Collared chapter 6
Title: Collared
Pairing: Eventual Sherlock/John plus Mycroft
Rating: Eventual NC-17 (You'll have to be patient), this chapter R.
Genre: Slave!fic AU, drama, angst
Warnings (for entire fic, not just this chapter): non-con, slavery, violence, emotional and physical abuse.
Word count: 7400
Summary: Written for This Prompt: In a world where the British Empire is still strong and slavery is her economic backbone, John has become a terrorist for the abolitionist movement. He is caught by Mycroft, enslaved, and given to Sherlock for training. The goal: To test a new kind of slave collar with the power to break even the strongest willed fighter. One that will make even John learn to love being a slave.
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
CHAPTER 6
As best as John was able to tell, and with Sherlock it wasn’t easy, being a “Master” didn’t sit comfortably with him. He vacillated between being ridiculously overbearing and sentimentally tender, treating John as though he were some favoured pet. It was as if a tug-of-war were going on in Sherlock’s mind, leaving him confused and off balance on how to act. There was a palpable awkwardness to all of this that set John’s teeth on edge and clearly embarrassed Sherlock. And yet, for all that, Sherlock had a fierce sense of pride that wouldn’t let him give John up.
Sometimes when John was working in the kitchen, or cleaning up after an experiment, he’d catch an achingly vulnerable look on Sherlock’s face. An unspeakable yearning. Sherlock had lived a terrifically lonely life before John had appeared on the scene. But this wasn’t something Sherlock was comfortable with sharing either. The moment he noticed John’s attention, on went a tougher facade.
John tried very hard not to feel sympathy for him, but was difficult not to grow emotionally attached to a man you tended all day. He’d grown so accustomed to memorising the man’s twitches and moods, finding some correlation between them and his behaviour. His entire day was filled with thoughts of Sherlock. His expressions, his voice, his wants and desires. Hell, even his smell seemed to haunt John.
But he had to harden his belly to it. He had plan, and if all went off smoothly, he’d never see Sherlock again. He didn’t dare let himself think how much he’d actually miss him. Sherlock hadn’t been the only lonely one in this crazy flat.
Dr. Sarah Sawyer waved at John as he entered the little cafe half way between the green-grocers and the Baker Street flat. It was fast becoming their place, if three rendezvous in as many days counted.
His worries about blowing her off on Thursday were entirely unjustified. Sarah had been giddy that he’d called her at all. John’s twinge of guilt for having let her down magically transformed into a twinge of guilt for his plans to use her. Unless he could convince her to drop her practice and go into hiding with him in France, he wouldn’t be seeing her again, either.
John pushed that uncomfortable notion out of his mind. For now they were both together on a reasonably fine March afternoon. Two people, who were quickly falling into infatuation with each other.
Sarah had her hair pulled back today, showing off the tasteful loops in her ears. Her dress was feminine but demure, her make-up subtle and sweet. As John reached the table he could smell her perfume: something trendy but not overly expensive, maybe Chanel? Sherlock would know, came an errant thought that he quickly pushed away. Sherlock wasn’t invited on this date.
Sarah rose and gave him one of those awkward half-hugs that people give when they aren’t sure where they stand. John guessed that a quick peck on the cheek wouldn’t be amiss, and he was right. When they sat down, all awkwardness fled. Once again their conversation clicked together. John knew precisely what Sarah was getting at when she talked about the grumpy pensioners, and she understood his hatred of the Chip and Pin machines.
When they’d reached the point where they were lingering over the last cold swallows of coffee, John finally pulled himself out of the spell and broached the real business at hand.
“Say,” he said, “I don’t suppose you ever have an occasion to cross the channel, do you?”
“Only on vacation,” Sarah leaned forward, fingers laced together under her chin. “What about you?”
“I have friends there I go and see on an occasion.” Oh god, this was painful. “The reason I ask is that I’ve lost track of a friend down there, but you know my work doesn’t have conventional days off. I was hoping if you were planning a trip down there if you could hand deliver a letter.”
“A letter? Something wrong with the post?”
“Only my memory of his address. Anyway, there’s a lovely little cafe in Calais that is owned by his uncle, if you can give the letter to the uncle, then it will get to him and he can write me back.”
Sarah nodded, but John sensed it was an awkward nod. She sat straighter and her hands parted, one clasped her empty cup. Her eyes looked down. She was annoyed that their hitherto perfect date was spoiled by such an weird and unexpected imposition.
After a seconds hesitation, she seemed to find the excuse she was fishing for: “Well, I can’t say that I’ll be making any trips out there soon. We just lost our part time doctor and I’m having to cover his patients myself.” She quickly looked up and met his eye, feeling more confident. “But next time I do go, I will definitely deliver your letter.”
John nodded, and relaxed as the tension broke. It was a start. He hadn’t been too hopeful that she’d just leap on a train to play courier for a man she’d barely met, no matter how well they got on. But she hadn’t outright turned him down either. Which meant that maybe in a week or two she’d consider it.
Sarah segued into a conversation about all the different cities in France they’d each visited. John, who’d spent fifteen months in various French safe houses, won the contest soundly. He then went on to charm her by speaking tourist French in a low seductive voice. Never had “Pardon me, which way to the subway?” sounded so romantic.
John was startled when he felt his phone vibrate at his hip. Pulling it out he looked at it’s black face. Four-thirty? How could that much time have passed? The message from Sherlock was brusque and to the point:
COME HOME NOW.
“I’ve got to go,” he said. “I wish I could stay longer, but…”
“Your master is calling you,” said Sarah with a laugh.
Blood drained from John’s face. Then he realised she meant it metaphorically. “I’m so sorry. I’ll try not to make running out on you a habit.” He looped the shopping around his wrist and stood up. His nerves jangled. What would he tell Sherlock about the time? That he’d had lost himself in a daydream? That shopping really was that slow? Perhaps he could pass it off as ordinary defiance. That, at least, would have the smack of truth to it.
