was trying to scalp the tickets for two hundred quid apiece, which is simply offensive."
John shakes his head, and laughs despite himself. "Rope-a-dope. Right, then," he concedes. "So what does this band sound like?"
"Well, they are a string quartet; you can imagine."
John munches toast and nods. "So it’s classical."
"No; modern music. Quite different. A very different feel. But based on many of the same contrapuntal systems." Sherlock can clearly see that John's eyes have glazed over again. "Oh, fine, I'll demonstrate. No, don't get up; the thin air five feet above the ground might suffocate you." The detective flashes into the front room and back, wielding his laptop, fiddling with it as he walks. "This is one of the pieces they may well play tonight."
From Sherlock's computer comes a low hum of cellos, matched with a layer of repetitive-very repetitive-violins, eking out something that approaches melody, but then keeps backing away from it, back into the exact same notes again, never really going anywhere. Almost instantly, it gives John a headache. He glances dubiously at Sherlock, who gazes into the middle distance, seemingly transported by this ugly, soulless, aggravatingly boring music.
"Very interesting," John murmurs.
Sherlock grins, not unkindly. "You're lying."
"I just . . ." John shrugs and gulps more tea, trying to find the nicest way to say what he thinks. "I find it . . . mechanical? A bit repetitive, isn't it?" Sherlock nods at him encouragingly. "Sterile."
“Precisely,” Sherlock replies in satisfaction. “Such mathematics, so pure.”
"There aren’t any feelings in it," John claims. So, yeah, perfect for Sherlock, really, the man who thinks Amy Winehouse sings like the death-wheezes of a cart horse.
Sherlock just patiently smiles. "Are you coming, or will I have to attend on my own?"
"Yeah, I'll go," John says slowly, "but I might want a drink first."
"You can get a drink there. Right, then; I'm off. Meet me back here at seven."
"You're off? Where?" John asks in surprise. Sherlock hadn't left the flat in nine days, and now he’s gone twice in twelve hours.
"Royal Entomological Society," Sherlock replies. He rubs his hands together, chuckling with a nasty sort of satisfaction. "I am going to see if I can knock out Sir Reginald Wilkes in less than two rounds; he challenged me to a duel. Whoever loses has to endorse the other man's paper, and I have no intention of endorsing that thick-headed, asthmatic millstone around the neck of pure science. I shall send him home to Herts with his stinger between his legs, mark my words."
"Don't get arrested," John calls after his flatmate, sighs, turns back to his tea. It tastes even better now; brighter somehow, infused with purpose. Or maybe . . . and John peeks into the teapot to see some kind of horrible slimy white mold clinging to the wet leaves of Ceylon . . . infused with probiotics.
John consults at Barts that day with Stamford and a couple of students on rounds; they discuss identification and treatment of gunshot wounds in an emergency situation, and he finds himself narrating a moment from his past that he'd thought he'd forgotten, or at least hoped to, when he had to try to save the life of a child who'd been in the line of fire and taken two rounds to the face. "Did you save her?" asks the smallest student, a hopeful-eyed young woman with a headscarf and an African name. John tightens his mouth and shakes his head. He falls silent and lags behind as they continue on their rounds, his head full of alternating gray static and memories of blood literally gushing over his hands; but at the end of the day, every single one of the students gives John his or her contact information, and when the tallest student declares that John should come lecture, the students all agree. It shakes John out of his thought spiral for a while, remembering that he still has good work to contribute in the world, Sherlock or no Sherlock. He doesn't need Sherlock . . . He steps outside the hospital, walking toward the tube station, brow furrowed. What the hell does Sherlock have to do with anything?
He smirks tightly and sighs. Sherlock has everything to do with everything for him. Best he accept that fact and not try to fight it; not a battle he could ever win. He checks the time and sees that he's got a while to grab a pie at the pub before he's due to meet his flatmate back home, before that bloody terrible concert. Maybe a whiskey and a pint as well as the pie.
Pleasantly unsteady on his feet, John arrives comfortably promptly at eight minutes to seven. Sherlock stands before the window, wearing his overcoat, feet planted wide, playing a tender, delicate air on his violin. John waits silently until Sherlock quivers the last vibrato note from the strings, then lightly claps his hands. "Getting a bit of real music in before tonight's performance?" John quips.
Sherlock wheels to face him, his face flushed and eyes so pale they look white. "Three drinks already, Watson?" he shoots back. "Such a brave soldier. Refuses to back down from a drawn pistol, but a bit of Philip Glass and jumps straight into the barrel. Don't forget to shave; I can't be seen with you looking that way." He bustles the instrument back into its case, and John smirks and heads to his room.
Showered and suited, John follows Sherlock some more; down into a taxi, following Sherlock's lead in not speaking during the ride, following him into the Barbican Hall and straight to their second-row seats, bypassing all the bars and cafés. John mentions, "Had a lovely pork and veg pie down at the Dove and Kite; quite full, might fall asleep." They are in the last two seats in the row, and John frowns again as Sherlock takes the innermost seat, right next to the wall. "These are our seats? They hardly seem worth beating someone up for, do they?"
"I only really require a good reason. Your silence is appreciated," Sherlock intones, staring straight ahead at the empty stage.
Amid enthusiastic applause, four ordinary-looking chaps come out onto the stage, settle with their instruments, and to John's scornful amusement, release the wand of a metronome to provide a steady rhythm. And all at once, they begin to play.
