Sherlock fic: Hot Shave, Part 1: Beard Burn (Sherlock/Lestrade; moderately spicy)
Hot Shave, Part 1: Beard Burn
ETA: I revised this slightly, correcting some omissions and adding a few sentences. Nothing has been cut from the original, though I made some substitutions. If you want to see the original, I left it as is here on DW
“Never?”
“Not the point, Sherlock. I saw you nick it.”
“Wordplay; you grow less manly by the sentence.”
“You stole a weapon belonging to a murderer.”
“Not a weapon. Barely a murderer; mainly a greedy fool.”
“Which doesn’t give you license to steal potential evidence.”
“He didn’t use weapons. He was a poisoner, a stunningly inept one, or he wouldn’t be dead. More important: You’ve never had a shave with a proper razor?”
Lestrade wiped his forehead with his sleeve, to keep him from stabbing the man in the throat with his housekeys. Two dead bodies over coffee in the kitchen, barely a blip on the oddness meter. Sherlock tagging along, pissing about access denied to restricted files, ten minutes in deducing not suicide, not double murder, but murder-gone-wrong; and identifying the homeowner as the cock-up killer after a prod and sniff at the bodies and a long (could say loving) prowl around the bathroom, crooning over the deceased’s shaving supplies. Then, at some time during a lecturing rant, pocketing a cut-throat razor from the collection in the medicine cabinet. “He was flustered this morning-distracted, unusually so. Fussy man, living beyond his means, inflated sense of self. Vindictive. Celibate, deluding some woman, money motive. Possibly her downstairs, check her purse for scents she isn’t wearing.” He’d been handling a strip of leather hanging next to the sink, letting it drop with a clang against the wall from its brass fittings. “You can tell a lot about a man from the state of his strop.” (Popping the final “p”, an affectation that Lestrade would like to wipe from his lips. Literally sometimes, God help him.)
“Poisoner or not; this is a crime scene, that’s private property.”
“Use your eyes! No children, no relative but an institutionalized sister. No one to claim his goods and chattels. No one to whom this trivial object is likely to afford more pleasure than it will me.” And there it was, the infernal hook. Flirting with him. The amoral, arrogant, egoistic slut. Flirting with him on the pavement, flirting with him at this broad hour of the afternoon, knowing he’d barely slept the night before, reading his face and clothes. Flirting with him, using his eyes and lips and voice and asking for “pleasure,” plucking the word like a violin string. Flirting with him, drawing his long thumb along Lestrade’s jaw and a day’s stubble, scraping his nail across to make a whiskery, whispery sound for their ears only. “Consider it my fee,” for their ears only. I could make it worth your while hummed between them, unsaid. Not said because the first time Sherlock had tried that gambit on him, Lestrade had thrown him in the drunk cells overnight. Didn’t stop him from being suggestive, the serpent. Or knowing Lestrade was tempted.
He must have blinked, because there was a cab, summoned by dark arts, and Sherlock folding himself inside, calling “Leave it,” before slamming the door, before the cab took off. Lestrade shrugged, shook his head at the sergeant’s inquiring look. He was too tired to imagine what that had meant. And he could pick Sherlock’s pocket nearly as well as the consulting detective picked his.
***
Two hours of paperwork, another hour to fetch food and drag it home. He collapsed on his couch, dropping the fragrant, leaking bag holding garlic pork and Szechuan green beans on the coffee table. Hungry but too exhausted to eat just yet. He scratched his chin. Sherlock fucking Holmes. He felt again that sweep of thumb, that scrape along his jaw and pulled the razor from his jacket pocket. Didn’t look valuable. The handle was some kind of plastic. He opened it, carefully, holding it in two hands. It looked like Sherlock: elegant, sharp, and dangerous. Lestrade succumbed to that danger too many times before coming to his senses. Snake in his bed (his floor, his entryway, his sofa, his shower, his kitchen wall), a cold-blooded, quick striking, manipulative devil. Who, speaking of, conjured, was currently at his door if Lestrade knew that impatient ring and knock. If he wanted Lestrade for something case related, he’d have texted. If Lestrade refused to answer-still tired, not inclined to move-he’d, yes, he’d pick the lock and let himself in. Very focused, very disinclined to take no for an answer, his snake.