“Oh, it’s your job, John, you can’t help it,” said Sarah, following him to the door. “Assistant Private Investigator - so cool!”
John nodded and secretly thanked Sherlock for giving him a job description that explained his lack of reliable availability. John wanted to be as honest as he could with her about himself and frankly, he wouldn’t have much to talk about if he kept the above-board parts of his life secret. The only things he never mentioned was his terrorist activities and the fact that he was a slave.
If only he’d met Sarah before he’d met Gabbeau and abolitionist underground. This was cruel.
“What are my chances I could lure you away from that with that part time position in my surgery?” Sarah asked with a flirtatious smile, as they walked out onto the pavement. “It might not be as exciting as hunting down murderers, but at least it would be a steady £65,000.”
John laughed ruefully. Oh god, there was no way. “I’m afraid not.” Better she think that it was due to his job being so exciting, than the job being so involuntary.
“It’s only three days a week,” she pressed. “And you could do your other investigations the rest of the time…”
“Oh, Sarah, I really can’t,” said John stopping in his tracks and putting a gentle hand on her shoulders. “My medical license expired years ago. I’d have to jump through half a dozen hoops before I could legally work in a surgery again. You’ll have the position filled before I could do that. And besides,” he slid his hands down until they met hers, then clasped them up to his chest. “It would be very awkward to be dating my boss.”
She laughed ruefully. “Yeah, there is that.”
Then she leaned forward and they kissed. Every thought in John’s head promptly spilled out and there was nothing but the electric tingle of her warmth and smell and closeness. Oh, God, why couldn’t he have this? It was unfair. So damned unfair.
He broke off the kiss and separated from her as gently as he could. “I really do have to go. I’m sorry. I’ll call you tomorrow when I can.” If he stayed longer he was going to start tearing up and wouldn’t that lead to awkward questions.
He then took off at a run, his bag of vegetables swinging off his arm.
Sherlock had his arms crossed over his chest when he entered. John ducked his head down in an automatic gesture of contrite subservience. He knew what Sherlock was going to say even before the agony of it took him to the floor.
He stayed there, folded on his knees, hands splayed across the hardwood floor by the entry way. He stared unseeingly at the plastic sack with the lettuce poking out the top. Anything not to look at his Master. But even with his eyes averted he could feel Sherlock’s attention on him, searingly hot. Cataloguing every minute bit of him. The hair stood up on the back of John’s neck and he fancied he could feel the collar scars throb.
Out of the corner of John’s eye, he saw Sherlock kneeling down and grasping the shopping bag. He raised his hand to let it slip off. Sherlock stood again. There was a rustling of plastic. Then the slow clopping sounds of Sherlock’s shoes as he walked to the kitchen. John just stayed where he was. Waiting for the inevitable other shoe to drop.
“Was the selection Waitrose so difficult to choose from,” Sherlock said in cold, scathing voice, “That it would take a full two and a half hours of your time to pick out eight vegetables? Was the line for the cashier extraordinarily long?”
John flinched at the sarcasm. “I’m sorry,” he said.
“Or could it be,” said Sherlock, pacing closer, “That you weren’t shopping all that time after all?”
Oh god, he knows…
There was a long pause and John sweated. Had any of Sarah’s make up transferred onto his face? Did he smell her perfume? Christ, Sherlock had to know. He had to know everything.
“Could it be that you were shirking?”
John fought to keep his breathing steady. That wasn’t the conclusion he was expecting Sherlock to come to. Perhaps he hadn’t figured it out after all. There was still hope that the clandestine date and the deeper reasons behind the date were still secret.
“Could it be perhaps that you find my company so unpleasant you were seeking to extend your liberty as long as possible?”
Oh god, yes. Let him think it was that. John nearly trembled with relief.
“I’m sorry. I just needed some time to myself.” His voice came out a whisper.
Sherlock took a deep breath in. John stared at the flaking varnish on the floorboards and waited for the breath to come out. Finally it did.
“Look at me,” Sherlock said, like the low rumble of an earthquake.
John forced himself to look up. His neck muscles were so stiff with tension that it was hard to do even that simple task. Sherlock was pale with anger and something that if John didn’t know better was abject terror. Then the collar triggered and the feeling of bliss and fear warred in his mind so disconcertingly that John looked away out of sheer self-defence.
“Look at me!” Sherlock repeated sharper, John met his eye and held it steady through the pulse of reward and back out the other side.
Sherlock waited for the collar to finish before continuing. “Consider any good will you might have earned from the last case gone.”
John nodded.
“It comes to my attention that I’ve given your leash too much slack. You are taking liberties you shouldn’t. You want free time,” he said mockingly, as if the concept were absurd. “Time to relax with a coffee and pretend that you are a free man whose destiny is his own to make.”
John struggled not to duck his head again.
“You. Are. Not. A. Free. Man.” Sherlock emphasised each word with a stamp of his foot. “Do you understand, John? You are a slave! I don’t care how much you think it’s unfair. It is what you are and you need to accept it. You exist to serve me, not yourself. You should be thinking of my needs, not your own. You are mine. Body. Mind. Everything, John. Mine. And what you do and where you go and what freedoms you have are entirely at my say so.”
John couldn’t stop the tremble that crept through his body. He was glad he was still kneeling. He didn’t think he could stand.
“I did not give you permission to spend two hours at a coffee shop, pretending to be your own person.”
John nodded. At least he didn’t know about Sarah. At least his plans were still intact. Set back a bit maybe but intact.
“Eyes up!” Sherlock ordered, when John let them drift again. With enormous effort, John met Sherlock’s eyes again. Oh god, there was rage there. There was fury. It made John squirm to see such anger and at the same time feel so good.