Night and day, the difference between the music played live and the music heard from Sherlock's laptop's speakers, and contrasting even further with the way that Sherlock played. A violin in the room is like an additional human voice; a string quartet, miked and amplified through a concert hall, is like having every nerve ending in his body wired to receive a meaning previously unknown to him. At first, it is as painful as he'd feared, but not irritating; it's a pain as cleanly complicated as a pile of barbed wire. First he strains forward in his chair, as if getting closer to the stage will help him understand, but it isn't until he heaves a great breath he didn't know he was holding and relaxes back into his seat that the logic of the music slots perfectly into place. Now that he's heard it, he can't unhear it. It's like the magical moment when he first realized that he could swim; of course, of course!
At the end of the first number, John applauds, glancing over to see if Sherlock might actually share his enthusiasm. Instead, the detective slouches against the wall, holding his iPhone in his lap and rapidly tapping its screen with the padded "silent stylus" he'd invented. "Sherlock!" John whispers, dismayed. Sherlock only jerks his chin a bit, as if indicating the stage with his messy dark forelock-curl, and before John can say anything else, the quartet plays again, and he's once again caught up in the pleasure of an initial confusion followed by the bright spark of comprehension. This music is fun. And once he has the mechanics understood, he feels the melancholy of it, or nature's energy, or the pure childlike wonder of discovery.
It's great stuff, and there's Sherlock, texting and making faces, not sparing a single glance at the brilliant performance.
Impatiently, John elbows Sherlock, and angles his head, silently telling him to stop. Sherlock slaps John's arm-a good sharp one right on the funny bone-and returns to his flame war. John's concentration is shattered, and, ignoring the music as much as his flatmate is, sits silently fuming, arms crossed, for the rest of the concert.
As the applause begins to die down, John gets up immediately, losing himself in the scrum of audience members heading for the doors. By the time he makes it to the taxi rank, Sherlock, still texting, has caught up, and as usual a cab comes as if summoned by black magic. They get in and John can't cross his arms and frown any harder or he'll break something, preferably Sherlock's face. Sherlock chuckles softly at something on his phone screen, and taps at it some more.
"Look, would you put that fucking thing away?!" John snaps.
"Why are you shouting," Sherlock says mildly.
The string quartet hadn't been that loud, but John's ears are ringing anyway. "You knock out a Russian boxer for tickets-scalped tickets-to see those guys play and yet you can't even bother to pay the slightest attention! And you drag me down here! Molly's right; you do ruin everything, don't you?"
Sherlock calmly stares at him through narrowed eyes, the first time he’s actually looked at John in hours. and says, "Tonight." He swipes a finger across his phone to shut it down, slides it into the inner breast pocket of his coat.
"You never even-eh?"
Sherlock looks out the window at the streets rushing past and presses his lips together. "Tonight," he repeats. "Before you lose your temper."
"What makes you think I'm in the slightest bit interested in giving you something you want after that?"
"Because I'm smarter than you," Sherlock drawls. "I know things you couldn't possibly comprehend in a thousand years. And I know you, and I know I just gave you a gift that you will have for the rest of your life. And you keep going on about 'equity.'" The detective smiles out at the night. "You can thank me."
“Oh, I’ll thank you, all right,” John says under his breath, staring out the window on his side. “Til you bleed.” When he risks a glance at Sherlock, he sees that the detective wears an thoughtful, uncertain hint of a smile. John feels even worse now. This isn’t how it’s supposed to go; anger isn’t supposed to be a part of it. Trust Sherlock to wreck that, too, or at least misunderstand it. Or twist it to his own ends. John shakes his head and sighs; he’s being used again. His emotions, his reactions. Sherlock plays him like he plays the violin.
He considers just walking away when they reach Baker Street. Instead he gets out of the taxi and beats Sherlock to the door, if only to believe that he’s not the one following for a change.
In the front room of 221b, Sherlock sits down, opens his laptop, and casually gestures toward the mantel. The cane rests on top, suspended on a pair of baize-covered rests. Slim, golden in color, lightweight, with a crook on one end like an umbrella handle. John stares at it, his heartbeat quickening. “That wasn’t there this morning,” he grumbles.
Sherlock sneers as he types. “Like you’d notice. You make bats look observant.”
With that, John has had quite enough. If he doesn’t use that cane, he is going to punch Sherlock right in the face. He can only imagine how much the cane hurts; probably more, and much less obviously, than a broken nose. “Take your coat and jacket off,” he commands. “And your shoes. And bend over the sofa. Sharpish, or it’ll be bare-arsed.”
Sherlock arches his eyebrow and gives John a sulky glance, but he shuts the laptop, neatly hangs his coat on the hook, removes his shoes and socks, and bends forward over an arm of the sofa-the very same one he had John over. John’s heart is definitely hammering now, but the anger is cooling and solidifying in his belly, and his hips and thighs suddenly feel very hot.
Sherlock speaks, his voice February-cold and hard as handcuffs.
“Stop pretending I’m your boyfriend. Don’t even think it. That’s not what this is. This is entirely for my benefit; your fulfillment, your pleasure, is utterly irrelevant to me. It has rarely been otherwise. We are not ‘making love’. There isn’t any. I cannot and will not ever love you, John. View it as a disability if that comforts you. I am no more capable of loving you-as you understand it-than Stephen Hawking is capable of playing tennis.”
John wishes he could laugh, but Sherlock’s words curdle in his belly like poison. He desperately clutches an emotional antidote. “I’ve proved you wrong before,” he points out. And Sherlock’s lied before, too. Oh, so much, so many times. And John falls for it because he’s in love. And now he’s angry all over again.
“You listen, but you do not hear,” Sherlock mutters. “Typical.”
John reaches for the cane, hefts it in his hand, testing its weight. It’s heavier than he anticipated and he imagines, for a moment, the damage he could cause. Its thinness is not kind; it could cut on bare skin, but is still heavy enough to cause tremendous bruising. It has been well cared for; glossy with linseed oil, its handle slightly worn by the wielders’ hands. John lightly taps the length against his palm, just hard enough to understand, Oh, yes, this is a weapon of punishment.