“If it bothers you so much, change your locks,” said Sherlock, striding into the living room. “You know I have keys.”
He did now. “Illegal entry,” said Lestrade. “Adding to your sheet. What do you want?” Sherlock had a small backpack slung over one arm of his suit jacket. He let it down gently next to the armchair as he swept the room with a look, floor, ceiling, walls, kitchen doorway. Every room like a crime scene to the man.
“Don’t eat yet,” he said, walking over to Lestrade. “I don’t want garlic on my skin.”
“No danger of that. Get out.” Opening move and he meant it. Sherlock bent over him and took the razor from his hands.
“You knew I’d trade.” His hand darted out and stroked the side of Lestrade’s face, nails rasping through the stubble as before. “Good. You left it on.”
Lestrade pushed his hand away. “Piss off. There’s no trade. That’s…not mine or yours.” Weak. He should throw him out, if he could haul up and move. There was heat though, damn it, heat that built in his stomach, that he felt in the muscles of his thighs. Mind and body not cooperating. “Get out. I’m tired. I’m going to eat my stinking garlic and go to bed. Alone.”
“Oh, but my idea’s better.” Sherlock reached out again and touched Lestrade’s jaw, crouched next to the low table. The deep voice resonated, burned in his chest. “Like to see how that feels on me? Before we take it off?” On Lestrade’s swift inhalation Sherlock leaned in and kissed him; put a hand on his shoulder, pushing him gently into the couch back, and pressed his mouth against Lestrade’s, cradling his jaw now in his other hand. Lestrade sighed into the parting lips, against the tip of Sherlock’s tongue, and Sherlock talked on. “In the cleft of my arse? On the crease of my thigh?”
Christ. What Lestrade imagined, vividly, was sucking a purple mark against the inside of Sherlock’s thigh, high and tender, dark against the silky skin. Above skin hot and reddened by his beard; he sucked in air and Sherlock’s tongue with it, their mouths gone wet and hard. His hands were on Sherlock’s waist, holding his hips away, keeping him crouching there. He jerked his head to the side, breaking contact, and Sherlock rubbed his face against his cheek and jaw. It must have stung. There were dark curls along his eyebrow, tangling with his hair, and it was all he could do not to grab, to reach out and crush the snake to him, like someone real. But he wasn’t, was he? This was just…
“Just a shag, Greg. Just a sex act or two the way we like it and then a proper shave,” said the snake. Or was it his cock speaking? No, wait.
“Shave?” He dropped his hands and the seat next to him dipped under the weight of swivel-hipped detective.
“Of course. That’s the trade. The sex would be,” Sherlock shrugged, peering into the takeaway bag, “sauce. Without garlic.”
“Sauce and a shave. Go to hell, you mental reptile.”
“Only a shag, and one you want. I don’t see the difficulty. I want to feel…”
“Take the fucking razor and piss off. Go to a fetish bar; there must be one for beard burn.”
“Why, when you’re here? And ready for it. It’s a pity to waste an erection at your age.”
“Right. Consider me seduced.” He was being sarcastic. He shouldn’t laugh. He shouldn’t be as tempted as he was by the wholly insulting, heartless proposition. But he was hard, curse it, and his mouth was quirking up on one side. It had been a long, long time. He knew the sex act (or two) would be incendiary. And he’d like nothing better now than to burn his face across every inch of that wriggling snake.
The wanker knew it, too. “Meet you on the bed. Stop thinking.” Sherlock rose and snagged the backpack from the floor on his way to the stairs.
Lestrade watched him leave. He pulled the takeaway bag to him and took out the plastic fork and the rice and the container of garlic pork.
***
Part 2: A Proper Shave
[Crit welcome if you see something out of place or too OOC. I need to get a handle on Lestrade, so this is a first try. Second part is a straight razor shave, of course.]