“I have to punish you,” said Sherlock. “Simply having your collar shock you isn’t enough. This is a grave offence.”
John sniffed in a breath, remembering how much the crop had hurt.
“I think that the punishment should fit the crime,” said Sherlock. “Natural consequences work much better than one size fits all solutions. Don’t you agree?”
“Yes, Master,” said John automatically, while his belly turned to ice. Not the crop then. But what? With a mind as creative as Sherlocks, it could be anything.
“It’s time to pull the tether in tight, John. You don’t deserve your own room. And I want my laboratory back the way it used to be, not all crammed up so you can fit the soft bed I allowed you to buy.”
John felt both relief and dread. His room - his retreat. “Where will I sleep?”
“On the floor in my room, at the foot of my bed,” said Sherlock. “So that I can call you in the night and you will be handily at my side. There is a throw rug you can lie on. And I will allow you a pillow and a blanket for warmth. But that is all. From here on out, unless otherwise ordered, you will stay in whatever room I’m in, for both my convenience and to keep you out of mischief.”
John breathed deeply. “What of your privacy, Master,” he felt compelled to ask. Sherlock was an intensely private man at times, retreating to his own room for hours on end. This was as much a punishment of him as it was of John.
“What privacy do I need with you,” asked Sherlock, as if the matter were unimportant. “Why should I care how you see me? You are furniture, John. Should I wish to be alone, I shall simply order you to place yourself in a corner and be still - the way I’d put an chair. And for now until I have another case, we shall go out together. I don’t trust you out of my sight.”
John nodded. Shit. Sarah. “I’ll be less useful to you, Sir.”
“That may be true,” said Sherlock, the freeze coming out of his voice a bit. “But you won’t be any use at all to me if Mycroft takes you away. And trust me, if you remain this wilful, he will take you back and break you himself.” Sherlock’s hand came down and touched John’s head gently once, and then with a sharp rap of the knuckles. “Up. And get to work. I want the laboratory to be as you found it by bed time.”
Sherlock sat in a chair in the corner of the attic and supervised John’s work. Bit by bit the room went back to the way it had been when John had taken it over. He allowed John to keep a quarter of the cupboard for his clothes, but only because he didn’t want John cluttering up his own wardrobe with it. When John finished, sweaty, dusty, and aching from the effort, Sherlock ordered him downstairs to wash up in the sink and begin on dinner.
Sherlock was true to his word about keeping John close. When he went into his bedroom to fetch a book, John had to stop washing dishes to go in with him. When he went to the toilet, to John’s utter horror, he brought him in then too, and had him face the door while he did his business.
“You better use it yourself,” Sherlock mentioned casually while he washed his hands, the implication being that Sherlock might not give John permission to go later on. Peeing in front of Sherlock was probably the most embarrassing thing John had ever done. He almost couldn’t manage it. By the time he washed up, he was deeply red in the face. Sherlock didn’t seem the least bit perturbed, which didn’t give John much hope for the future.
“You should get used to it,” said Sherlock as they walked back to the living room. “You were a doctor once - and in the army. You should be inured to things like nudity or body functions. Or is it easier to have others be vulnerable and naked in front of you rather than the other way around?”
“I gave my patients as much privacy as I could. Sir,” said John belatedly.
“Consider me your doctor then,” said Sherlock. “And do as I prescribe. If I consider it dangerous to leave you on your own even for a second right now, then your privacy, and mine, will have to go. Later I might reconsider.”
John said nothing. There was nothing to say. He sat down and wrote out his 100 words. They were laborious and difficult. In the end what he wrote made no sense at all.
That night John dreamed again. He was taking Sarah for a boat ride down the Thames. He paddled with no effort at all, feeling the joy of freedom and watching the banks on either side move terribly fast. Even though they had no provisions packed, he planned on paddling all the way down the river to the ocean, and then off to France. They’d be free there. The wires in his head would be defused and no one would ever catch him again.
Then suddenly to either side came a much larger steam boat. The huge bows pinched in towards him, cutting off his little boat. The water around suddenly pocked as a hail of bullets drew a line around him. Sarah screamed and curled in a ball, her hands over her head. John looked one way, then another, then knew he was caught and raised his arms.
He could see Mycroft standing up on the prow of the ship to his right. When he looked to his left, there was Sherlock, mirroring his brother. He understood he had to choose. Go with Mycroft and face unknown horrors in the hold of his massive battleship. Or go with Sherlock and deal with the anger that played across his face.
It was no choice. He went with Sherlock. And suddenly he was down below decks in Sherlock’s bedroom. The throw rug was on the floor where he knew he’d be expected to sleep. He was so exhausted and he wanted to lie down and sleep, but he had to wait for Sherlock’s orders.
For some reason, Sarah was still in the room. Part of John felt terror that Sherlock knew she existed, but then it seemed that Sherlock had always known she existed. Yes, of course! Sarah was a slave, too, like himself. They’d been escaping together. They’d been caught and now Sherlock had brought them home.
Lie down, Sherlock ordered. He sat at the end of the bed and watched as the two of them lay on the floor by his feet. Like dogs, John thought. Like possessions. He lay down and the pleasure from his collar rewarded him so nicely.
He wasn’t sure how it happened but it seemed that he was naked now and Sarah as well. Sherlock was watching on with interest as they made love to each other. This was John’s duty. His job. His punishment. He wasn’t sure it was all muddled. Part of him flinched in embarrassment at having sex in front of his Master, but the rest revelled in it. Sherlock’s voice filled John’s ears with orders for him to do ever more perverted things to her body. While John complied the collar fed him a steady stream of rewards making it all even better, more seductive.