Sherlock drawls, “Go on, then. Do your worst.”
“I’m going to hurt you,” John frets. Sherlock only scoffs impatiently, and sticks his bum out a bit more. John smiles despite himself at Sherlock’s theatricality. “I’m a bit cross.”
“Only give me what you think I deserve,” Sherlock says.
John hesitates for a moment, and Sherlock heaves a big, aggrieved sigh. “Or, you could just be a coward.”
That triggers. Without even being conscious of the action, John lifts the cane and brings it down. The wood whistles, and strikes yielding flesh with a faint pop. Sherlock flinches, then hisses nastily, “Really? A tickle? You insult me. Not for the first time, mind you-”
John’s next strike slices air and lands square across the top of Sherlock’s protruding arse. Smack. Sherlock gasps mid-word, gulps, and falls silent. John tightens his mouth. His heart gives a heavy thud in his chest. “That shut you up, didn’t it?” he remarks.
“Better,” Sherlock croaks. “You’ll make Head Boy in no time.”
“I would,” John mutters, “if I was a posh git like you-” He brings the cane down again smartly, deliberately adding the “snap” of the wrist at the end that he remembers from the website video, landing a few inches lower, where it curves. Sherlock winces and shudders all over; John can see the back of his neck is red in a furious blush. “Thinking you’re so much better than the rest of us-”
“I am,” Sherlock says through gritted teeth, “And you know it.”
“Shut it, perv,” John says. He gives it more shoulder than forearm this time, lands the edge of the cane at a diagonal, crossing his earlier strokes. A good, hard, solid hit. Sherlock yelps, then moans, bites his lip, keening softly, and John’s body responds, as always, to the sound of Sherlock in the grip of an involuntary reaction, his cock feeling heavy and itchy; he wants to take his trousers off, but not yet. He’s starting to enjoy this now. He carefully aims the next stroke to land right at the bottom curve, where buttock becomes upper thigh, and Sherlock cries out and all but melts against the couch, humping the arm.
“Please,” he gasps, his voice high and pinched, “oh, please-”
“Please what?” John drags the tip of the cane across the welts. He loves how Sherlock gasps desperately as he does that; and he loves even more that he can tell that Sherlock is trying not to. “Please forgive you? Is that what you want?”
“Nrrrrrgh-John-”
Another sharp, diagonal stroke produces a guttural moan. “Don’t fucking say my name,” John hisses. “You haven’t the right to even beg me. Its not like that between us, is it, Sherlock? Is it? You’ll never really feel it, will you? You can’t!”
Again. Again. Harder and with barely a second in between strokes. Sherlock jerks hard as they stripe his flesh, his bare toes clenched in the low carpet. John’s cock feels like the hard steel muzzle of a gun. He takes a deep breath, and strikes again. Another fine diagonal. Sherlock lets out a wordless shriek of pain, and collapses, slumped bonelessly over the arm of the sofa. Oh, he’s finished; John’s never seen it before and yet he knows. His own groin throbs heavily, and he lets his shoulders drop, his breath heaving as though he’s just run a mile. When John can finally hear over the pounding and ringing in his ears, he can hear Sherlock’s breath shuddering convulsively. As though he’s sobbing, but trying to control it. All at once, John’s compassion sweeps back into him like a tide; he sets the cane back onto the mantel, and spreads a gentle hand atop Sherlock’s hair. “All right,” he whispers. “You’re good.”
Muffled against his crossed arms, Sherlock issues a quiet command. “Quickly now, John. Remove my trousers. Fetch the lubricant. Penetrate me digitally; touch the welts as little as possible. I shall reach orgasm very soon-and then you may do as you like.” He cranes his neck slightly, pressing up against John’s hand in his hair like a cat wanting to be stroked, his hips arch against the sofa.
“In bed,” John breathes. “You remove your own trousers and go to your room. No more of this sofa-shagging. Lie down. I’ll be right there.” He actually helps Sherlock stand, and steadies him once he’s on his feet; the detective’s face is bright red and blotchy, eyelids red-rimmed, cheeks and forehead streaked with helpless tears. And his erection disrupts the clean line at the front of his trousers so much that it’s nearly comical. Sherlock Holmes is shaking and undone and lust is wetting his pants. It’s almost too great, and John knows he’ll remember this moment for the rest of his life.
Once Sherlock has uncertainly tottered away to his bedroom, John works quickly, fetching the ice packs from the freezer, scrubbing his hands, checking the first aid kit. In the bedroom, lit only by the swampy golden illumination of the antique hurricane lamp, Sherlock lies prone and naked on the bed, face pillowed on crossed arms, trembling, the marks on his ass marked out as if with a slutty hot-pink lipstick. Where the diagonal strikes landed, dots of blood have risen to the broken surface. John is shocked and moans in pain-sympathy; Sherlock moans, too, but hungrily. “Fuck me. Please. Do it now.”
John hurriedly sheds his clothes. He opens a sterile gauze bandage and lightly touches it to Sherlock’s bum to blot the blood; Sherlock hisses through his teeth. John sets the gauze aside and squirts a generous dollop of lubricant onto his right hand, and with his left, pries apart Sherlock’s buttocks. Sherlock groans, though John isn’t touching the welts; John can feel how hot the skin is even nearby. He pokes gently, but quickly and firmly, inside the flexing ring of Sherlock’s anal muscles; his wrist brushes a welt, and Sherlock bites his pillow, whining softly. “Now, now; no whinging. Up on your knees,” John says. Sherlock squirms into position, hips raised off the bed, presenting his abused behind. “Gorgeous,” John whispers. “Yes, that’s right. Now relax. Let me get you off, love. You’ve done so well.”