ETA: I revised this slightly, correcting some omissions and adding a few sentences. Nothing has been cut from the original, though I made some substitutions. If you want to see the original, I left it as is here on DW
“Never?”
“Not the point, Sherlock. I saw you nick it.”
“Wordplay; you grow less manly by the sentence.”
“You stole a weapon belonging to a murderer.”
“Not a weapon. Barely a murderer; mainly a greedy fool.”
“Which doesn’t give you license to steal potential evidence.”
“He didn’t use weapons. He was a poisoner, a stunningly inept one, or he wouldn’t be dead. More important: You’ve never had a shave with a proper razor?”
Lestrade wiped his forehead with his sleeve, to keep him from stabbing the man in the throat with his housekeys. Two dead bodies over coffee in the kitchen, barely a blip on the oddness meter. Sherlock tagging along, pissing about access denied to restricted files, ten minutes in deducing not suicide, not double murder, but murder-gone-wrong; and identifying the homeowner as the cock-up killer after a prod and sniff at the bodies and a long (could say loving) prowl around the bathroom, crooning over the deceased’s shaving supplies. Then, at some time during a lecturing rant, pocketing a cut-throat razor from the collection in the medicine cabinet. “He was flustered this morning-distracted, unusually so. Fussy man, living beyond his means, inflated sense of self. Vindictive. Celibate, deluding some woman, money motive. Possibly her downstairs, check her purse for scents she isn’t wearing.” He’d been handling a strip of leather hanging next to the sink, letting it drop with a clang against the wall from its brass fittings. “You can tell a lot about a man from the state of his strop.” (Popping the final “p”, an affectation that Lestrade would like to wipe from his lips. Literally sometimes, God help him.)
“Poisoner or not; this is a crime scene, that’s private property.”
“Use your eyes! No children, no relative but an institutionalized sister. No one to claim his goods and chattels. No one to whom this trivial object is likely to afford more pleasure than it will me.” And there it was, the infernal hook. Flirting with him. The amoral, arrogant, egoistic slut. Flirting with him on the pavement, flirting with him at this broad hour of the afternoon, knowing he’d barely slept the night before, reading his face and clothes. Flirting with him, using his eyes and lips and voice and asking for “pleasure,” plucking the word like a violin string. Flirting with him, drawing his long thumb along Lestrade’s jaw and a day’s stubble, scraping his nail across to make a whiskery, whispery sound for their ears only. “Consider it my fee,” for their ears only. I could make it worth your while hummed between them, unsaid. Not said because the first time Sherlock had tried that gambit on him, Lestrade had thrown him in the drunk cells overnight. Didn’t stop him from being suggestive, the serpent. Or knowing Lestrade was tempted.
He must have blinked, because there was a cab, summoned by dark arts, and Sherlock folding himself inside, calling “Leave it,” before slamming the door, before the cab took off. Lestrade shrugged, shook his head at the sergeant’s inquiring look. He was too tired to imagine what that had meant. And he could pick Sherlock’s pocket nearly as well as the consulting detective picked his.
***
Two hours of paperwork, another hour to fetch food and drag it home. He collapsed on his couch, dropping the fragrant, leaking bag holding garlic pork and Szechuan green beans on the coffee table. Hungry but too exhausted to eat just yet. He scratched his chin. Sherlock fucking Holmes. He felt again that sweep of thumb, that scrape along his jaw and pulled the razor from his jacket pocket. Didn’t look valuable. The handle was some kind of plastic. He opened it, carefully, holding it in two hands. It looked like Sherlock: elegant, sharp, and dangerous. Lestrade succumbed to that danger too many times before coming to his senses. Snake in his bed (his floor, his entryway, his sofa, his shower, his kitchen wall), a cold-blooded, quick striking, manipulative devil. Who, speaking of, conjured, was currently at his door if Lestrade knew that impatient ring and knock. If he wanted Lestrade for something case related, he’d have texted. If Lestrade refused to answer-still tired, not inclined to move-he’d, yes, he’d pick the lock and let himself in. Very focused, very disinclined to take no for an answer, his snake.