And then it seemed that Sarah wasn’t really a person at all, but rather some sort of blow up doll or mannequin made of rubber that he was lying on and pushing himself into. John felt a surge of shame go through him, that he was degrading himself on this thing - this toy. All the while Sherlock’s hand stroked his hair and urged him to rut the thing harder. More.
John couldn’t resist. He couldn’t stop himself, not with his own needs and the collar both beating at him. He couldn’t stop Sherlock from holding him from behind and filling his mind with seductive orders. He couldn’t stop himself from arching back against the hard warmth of that masculine body and longing for more. More touching. More force. More orders. Take me and leave nothing left.
He was giving in. And he knew the moment he did that every trace of integrity he ever had would be lost entirely.
John woke, curled in a tight ball on the hard floor by the foot of Sherlock’s bed. Cold had crept up through the thin carpeting. The blanket didn’t seem warm enough. But there was no mistaking the raging hard on between his thighs. He remembered the dream far too well. The seductiveness and the shame of it. In the dark he could hear Sherlock’s breathing, slow and steady in an otherwise silent room.
God help him, he’d nearly had a wet dream about Sherlock fucking him. And ordering him. Though now that he thought back on it, the collar in his dream didn’t really give him the same feeling it did in reality. Dream Sherlock hadn’t been able to actually trigger it. Still, he’d dreamed of being taken equally by his Master and his collar, and it had been one of the most intensely sexual dreams he’d ever had.
What did it mean? Was he really being seduced? Did part of him actually like being treated like this? Was he starting to get off on slavery? God what an awful thought. And yet, even awake, it was hard not to grab his own cock and continue the fantasy to it’s conclusion. If he’d been up in the attic rather than Sherlock’s bedroom, he’d have done that.
Maybe that’s all it was - built up sexual tension. It had been several days since he’d wanked. There just hadn’t been any time for it, with trying to arrange meetings with Sarah around Sherlock’s tricky schedule. It could just be as simple as needing release and his mind manipulating the circumstances of his life to allow it. That made John feel a bit better. He sighed and unballed himself.
“Oh, do go back to sleep,” muttered Sherlock suddenly, from above him. “Or I’ll drug your tea tomorrow night so you won’t squirm so much.”
John stayed still. No definitely not going to whack off now - or God, when would he ever get to, with Sherlock hovering about. He closed his eyes and despite the unfulfilled tension, he slept again. This time he didn’t remember his dreams.
The epiphany came on the morning of the second day of John’s punishment. Sherlock got up just before six as usual, and John, stiff and aching from a poor night’s sleep almost didn’t keep up with him as he strode across the hall to the flat’s toilet. Perhaps Sherlock was a bit overtired himself because he forgot to tell John to look at the wall before whipping himself out and emptying his bladder. John, feeling groggy and surly, wasn’t in the mood to correct the oversight.
So he stood and stared. He might have grinned a bit, because watching the his “master” the “great genius” scratching his arse and filling the pot made him seem a lot less of an implacable god and more of an ordinary human being. But for a collar, John thought, we would be the same.
Mid-piss, Sherlock happened to turn his head slightly and realised that John was faced the wrong direction. John saw a ripple of tension snake its way over Sherlock’s body, making his arm shake and his back straighten. Sherlock’s eyes widened and his hand pinched down harder on the head of his cock, cutting off the flow. His nostrils flared as he breathed in quickly. And then it was gone, Sherlock’s face was a blank mask, he quite deliberately turned away.
“Curiosity appeased?” he asked dryly. “I’m sure you’ve seen plenty of cocks before.” He then let out the last dribbling spurts with a stiffness in his posture that suggested he was being valiantly defiant.
Actually, John could barely see Sherlock’s limp member at all. Between his hand and the folds of his clothes, Sherlock’s modesty was nearly entirely preserved. John considered mentioning this but then he realised something important: Sherlock was miserably body shy.
And wouldn’t you know it, suddenly Sherlock reminded John of the sad blighters who used to wait until everyone was finished and dressing before sneaking into the showers after sport. John fought to keep a snicker back.
As humiliated as John had been peeing in front of Sherlock yesterday, it wasn’t like he’d never been in situations where he’d been naked in front of others before. And most of them hadn’t been terrible experiences at all. John had shared showers with his fellow rugby players, hell, he’d taken dumps in front of his fellows in the army. And in between, he’d gone skinny dipping with friends and even poked his naked bum out of a car window once on his drunken way back from the championship game against Brighton. The trick was to decide that your body was a bloody gift to mankind and that everyone one around was privileged to get a glimpse of it. Either that or you didn’t give a flying fuck. John waffled between the two approaches. Much as he wasn’t a fan of exposing himself to Sherlock, he’d had a fair degree of experiences coping with bodily exposure. And now that John was over the shock of being ordered to do it, he could probably channel the carefree attitude of his youth.
But Sherlock had had none of that. The man didn’t even use public urinals.
A slow smile crept across John’s face. He had power in this. If the goal was to wear John down through embarrassment, Sherlock had finally made a real tactical mistake.
So instead admitting he hadn’t seen much of anything, John said, “I don’t know, you could give a better show. You a grower or a shower?” This was pure locker room cheek. He knew he was going to pay for it, but damn if it didn’t feel good.
Sherlock’s reaction was instant. John watched as he tried to get control over his involuntary reactions, but in the end he blushed, then realising that he was blushing made him blush deeper. “That’s a dangerous question to ask, considering.”
“Considering what?” said John, feeling nearly drunk on the power he suddenly realised had. “Go on, take the rest off. Don’t worry about me. I’m just a piece of furniture, remember? Who cares what a chair sees. Unless that is, you are afraid I’ll laugh.”