John’s fingers slip deeper inside and arc for the prostate, hot and swollen, providing a firm, circular massage. “Ah, God!” Sherlock cries out. His long pale body convulses, jerking away from John’s fingers.
“There, there,” John moans, “there there, love.” Sherlock flings himself backward into John’s arms, shuddering, sobbing faintly. John catches him, holds him tight, his own eyes suddenly overflowing with tears, his lubed hand curling around Sherlock’s fingers on his cock. “That’s it. That’s what you need.”
“Yes, oh, God . . . Oww! Oh . . . yes, that’s . . . ” Sherlock babbles, his cock jerking in John’s grasp, suddenly slick and wet, their fingers stroking him off together.
John rubs his cock between Sherlock’s bruised-hot buttocks, savoring the sounds of Sherlock’s helpless pain, and ejaculates thickly and heavily across Sherlock’s back. At once, both cry out, moaning loudly, freely, as orgasm obliterates them.
“Please . . .” Sherlock whispers after a long, blissful silence. “The ice.”
Shaking his head, John rouses himself, and reaches for the medical ice pack. Sherlock grimaces as the ice touches his skin, but his face soon relaxes into a glowing, contented smile. John smiles too. “All right?” he asks.
“I shan’t be able to sit down for a week,” Sherlock declares.
“You’re welcome,” John grumbles.
Sherlock chuckles. "Just so you know, none of the things I said before were untrue. I am sorry, but it’s best if you simply never think of it that way. I'm not your boyfriend. Besides, such things are childish. A boyfriend is something for a ten-year-old girl."
"You are a ten-year-old girl," John points out. “A bit.”
“Could you make me a cup of tea,” Sherlock yawns. “Really ought to rest for a bit.”
John sighs, but he gets up anyway. “With kombucha or without?” he asks.
“Ordinary tea, thanks.”
“I hate you,” John says tenderly.
“Whatever it takes,” Sherlock says.
Pairing: John/Sherlock
Rating: NC17/M
Warnings: Explicit sex, power play, caning. No spoilers.
Part One is here.
In the weeks that follow, John applies himself to learning about consensual caning. He furtively thumbs through some books at a shop, but doesn't allow himself more than a basic skim; wouldn't do to be seen lurking too long in the adult section. Knowing the internet is a vast cache of information about anything and everything of a sexual nature, he examines a few websites when he has a moment alone. There doesn’t seem to be much to know; some vaguely comprehensible stuff about “safe and sane”, aftercare, and a surprising lot of very submissive women. He follows some links in an attempt to pick up some technique, but as he's watching a video demonstrating the right grip and swing on the instrument, Mrs Hudson bustles into the flat with milk and the mail, and he has to slam his laptop shut. She shows no signs that she knew what he was up to, but before she leaves the flat again she widens her eyes at him a little, as if to say, Oo-er, get you. Puts John right off the idea.
Nothing that he sees or reads really turns him on, beyond the jolt of instinctive pleasure viewing a pair of bared, shapely buttocks; the red marks on them just say injury, inflammation, hematoma to him. Naturally, he understands the dynamics behind power exchange. They tell him nothing about himself, beyond further muddling his understanding of the nature of his relationship with Sherlock-for they truly are in a relationship now. Partners, lovers, friends, flatmates, a system of two, with John as the ground and Sherlock as the spark. But he is not subbing for Sherlock, and doesn’t want to be, even if he is the one who does the grocery shop, the one who consents, the one who follows. It's much more complicated than the clearly demarcated line between master and slave, the carer and the cared-for. If he canes Sherlock, it'll be as a favor, not because it's something that John needs. All John needs is an interaction, a way to get closer, a way to give Sherlock something that he needs so much that he'll ask for it.
During those weeks, Sherlock makes no indications of interest in anything sexual. He spends his hours instead writing an extended scientific theory on honeybee Colony Collapse, then staying up literally all hours arguing with scientists around the world on instant-messenger, email, and message boards. Lestrade and the police staff at Metro send him no cases that he can't solve in less than thirty minutes with a minimum of effort or information, and he ignores all offers of cases from the outside world. Talking mostly to himself, he barely speaks to John except to demand more tea, and one morning John gets up to see that Sherlock has pissed into an empty specimen jar rather than go to the toilet, so focused on his laptop screen that he has chewed his lower lip bloody and his face is streaked with salt from his watering eyes, fingers flying over the keyboard. When John gets back from work Sherlock has acquired a second laptop, and sits before them both, his hands flying back and forth between the two. The piss-jar, full to the brim and capped, now has two companions.
John spends as much time as he can outside the flat. With no cases coming in, money gets scarce. He picks up work shifts wherever he can, all hours, all days; when he's not at work, he spends some time with Mike Stamford and his family, or walks around London, or sits at Speedy's with a coffee and a newspaper, but his mind is always at 221b, his phone always fully charged and in his pocket, but aggravatingly silent. John starts feeling desperate for a case himself, and wonders why the hell Sherlock would come to such an abrupt halt of his life’s work.
One afternoon, his body missing the warm cliffs and plains of Sherlock's body, John sends Sherlock an impatient text : I'm a honeybee widower. Of course, he gets no reply. That's not how it works, and he knows it. He sighs and goes back to his shift at A & E, setting broken bones, tweezing glass from a broken sliding door from a child's arm, prepping for emergency appendectomies. He can do it in his sleep. He feels nearly asleep. The world is gray and irritating. He asks out a woman he knows, takes her to the cinema to see a thriller, goes back to her place, goes down on her until she thrashingly comes, then begs off home. She is ecstatic enough not to protest. At the last minute he decides that he doesn’t want to fuck her, only please her, maybe to make up for all those slave women he read about and the pain and deprivation they have to go through to please their stern masters. Besides, Sherlock hates it so much when John comes home stinking of fanny with that silly smile of “I’ve just had sex” on his face, and he invariably points out that John doesn’t really care about those women, only unloading unwanted sexual tension and fluids in a socially acceptable way. John can’t ever seem to explain that not only does he have perfectly natural sexual urges, he certainly isn’t going to be able to have them satisfied by the twice a year that seems to be enough for Sherlock. Sherlock forgets all about sex most of the time, and when he wants it from John, he just takes it, knowing John won’t refuse him. It is maddening. John hates him for it.