“If it bothers you so much, change your locks,” said Sherlock, striding into the living room. “You know I have keys.”
He did now. “Illegal entry,” said Lestrade. “Adding to your sheet. What do you want?” Sherlock had a small backpack slung over one arm of his suit jacket. He let it down gently next to the armchair as he swept the room with a look, floor, ceiling, walls, kitchen doorway. Every room like a crime scene to the man.
“Don’t eat yet,” he said, walking over to Lestrade. “I don’t want garlic on my skin.”
“No danger of that. Get out.” Opening move and he meant it. Sherlock bent over him and took the razor from his hands.
“You knew I’d trade.” His hand darted out and stroked the side of Lestrade’s face, nails rasping through the stubble as before. “Good. You left it on.”
Lestrade pushed his hand away. “Piss off. There’s no trade. That’s…not mine or yours.” Weak. He should throw him out, if he could haul up and move. There was heat though, damn it, heat that built in his stomach, that he felt in the muscles of his thighs. Mind and body not cooperating. “Get out. I’m tired. I’m going to eat my stinking garlic and go to bed. Alone.”
“Oh, but my idea’s better.” Sherlock reached out again and touched Lestrade’s jaw, crouched next to the low table. The deep voice resonated, burned in his chest. “Like to see how that feels on me? Before we take it off?” On Lestrade’s swift inhalation Sherlock leaned in and kissed him; put a hand on his shoulder, pushing him gently into the couch back, and pressed his mouth against Lestrade’s, cradling his jaw now in his other hand. Lestrade sighed into the parting lips, against the tip of Sherlock’s tongue, and Sherlock talked on. “In the cleft of my arse? On the crease of my thigh?”
Christ. What Lestrade imagined, vividly, was sucking a purple mark against the inside of Sherlock’s thigh, high and tender, dark against the silky skin. Above skin hot and reddened by his beard; he sucked in air and Sherlock’s tongue with it, their mouths gone wet and hard. His hands were on Sherlock’s waist, holding his hips away, keeping him crouching there. He jerked his head to the side, breaking contact, and Sherlock rubbed his face against his cheek and jaw. It must have stung. There were dark curls along his eyebrow, tangling with his hair, and it was all he could do not to grab, to reach out and crush the snake to him, like someone real. But he wasn’t, was he? This was just…
“Just a shag, Greg. Just a sex act or two the way we like it and then a proper shave,” said the snake. Or was it his cock speaking? No, wait.
“Shave?” He dropped his hands and the seat next to him dipped under the weight of swivel-hipped detective.
“Of course. That’s the trade. The sex would be,” Sherlock shrugged, peering into the takeaway bag, “sauce. Without garlic.”
“Sauce and a shave. Go to hell, you mental reptile.”
“Only a shag, and one you want. I don’t see the difficulty. I want to feel…”
“Take the fucking razor and piss off. Go to a fetish bar; there must be one for beard burn.”
“Why, when you’re here? And ready for it. It’s a pity to waste an erection at your age.”
“Right. Consider me seduced.” He was being sarcastic. He shouldn’t laugh. He shouldn’t be as tempted as he was by the wholly insulting, heartless proposition. But he was hard, curse it, and his mouth was quirking up on one side. It had been a long, long time. He knew the sex act (or two) would be incendiary. And he’d like nothing better now than to burn his face across every inch of that wriggling snake.
The wanker knew it, too. “Meet you on the bed. Stop thinking.” Sherlock rose and snagged the backpack from the floor on his way to the stairs.
Lestrade watched him leave. He pulled the takeaway bag to him and took out the plastic fork and the rice and the container of garlic pork.
***
Part 2: A Proper Shave
[Crit welcome if you see something out of place or too OOC. I need to get a handle on Lestrade, so this is a first try. Second part is a straight razor shave, of course.]