Sherlock just stared as if he couldn’t believe what was coming out of John’s mouth. And to be honest, John was nearly as surprised himself. More over he was surprised he was getting away with it. It was as if Sherlock had momentarily forgotten how easy it was to punish John. There he stood at a complete loss for what to do, three long seconds. John could practically see Sherlock contemplating his options: Did he take off his clothes and prove his own point that he didn’t care (when in fact he did) or did he turn John around and have him face the door, and admit his shame.
John had just the time to crow to himself that this most simple school yard bullying was actually working when Sherlock snapped out of his shock. “John, HEEL!”
For a moment, there was nothing but pain. But the moment came and went and it wasn’t quite as awful as John had expected it to be.
When he came back to himself, Sherlock’s face was furious, but John wasn’t afraid anymore. He’d actually found a chink in Sherlock’s armour. An odd, inexplicable, yet very exploitable shyness. John could hurt him. John had power - more power than Sherlock had! After all, what could Sherlock do that he hadn’t already done? What could he take away? John had already been whipped. He’d already been humiliated. He’d already been stripped of everything. Sherlock was only hurting himself at this point. This crazy punishment, this “tightening the leash” as he’d termed it was only punishing Sherlock.
And god if that wasn’t freeing.
John made the mistake of grinned up at Sherlock triumphantly as soon as the pain faded. Sherlock’s face went white. John who had thought he’d seen Sherlock angry before was utterly taken aback by the deadly fury on his face now. It was like a tsunami rising up on the horizon, pausing at the shore, and then crashing down.
“Heel, John, Heel, John, Heel, John….” Over and over.
John regretted everything by the second iteration, by the fourth he was too far gone to do even that. Words came out of his mouth but they were garbled with his sobs and screams to make sense. When Sherlock paused long enough for breath, John begged him to stop. And when, after a few more “heel”s, he did stop, all John could do for several minutes was grovel and apologise. He was curled on the floor by Sherlock’s feet, shaking like a leaf. Sherlock waited, unmoving until John’s babbling had stopped and he’d caught his breath. And when at last John’s shuddering died down, a deep silence filled the room.
Slowly, John ventured to look up at Sherlock. His face was still pale but the fury was gone and in it’s place was an odd disgust, but John wasn’t sure if it were aimed at him, or if Sherlock was levelling it at himself.
Sherlock stared at him a bit longer. Then to John’s surprise, he stripped for his shower and got in. “You are just furniture,” he said tightly. “Look or don’t, I don’t care.”
John had plenty of time to think while Sherlock took the world’s longest shower. The steam had long settled and he could tell that the water had gone beyond tepid to fully cold minutes before Sherlock shut it off. John did much the same: cooling from hot anger to cold reasoning. And in the wake of his fury, John felt oddly ashamed of having goaded Sherlock, even though he was the one who’d been hurt.
He’d never been a bully before. He’d argued passionately, he’d tried to change people’s minds when he thought they were wrong, but he’d never teased in a mean way or tried to make someone feel ashamed of their own weaknesses. He didn’t much like those who did.
He tried to justify his behaviour in his mind with the fact that this was war and Sherlock was the enemy. But it was hard to see Sherlock as the enemy. Not when he’d been through so much with the man. Not when he knew how the man took his tea, and what his face looked like when a new case came in. Not when he’d heard those infrequent words of praise that he’d never heard Sherlock give anyone else.
Not when he knew that Sherlock was going this far out of his comfort zone to try to discipline John. Really, what master would do this tethering thing? Most would simply have lashed John with “heel” from the start. Clearly that was what Mycroft was expecting Sherlock to do.
Something had changed between them. John didn’t know if this was what stockholm syndrome felt like, but there was a bond between them now. There was something odd and disturbingly like love.
That wasn’t the only change. The revelation still held. John was just not as bothered by lack of privacy as Sherlock was. It was so obvious now that he was looking at it. He could see the irritation that Sherlock felt every time he turned and found John in his face. And yet Sherlock couldn’t say anything about it, since John was only following his orders. Sherlock paced like a caged animal while John cooked, wanting dearly to go up to his lab, but knowing if he did that his dinner would either be left half cooked or become a fire hazard. Last night when John had slowly put the lab back to it’s former place, Sherlock had been all but crawling out of his skin to get up and do something other than watch.
John tested his theory:
“Would you like me to scrub the shower? It looks a bit dingy,” asked John, not because he really wanted to take on the chore, but because it would have forced Sherlock to stand around in the tiny room being bored while he did it.
“Dear god, no,” Sherlock replied, with a shudder. “Find something to do in this room.” He watched the telly with his knees folded to his chin. His eyes kept flicking to the window as if he were contemplating escape.
“I could hoover,” suggested John, after a minute.
“Alright! Hoover!” Sherlock turned up the sound on the telly to compensate.
John suppressed a grin, because the punishment of that morning was too raw to risk it again. Still he couldn’t help but feeling oddly cheerful. He’d found a way to tweak Sherlock’s nose without being punished and without it going so far as to make Sherlock genuinely uncomfortable the way he had with his remarks that morning. It felt positively empowering. The best part of it was that he knew it wouldn’t last.
Sherlock was going to break before he did, John was certain of it. He’d break and end this rule of being in the same room together. And they would go back to normal, or what John had begun to feel was normal. John just had to be patient.
There must have been a crack in Sherlock’s window that allowed a cold air to seep in and settle across the floor. No matter how tightly John balled himself against it, he just couldn’t get warm enough to fully sleep. He’d wedged himself against the bed frame and wall to help build a little triangle of warmth that wouldn’t be swept away by the draft. Though he tried to be quiet about it, every movement made the floor boards creak, and judging by the soft cursing, woke Sherlock.
Finally, Sherlock sat up and snapped: “That’s it. Up you go, in the bed.”