I am not Sherlock’s slave, damn it. He needs me more than I need him.
When he gets home after that date, Sherlock is gone out, the front room neatly tidied, the piss-jars gone without a trace. It even smells nice in there for the first time that month. John grimaces at the thought of Mrs Hudson clearing up after Sherlock and then putting out some potpourri. He makes a cup of herbal tea, washes the taste of vaginal juices from his mouth, sits dull and purposeless. Sherlock never texted back. Wherever he's gone, whatever he's doing, it doesn't include John.
He goes to bed, curls up with a pillow, stares at the wall. His leg aches. This won't do, he thinks, and falls asleep.
+ + + + +
In the morning John comes downstairs in pajamas and dressing gown, muzzy-headed and caring about nothing but tea. Sherlock sits at the kitchen table with a pile of newspapers, already dressed in his basic black suit and purple pinstripe bespoke shirt. His hair has been brushed into smooth, dark, side-parted swoops. His handsomeness is offensive this early in the morning. "Tea?" John mumbles.
"In the pot, still hot," Sherlock says. He sounds bright but relaxed, and his eyes are shining. John grunts affirmatively, sits, pours, milks, sips. Sherlock watches, waiting, smiling a bit wildly. “Toast, as well.”
There is indeed toast, already buttered, though it’s grown cold. "What have you done?" John finally asks, frowning.
"Tickets," Sherlock says. "Kronos Quartet. Playing Philip Glass. At the Barbican. Tonight."
"All I got out of that was 'tickets, Barbican, tonight'," John remarks, slurping his tea. It is bitingly strong, the way Sherlock likes it, but good; no weird twigs or lichens in it to "infuse it with probiotics," a strange term that generally means “make it taste like shit.”
"The Kronos Quartet, John. Only the most famous and successful new music ensemble in the world; I should have thought even you would have heard of them. And you've never heard of Philip Glass no of course you haven't." Sherlock looks delightedly outraged. "In that case, it is now an imperative that you accompany me to the performance. It is time for your horizons to be broadened."
"Sorry," John responds sheepishly. "I'm much more of a Massive Attack sort of bloke."
"Precisely my point. You merely have a sentimental attachment to that rubbish. Philip Glass composes some of the most purely transcendent and mathematically perfect music ever created. Is your dark-brown jacket in a wearable state? It's not too late to take it to the cleaners', if not. You needn't wear a tie, but please do not wear jeans."
"This sounds very educational," John mutters. "The jacket is clean, and you know it is; you saw it in my closet the other day. Trousers, too. It's not as though I have much cause to wear a suit right now."
"Why should you bother, when you can slump through life looking like a transient and nobody cares?" Sherlock rises from the table and all but flutters around the kitchen, spots of colour high on his cheeks. "I acquired the tickets last evening in a wager; I defeated a Ukranian twenty pounds above my weight class in only two rounds. He never even touched me."
"You beat up a guy to get tickets to a show?"
"I didn't beat him up," Sherlock says, offended. "I let him get tired, and then I silenced him with an effective uppercut. The 'rope-a-dope', as it is known, famously employed by Muhammad Ali during the Rumble in the Jungle. And I won them. He laid me a wager. It was a matter of honor. Besides, the man was trying to scalp the tickets for two hundred quid apiece, which is simply offensive."
John shakes his head, and laughs despite himself. "Rope-a-dope. Right, then," he concedes. "So what does this band sound like?"
"Well, they are a string quartet; you can imagine."
John munches toast and nods. "So it’s classical."
"No; modern music. Quite different. A very different feel. But based on many of the same contrapuntal systems." Sherlock can clearly see that John's eyes have glazed over again. "Oh, fine, I'll demonstrate. No, don't get up; the thin air five feet above the ground might suffocate you." The detective flashes into the front room and back, wielding his laptop, fiddling with it as he walks. "This is one of the pieces they may well play tonight."
From Sherlock's computer comes a low hum of cellos, matched with a layer of repetitive-very repetitive-violins, eking out something that approaches melody, but then keeps backing away from it, back into the exact same notes again, never really going anywhere. Almost instantly, it gives John a headache. He glances dubiously at Sherlock, who gazes into the middle distance, seemingly transported by this ugly, soulless, aggravatingly boring music.
"Very interesting," John murmurs.
Sherlock grins, not unkindly. "You're lying."
"I just . . ." John shrugs and gulps more tea, trying to find the nicest way to say what he thinks. "I find it . . . mechanical? A bit repetitive, isn't it?" Sherlock nods at him encouragingly. "Sterile."
“Precisely,” Sherlock replies in satisfaction. “Such mathematics, so pure.”
"There aren’t any feelings in it," John claims. So, yeah, perfect for Sherlock, really, the man who thinks Amy Winehouse sings like the death-wheezes of a cart horse.
Sherlock just patiently smiles. "Are you coming, or will I have to attend on my own?"
"Yeah, I'll go," John says slowly, "but I might want a drink first."
"You can get a drink there. Right, then; I'm off. Meet me back here at seven."
"You're off? Where?" John asks in surprise. Sherlock hadn't left the flat in nine days, and now he’s gone twice in twelve hours.
"Royal Entomological Society," Sherlock replies. He rubs his hands together, chuckling with a nasty sort of satisfaction. "I am going to see if I can knock out Sir Reginald Wilkes in less than two rounds; he challenged me to a duel. Whoever loses has to endorse the other man's paper, and I have no intention of endorsing that thick-headed, asthmatic millstone around the neck of pure science. I shall send him home to Herts with his stinger between his legs, mark my words."
"Don't get arrested," John calls after his flatmate, sighs, turns back to his tea. It tastes even better now; brighter somehow, infused with purpose. Or maybe . . . and John peeks into the teapot to see some kind of horrible slimy white mold clinging to the wet leaves of Ceylon . . . infused with probiotics.
John consults at Barts that day with Stamford and a couple of students on rounds; they discuss identification and treatment of gunshot wounds in an emergency situation, and he finds himself narrating a moment from his past that he'd thought he'd forgotten, or at least hoped to, when he had to try to save the life of a child who'd been in the line of fire and taken two rounds to the face. "Did you save her?" asks the smallest student, a hopeful-eyed young woman with a headscarf and an African name. John tightens his mouth and shakes his head. He falls silent and lags behind as they continue on their rounds, his head full of alternating gray static and memories of blood literally gushing over his hands; but at the end of the day, every single one of the students gives John his or her contact information, and when the tallest student declares that John should come lecture, the students all agree. It shakes John out of his thought spiral for a while, remembering that he still has good work to contribute in the world, Sherlock or no Sherlock. He doesn't need Sherlock . . . He steps outside the hospital, walking toward the tube station, brow furrowed. What the hell does Sherlock have to do with anything?
He smirks tightly and sighs. Sherlock has everything to do with everything for him. Best he accept that fact and not try to fight it; not a battle he could ever win. He checks the time and sees that he's got a while to grab a pie at the pub before he's due to meet his flatmate back home, before that bloody terrible concert. Maybe a whiskey and a pint as well as the pie.
Pleasantly unsteady on his feet, John arrives comfortably promptly at eight minutes to seven. Sherlock stands before the window, wearing his overcoat, feet planted wide, playing a tender, delicate air on his violin. John waits silently until Sherlock quivers the last vibrato note from the strings, then lightly claps his hands. "Getting a bit of real music in before tonight's performance?" John quips.
Sherlock wheels to face him, his face flushed and eyes so pale they look white. "Three drinks already, Watson?" he shoots back. "Such a brave soldier. Refuses to back down from a drawn pistol, but a bit of Philip Glass and jumps straight into the barrel. Don't forget to shave; I can't be seen with you looking that way." He bustles the instrument back into its case, and John smirks and heads to his room.
Showered and suited, John follows Sherlock some more; down into a taxi, following Sherlock's lead in not speaking during the ride, following him into the Barbican Hall and straight to their second-row seats, bypassing all the bars and cafés. John mentions, "Had a lovely pork and veg pie down at the Dove and Kite; quite full, might fall asleep." They are in the last two seats in the row, and John frowns again as Sherlock takes the innermost seat, right next to the wall. "These are our seats? They hardly seem worth beating someone up for, do they?"
"I only really require a good reason. Your silence is appreciated," Sherlock intones, staring straight ahead at the empty stage.
Amid enthusiastic applause, four ordinary-looking chaps come out onto the stage, settle with their instruments, and to John's scornful amusement, release the wand of a metronome to provide a steady rhythm. And all at once, they begin to play.
Night and day, the difference between the music played live and the music heard from Sherlock's laptop's speakers, and contrasting even further with the way that Sherlock played. A violin in the room is like an additional human voice; a string quartet, miked and amplified through a concert hall, is like having every nerve ending in his body wired to receive a meaning previously unknown to him. At first, it is as painful as he'd feared, but not irritating; it's a pain as cleanly complicated as a pile of barbed wire. First he strains forward in his chair, as if getting closer to the stage will help him understand, but it isn't until he heaves a great breath he didn't know he was holding and relaxes back into his seat that the logic of the music slots perfectly into place. Now that he's heard it, he can't unhear it. It's like the magical moment when he first realized that he could swim; of course, of course!
At the end of the first number, John applauds, glancing over to see if Sherlock might actually share his enthusiasm. Instead, the detective slouches against the wall, holding his iPhone in his lap and rapidly tapping its screen with the padded "silent stylus" he'd invented. "Sherlock!" John whispers, dismayed. Sherlock only jerks his chin a bit, as if indicating the stage with his messy dark forelock-curl, and before John can say anything else, the quartet plays again, and he's once again caught up in the pleasure of an initial confusion followed by the bright spark of comprehension. This music is fun. And once he has the mechanics understood, he feels the melancholy of it, or nature's energy, or the pure childlike wonder of discovery.
It's great stuff, and there's Sherlock, texting and making faces, not sparing a single glance at the brilliant performance.
Impatiently, John elbows Sherlock, and angles his head, silently telling him to stop. Sherlock slaps John's arm-a good sharp one right on the funny bone-and returns to his flame war. John's concentration is shattered, and, ignoring the music as much as his flatmate is, sits silently fuming, arms crossed, for the rest of the concert.
As the applause begins to die down, John gets up immediately, losing himself in the scrum of audience members heading for the doors. By the time he makes it to the taxi rank, Sherlock, still texting, has caught up, and as usual a cab comes as if summoned by black magic. They get in and John can't cross his arms and frown any harder or he'll break something, preferably Sherlock's face. Sherlock chuckles softly at something on his phone screen, and taps at it some more.
"Look, would you put that fucking thing away?!" John snaps.
"Why are you shouting," Sherlock says mildly.