The old John of two days ago would have been mortified. Now he couldn’t give a rats arse. He was exhausted and aching from cold. The bed felt soft and inviting and having another body heating it up sounded just fine. Sherlock stood so that John could crawl in and take the side against the wall. He didn’t even need the collar rewarding him: The bed was already so deliciously warm and soft that his muscles relaxed and out he went. If anything untoward happened in the night John wasn’t aware of it because his next memory was Sherlock shaking him awake so he could go have his morning slash.
John got up and lurched after him like a zombie. This morning there were no revelations, just John leaning against the wall and trying to catch a few more winks while Sherlock went through his normal routine, looking only the slightest bit haggard from two days of less than optimal sleep.
Something’s going to break soon, John thought to himself vaguely. We can’t go on like this. But he was no longer sure which of them it would be to fold first.
Neither of them remembered it was Wednesday until Mycroft knocked at the door promptly at 9. John opened the door automatically, half expecting it to be Mrs. Hudson and jumped to full wakefulness when the impeccably dressed monster walked jauntily right in.
Mycroft scanned John, then Sherlock, then his face settled into a frown. “No.” He pronounced with utter finality.
“No what?” asked Sherlock, dully from the sofa.
“Sherlock,” said Mycroft, resting his umbrella next to a chair and crossing his arms. “Whatever it is the two of you are up to, it’s not good. You look like you’ve barely slept in two days and John is practically stumbling over his own feet. How is he to see to your health if you allow him to neglect his own?”
“Temporary,” said Sherlock with a wave of his hand. “I’ve gone without sleep longer.”
“And I repeat myself: ‘no’.” Mycroft turned to John. “If you would go up to your room John, I wish to talk to Sherlock in private.”
John stiffened and looked at Sherlock. If he followed Mycroft’s orders he’d be in a different room from Sherlock.
“John go make me some tea,” said Sherlock wearily. John went to the edge of the living room and paused. Sherlock considered the kitchen to be a separate room, even if there were no walls between the two areas. Sherlock realised the problem and got up, and though he tried to make it seem as if it were his own idea all along, Mycroft’s sharp eyes caught the interplay between them and his face went grim.
“Spill it,” he said sharply. “What on earth is going on. Why must John be so close to you.” He turned to John. “Tell me.”
John froze. He turned from Sherlock to Mycroft. Obviously, Sherlock wanted this punishment held secret or he’d have told Mycroft. Just as obviously Mycroft wasn’t going to let it go until he knew. “I’ll remind you, Sherlock, that I’m John’s primary owner. As such I demand to know what his orders are. If you are doing something that will put my experiment at risk, I need to know.” Sherlock mouth tightened. Mycroft turned again to John. “Well?”
“I was late coming back with the groceries,” said John. “I’m being punished.”
“How.” The word was like a branch being snapped.
“I must be in the same room as Sherlock at all times. I’m not to be allowed any privacy until he’s satisfied that I’ve learned my lesson.”
“What lesson is that?”
“That I’m not my own man. That I belong to him. Like a piece of furniture.”
Mycroft thought a bit. “I see.” He lifted his head. “No. I forbid it. This punishment ends right now.”
“Why?” said Sherlock. “It’s working. You wanted me to push him past his comfort zone, and I have.”
Mycroft shook his head. “Sherlock, my dear. John not your toddler, he’s your slave. It’s his duty to serve you, not yours to serve him. And he’s much tougher than you are giving him credit for. This method of discipline is all wrong!”
“What does it matter to you what methods I use for discipline - so long as they work.”
“That’s where you are wrong, it does matter what you use!” Mycroft turned his patronising glower back towards Sherlock. “No don’t glare at me like that, I see what you are trying to do. You think if you watch him closely enough you can nip his defiance in the bud, and bring his misbehaviour to extinction this way. And knowing you, you probably can, given enough time.”
“Your problem then?”
“Well that’s very fine for you, Sherlock, but if you are able to break him by these means he’ll be worthless to me. John isn’t just your slave and he’s not just mine, either. He’s an example of what all slaves in the future can become with this new technology. There are precious few people in the world who would be willing to devote this kind of energy to break a slave. For heaven’s sake, Sherlock, take the easy route for once. Let the collar do its work!”
Sherlock’s posture stiffened, but he said nothing.
“I told you from the start that my experiment takes precedence over everything. Now, John,” said Mycroft harsher. “Go upstairs to your room immediately. Forget the tea. I need to talk to Sherlock alone.”
Sherlock nodded.
John didn’t hesitate this time. He headed up the stairs quickly. As he entered the lab he felt the reward for his good behaviour wash over him. When that was done, he sat down in the chair by the door, with every intention of being good and staying out of the way for the duration of Mycroft’s visit. The man spooked him.
But then so did having people talk about him behind his back. As the seconds wore on the weirdness of being suddenly alone after nearly three days of continuous togetherness, combined with the knowledge of his future being discussed behind his back, led to a kind of an itchy feeling that wouldn’t let John settle down. John would have liked to have believed that it was his strength of character that lead him to defy Mycroft, but his weakness took more of the credit.
Quietly, quietly, he crept through the door, avoiding the creakiest floorboards. He reached the top of the stairs, but didn’t dare go farther.
“I’m not in love with him,” Sherlock denied, his voice was faint.
“He is with you constantly. It’s only natural that you’d develop some sort of fondness. Many masters do with their personal slaves. And really, why else would you insist on coddling him so. You don’t want him to be hurt.”
Sherlock scoffed, “Yes, that would be why I whipped him.”
“You barely knew him when you did that. Sherlock, I’m not against you showing some affection to him - provided he earns it.” Mycroft’s voice lowered, and John could only barely catch the words, “If you are afraid I plan on removing him, I won’t. At least not permanently. Current exhaustion aside, he’s done wonders for you. You’ve put on two pounds in the last few weeks and your flat looks and smells much better. And it’s good to see you expanding your interest beyond your extremely narrow area of expertise.