The string quartet hadn't been that loud, but John's ears are ringing anyway. "You knock out a Russian boxer for tickets-scalped tickets-to see those guys play and yet you can't even bother to pay the slightest attention! And you drag me down here! Molly's right; you do ruin everything, don't you?"
Sherlock calmly stares at him through narrowed eyes, the first time he’s actually looked at John in hours. and says, "Tonight." He swipes a finger across his phone to shut it down, slides it into the inner breast pocket of his coat.
"You never even-eh?"
Sherlock looks out the window at the streets rushing past and presses his lips together. "Tonight," he repeats. "Before you lose your temper."
"What makes you think I'm in the slightest bit interested in giving you something you want after that?"
"Because I'm smarter than you," Sherlock drawls. "I know things you couldn't possibly comprehend in a thousand years. And I know you, and I know I just gave you a gift that you will have for the rest of your life. And you keep going on about 'equity.'" The detective smiles out at the night. "You can thank me."
“Oh, I’ll thank you, all right,” John says under his breath, staring out the window on his side. “Til you bleed.” When he risks a glance at Sherlock, he sees that the detective wears an thoughtful, uncertain hint of a smile. John feels even worse now. This isn’t how it’s supposed to go; anger isn’t supposed to be a part of it. Trust Sherlock to wreck that, too, or at least misunderstand it. Or twist it to his own ends. John shakes his head and sighs; he’s being used again. His emotions, his reactions. Sherlock plays him like he plays the violin.
He considers just walking away when they reach Baker Street. Instead he gets out of the taxi and beats Sherlock to the door, if only to believe that he’s not the one following for a change.
In the front room of 221b, Sherlock sits down, opens his laptop, and casually gestures toward the mantel. The cane rests on top, suspended on a pair of baize-covered rests. Slim, golden in color, lightweight, with a crook on one end like an umbrella handle. John stares at it, his heartbeat quickening. “That wasn’t there this morning,” he grumbles.
Sherlock sneers as he types. “Like you’d notice. You make bats look observant.”
With that, John has had quite enough. If he doesn’t use that cane, he is going to punch Sherlock right in the face. He can only imagine how much the cane hurts; probably more, and much less obviously, than a broken nose. “Take your coat and jacket off,” he commands. “And your shoes. And bend over the sofa. Sharpish, or it’ll be bare-arsed.”
Sherlock arches his eyebrow and gives John a sulky glance, but he shuts the laptop, neatly hangs his coat on the hook, removes his shoes and socks, and bends forward over an arm of the sofa-the very same one he had John over. John’s heart is definitely hammering now, but the anger is cooling and solidifying in his belly, and his hips and thighs suddenly feel very hot.
Sherlock speaks, his voice February-cold and hard as handcuffs.
“Stop pretending I’m your boyfriend. Don’t even think it. That’s not what this is. This is entirely for my benefit; your fulfillment, your pleasure, is utterly irrelevant to me. It has rarely been otherwise. We are not ‘making love’. There isn’t any. I cannot and will not ever love you, John. View it as a disability if that comforts you. I am no more capable of loving you-as you understand it-than Stephen Hawking is capable of playing tennis.”
John wishes he could laugh, but Sherlock’s words curdle in his belly like poison. He desperately clutches an emotional antidote. “I’ve proved you wrong before,” he points out. And Sherlock’s lied before, too. Oh, so much, so many times. And John falls for it because he’s in love. And now he’s angry all over again.
“You listen, but you do not hear,” Sherlock mutters. “Typical.”
John reaches for the cane, hefts it in his hand, testing its weight. It’s heavier than he anticipated and he imagines, for a moment, the damage he could cause. Its thinness is not kind; it could cut on bare skin, but is still heavy enough to cause tremendous bruising. It has been well cared for; glossy with linseed oil, its handle slightly worn by the wielders’ hands. John lightly taps the length against his palm, just hard enough to understand, Oh, yes, this is a weapon of punishment.
Sherlock drawls, “Go on, then. Do your worst.”
“I’m going to hurt you,” John frets. Sherlock only scoffs impatiently, and sticks his bum out a bit more. John smiles despite himself at Sherlock’s theatricality. “I’m a bit cross.”
“Only give me what you think I deserve,” Sherlock says.
John hesitates for a moment, and Sherlock heaves a big, aggrieved sigh. “Or, you could just be a coward.”
That triggers. Without even being conscious of the action, John lifts the cane and brings it down. The wood whistles, and strikes yielding flesh with a faint pop. Sherlock flinches, then hisses nastily, “Really? A tickle? You insult me. Not for the first time, mind you-”
John’s next strike slices air and lands square across the top of Sherlock’s protruding arse. Smack. Sherlock gasps mid-word, gulps, and falls silent. John tightens his mouth. His heart gives a heavy thud in his chest. “That shut you up, didn’t it?” he remarks.
“Better,” Sherlock croaks. “You’ll make Head Boy in no time.”
“I would,” John mutters, “if I was a posh git like you-” He brings the cane down again smartly, deliberately adding the “snap” of the wrist at the end that he remembers from the website video, landing a few inches lower, where it curves. Sherlock winces and shudders all over; John can see the back of his neck is red in a furious blush. “Thinking you’re so much better than the rest of us-”
“I am,” Sherlock says through gritted teeth, “And you know it.”
“Shut it, perv,” John says. He gives it more shoulder than forearm this time, lands the edge of the cane at a diagonal, crossing his earlier strokes. A good, hard, solid hit. Sherlock yelps, then moans, bites his lip, keening softly, and John’s body responds, as always, to the sound of Sherlock in the grip of an involuntary reaction, his cock feeling heavy and itchy; he wants to take his trousers off, but not yet. He’s starting to enjoy this now. He carefully aims the next stroke to land right at the bottom curve, where buttock becomes upper thigh, and Sherlock cries out and all but melts against the couch, humping the arm.