“But I’m starting to think that, rather than having you fight your obviously deep emotional commitment to him, perhaps I should take it on myself to perform some of the more … potentially problematic parts of his training. I can be the ‘villain’, at least until such time as John has become used to the the treatment.”
“No,” said Sherlock sharply. “Whatever it is, I’ll do it. Leave him alone.”
“Hmm,” said Mycroft. “We’ll see.”
Chapter 7
Pairing: Eventual Sherlock/John plus Mycroft
Rating: Eventual NC-17 (You'll have to be patient), this chapter R.
Genre: Slave!fic AU, drama, angst
Warnings (for entire fic, not just this chapter): non-con, slavery, violence, emotional and physical abuse.
Word count: 7400
Summary: Written for This Prompt: In a world where the British Empire is still strong and slavery is her economic backbone, John has become a terrorist for the abolitionist movement. He is caught by Mycroft, enslaved, and given to Sherlock for training. The goal: To test a new kind of slave collar with the power to break even the strongest willed fighter. One that will make even John learn to love being a slave.
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
CHAPTER 6
As best as John was able to tell, and with Sherlock it wasn’t easy, being a “Master” didn’t sit comfortably with him. He vacillated between being ridiculously overbearing and sentimentally tender, treating John as though he were some favoured pet. It was as if a tug-of-war were going on in Sherlock’s mind, leaving him confused and off balance on how to act. There was a palpable awkwardness to all of this that set John’s teeth on edge and clearly embarrassed Sherlock. And yet, for all that, Sherlock had a fierce sense of pride that wouldn’t let him give John up.
Sometimes when John was working in the kitchen, or cleaning up after an experiment, he’d catch an achingly vulnerable look on Sherlock’s face. An unspeakable yearning. Sherlock had lived a terrifically lonely life before John had appeared on the scene. But this wasn’t something Sherlock was comfortable with sharing either. The moment he noticed John’s attention, on went a tougher facade.
John tried very hard not to feel sympathy for him, but was difficult not to grow emotionally attached to a man you tended all day. He’d grown so accustomed to memorising the man’s twitches and moods, finding some correlation between them and his behaviour. His entire day was filled with thoughts of Sherlock. His expressions, his voice, his wants and desires. Hell, even his smell seemed to haunt John.
But he had to harden his belly to it. He had plan, and if all went off smoothly, he’d never see Sherlock again. He didn’t dare let himself think how much he’d actually miss him. Sherlock hadn’t been the only lonely one in this crazy flat.
Dr. Sarah Sawyer waved at John as he entered the little cafe half way between the green-grocers and the Baker Street flat. It was fast becoming their place, if three rendezvous in as many days counted.
His worries about blowing her off on Thursday were entirely unjustified. Sarah had been giddy that he’d called her at all. John’s twinge of guilt for having let her down magically transformed into a twinge of guilt for his plans to use her. Unless he could convince her to drop her practice and go into hiding with him in France, he wouldn’t be seeing her again, either.
John pushed that uncomfortable notion out of his mind. For now they were both together on a reasonably fine March afternoon. Two people, who were quickly falling into infatuation with each other.
Sarah had her hair pulled back today, showing off the tasteful loops in her ears. Her dress was feminine but demure, her make-up subtle and sweet. As John reached the table he could smell her perfume: something trendy but not overly expensive, maybe Chanel? Sherlock would know, came an errant thought that he quickly pushed away. Sherlock wasn’t invited on this date.
Sarah rose and gave him one of those awkward half-hugs that people give when they aren’t sure where they stand. John guessed that a quick peck on the cheek wouldn’t be amiss, and he was right. When they sat down, all awkwardness fled. Once again their conversation clicked together. John knew precisely what Sarah was getting at when she talked about the grumpy pensioners, and she understood his hatred of the Chip and Pin machines.
When they’d reached the point where they were lingering over the last cold swallows of coffee, John finally pulled himself out of the spell and broached the real business at hand.
“Say,” he said, “I don’t suppose you ever have an occasion to cross the channel, do you?”
“Only on vacation,” Sarah leaned forward, fingers laced together under her chin. “What about you?”
“I have friends there I go and see on an occasion.” Oh god, this was painful. “The reason I ask is that I’ve lost track of a friend down there, but you know my work doesn’t have conventional days off. I was hoping if you were planning a trip down there if you could hand deliver a letter.”
“A letter? Something wrong with the post?”
“Only my memory of his address. Anyway, there’s a lovely little cafe in Calais that is owned by his uncle, if you can give the letter to the uncle, then it will get to him and he can write me back.”
Sarah nodded, but John sensed it was an awkward nod. She sat straighter and her hands parted, one clasped her empty cup. Her eyes looked down. She was annoyed that their hitherto perfect date was spoiled by such an weird and unexpected imposition.
After a seconds hesitation, she seemed to find the excuse she was fishing for: “Well, I can’t say that I’ll be making any trips out there soon. We just lost our part time doctor and I’m having to cover his patients myself.” She quickly looked up and met his eye, feeling more confident. “But next time I do go, I will definitely deliver your letter.”
John nodded, and relaxed as the tension broke. It was a start. He hadn’t been too hopeful that she’d just leap on a train to play courier for a man she’d barely met, no matter how well they got on. But she hadn’t outright turned him down either. Which meant that maybe in a week or two she’d consider it.
Sarah segued into a conversation about all the different cities in France they’d each visited. John, who’d spent fifteen months in various French safe houses, won the contest soundly. He then went on to charm her by speaking tourist French in a low seductive voice. Never had “Pardon me, which way to the subway?” sounded so romantic.