“Please,” he gasps, his voice high and pinched, “oh, please-”
“Please what?” John drags the tip of the cane across the welts. He loves how Sherlock gasps desperately as he does that; and he loves even more that he can tell that Sherlock is trying not to. “Please forgive you? Is that what you want?”
“Nrrrrrgh-John-”
Another sharp, diagonal stroke produces a guttural moan. “Don’t fucking say my name,” John hisses. “You haven’t the right to even beg me. Its not like that between us, is it, Sherlock? Is it? You’ll never really feel it, will you? You can’t!”
Again. Again. Harder and with barely a second in between strokes. Sherlock jerks hard as they stripe his flesh, his bare toes clenched in the low carpet. John’s cock feels like the hard steel muzzle of a gun. He takes a deep breath, and strikes again. Another fine diagonal. Sherlock lets out a wordless shriek of pain, and collapses, slumped bonelessly over the arm of the sofa. Oh, he’s finished; John’s never seen it before and yet he knows. His own groin throbs heavily, and he lets his shoulders drop, his breath heaving as though he’s just run a mile. When John can finally hear over the pounding and ringing in his ears, he can hear Sherlock’s breath shuddering convulsively. As though he’s sobbing, but trying to control it. All at once, John’s compassion sweeps back into him like a tide; he sets the cane back onto the mantel, and spreads a gentle hand atop Sherlock’s hair. “All right,” he whispers. “You’re good.”
Muffled against his crossed arms, Sherlock issues a quiet command. “Quickly now, John. Remove my trousers. Fetch the lubricant. Penetrate me digitally; touch the welts as little as possible. I shall reach orgasm very soon-and then you may do as you like.” He cranes his neck slightly, pressing up against John’s hand in his hair like a cat wanting to be stroked, his hips arch against the sofa.
“In bed,” John breathes. “You remove your own trousers and go to your room. No more of this sofa-shagging. Lie down. I’ll be right there.” He actually helps Sherlock stand, and steadies him once he’s on his feet; the detective’s face is bright red and blotchy, eyelids red-rimmed, cheeks and forehead streaked with helpless tears. And his erection disrupts the clean line at the front of his trousers so much that it’s nearly comical. Sherlock Holmes is shaking and undone and lust is wetting his pants. It’s almost too great, and John knows he’ll remember this moment for the rest of his life.
Once Sherlock has uncertainly tottered away to his bedroom, John works quickly, fetching the ice packs from the freezer, scrubbing his hands, checking the first aid kit. In the bedroom, lit only by the swampy golden illumination of the antique hurricane lamp, Sherlock lies prone and naked on the bed, face pillowed on crossed arms, trembling, the marks on his ass marked out as if with a slutty hot-pink lipstick. Where the diagonal strikes landed, dots of blood have risen to the broken surface. John is shocked and moans in pain-sympathy; Sherlock moans, too, but hungrily. “Fuck me. Please. Do it now.”
John hurriedly sheds his clothes. He opens a sterile gauze bandage and lightly touches it to Sherlock’s bum to blot the blood; Sherlock hisses through his teeth. John sets the gauze aside and squirts a generous dollop of lubricant onto his right hand, and with his left, pries apart Sherlock’s buttocks. Sherlock groans, though John isn’t touching the welts; John can feel how hot the skin is even nearby. He pokes gently, but quickly and firmly, inside the flexing ring of Sherlock’s anal muscles; his wrist brushes a welt, and Sherlock bites his pillow, whining softly. “Now, now; no whinging. Up on your knees,” John says. Sherlock squirms into position, hips raised off the bed, presenting his abused behind. “Gorgeous,” John whispers. “Yes, that’s right. Now relax. Let me get you off, love. You’ve done so well.”
John’s fingers slip deeper inside and arc for the prostate, hot and swollen, providing a firm, circular massage. “Ah, God!” Sherlock cries out. His long pale body convulses, jerking away from John’s fingers.
“There, there,” John moans, “there there, love.” Sherlock flings himself backward into John’s arms, shuddering, sobbing faintly. John catches him, holds him tight, his own eyes suddenly overflowing with tears, his lubed hand curling around Sherlock’s fingers on his cock. “That’s it. That’s what you need.”
“Yes, oh, God . . . Oww! Oh . . . yes, that’s . . . ” Sherlock babbles, his cock jerking in John’s grasp, suddenly slick and wet, their fingers stroking him off together.
John rubs his cock between Sherlock’s bruised-hot buttocks, savoring the sounds of Sherlock’s helpless pain, and ejaculates thickly and heavily across Sherlock’s back. At once, both cry out, moaning loudly, freely, as orgasm obliterates them.
“Please . . .” Sherlock whispers after a long, blissful silence. “The ice.”
Shaking his head, John rouses himself, and reaches for the medical ice pack. Sherlock grimaces as the ice touches his skin, but his face soon relaxes into a glowing, contented smile. John smiles too. “All right?” he asks.
“I shan’t be able to sit down for a week,” Sherlock declares.
“You’re welcome,” John grumbles.
Sherlock chuckles. "Just so you know, none of the things I said before were untrue. I am sorry, but it’s best if you simply never think of it that way. I'm not your boyfriend. Besides, such things are childish. A boyfriend is something for a ten-year-old girl."
"You are a ten-year-old girl," John points out. “A bit.”
“Could you make me a cup of tea,” Sherlock yawns. “Really ought to rest for a bit.”
John sighs, but he gets up anyway. “With kombucha or without?” he asks.
“Ordinary tea, thanks.”
“I hate you,” John says tenderly.
“Whatever it takes,” Sherlock says.