John was startled when he felt his phone vibrate at his hip. Pulling it out he looked at it’s black face. Four-thirty? How could that much time have passed? The message from Sherlock was brusque and to the point:
COME HOME NOW.
“I’ve got to go,” he said. “I wish I could stay longer, but…”
“Your master is calling you,” said Sarah with a laugh.
Blood drained from John’s face. Then he realised she meant it metaphorically. “I’m so sorry. I’ll try not to make running out on you a habit.” He looped the shopping around his wrist and stood up. His nerves jangled. What would he tell Sherlock about the time? That he’d had lost himself in a daydream? That shopping really was that slow? Perhaps he could pass it off as ordinary defiance. That, at least, would have the smack of truth to it.
“Oh, it’s your job, John, you can’t help it,” said Sarah, following him to the door. “Assistant Private Investigator - so cool!”
John nodded and secretly thanked Sherlock for giving him a job description that explained his lack of reliable availability. John wanted to be as honest as he could with her about himself and frankly, he wouldn’t have much to talk about if he kept the above-board parts of his life secret. The only things he never mentioned was his terrorist activities and the fact that he was a slave.
If only he’d met Sarah before he’d met Gabbeau and abolitionist underground. This was cruel.
“What are my chances I could lure you away from that with that part time position in my surgery?” Sarah asked with a flirtatious smile, as they walked out onto the pavement. “It might not be as exciting as hunting down murderers, but at least it would be a steady £65,000.”
John laughed ruefully. Oh god, there was no way. “I’m afraid not.” Better she think that it was due to his job being so exciting, than the job being so involuntary.
“It’s only three days a week,” she pressed. “And you could do your other investigations the rest of the time…”
“Oh, Sarah, I really can’t,” said John stopping in his tracks and putting a gentle hand on her shoulders. “My medical license expired years ago. I’d have to jump through half a dozen hoops before I could legally work in a surgery again. You’ll have the position filled before I could do that. And besides,” he slid his hands down until they met hers, then clasped them up to his chest. “It would be very awkward to be dating my boss.”
She laughed ruefully. “Yeah, there is that.”
Then she leaned forward and they kissed. Every thought in John’s head promptly spilled out and there was nothing but the electric tingle of her warmth and smell and closeness. Oh, God, why couldn’t he have this? It was unfair. So damned unfair.
He broke off the kiss and separated from her as gently as he could. “I really do have to go. I’m sorry. I’ll call you tomorrow when I can.” If he stayed longer he was going to start tearing up and wouldn’t that lead to awkward questions.
He then took off at a run, his bag of vegetables swinging off his arm.
Sherlock had his arms crossed over his chest when he entered. John ducked his head down in an automatic gesture of contrite subservience. He knew what Sherlock was going to say even before the agony of it took him to the floor.
He stayed there, folded on his knees, hands splayed across the hardwood floor by the entry way. He stared unseeingly at the plastic sack with the lettuce poking out the top. Anything not to look at his Master. But even with his eyes averted he could feel Sherlock’s attention on him, searingly hot. Cataloguing every minute bit of him. The hair stood up on the back of John’s neck and he fancied he could feel the collar scars throb.
Out of the corner of John’s eye, he saw Sherlock kneeling down and grasping the shopping bag. He raised his hand to let it slip off. Sherlock stood again. There was a rustling of plastic. Then the slow clopping sounds of Sherlock’s shoes as he walked to the kitchen. John just stayed where he was. Waiting for the inevitable other shoe to drop.
“Was the selection Waitrose so difficult to choose from,” Sherlock said in cold, scathing voice, “That it would take a full two and a half hours of your time to pick out eight vegetables? Was the line for the cashier extraordinarily long?”
John flinched at the sarcasm. “I’m sorry,” he said.
“Or could it be,” said Sherlock, pacing closer, “That you weren’t shopping all that time after all?”
Oh god, he knows…
There was a long pause and John sweated. Had any of Sarah’s make up transferred onto his face? Did he smell her perfume? Christ, Sherlock had to know. He had to know everything.
“Could it be that you were shirking?”
John fought to keep his breathing steady. That wasn’t the conclusion he was expecting Sherlock to come to. Perhaps he hadn’t figured it out after all. There was still hope that the clandestine date and the deeper reasons behind the date were still secret.
“Could it be perhaps that you find my company so unpleasant you were seeking to extend your liberty as long as possible?”
Oh god, yes. Let him think it was that. John nearly trembled with relief.
“I’m sorry. I just needed some time to myself.” His voice came out a whisper.
Sherlock took a deep breath in. John stared at the flaking varnish on the floorboards and waited for the breath to come out. Finally it did.
“Look at me,” Sherlock said, like the low rumble of an earthquake.
John forced himself to look up. His neck muscles were so stiff with tension that it was hard to do even that simple task. Sherlock was pale with anger and something that if John didn’t know better was abject terror. Then the collar triggered and the feeling of bliss and fear warred in his mind so disconcertingly that John looked away out of sheer self-defence.
“Look at me!” Sherlock repeated sharper, John met his eye and held it steady through the pulse of reward and back out the other side.
Sherlock waited for the collar to finish before continuing. “Consider any good will you might have earned from the last case gone.”
John nodded.
“It comes to my attention that I’ve given your leash too much slack. You are taking liberties you shouldn’t. You want free time,” he said mockingly, as if the concept were absurd. “Time to relax with a coffee and pretend that you are a free man whose destiny is his own to make.”
John struggled not to duck his head again.
“You. Are. Not. A. Free. Man.” Sherlock emphasised each word with a stamp of his foot. “Do you understand, John? You are a slave! I don’t care how much you think it’s unfair. It is what you are and you need to accept it. You exist to serve me, not yourself. You should be thinking of my needs, not your own. You are mine. Body. Mind. Everything, John. Mine. And what you do and where you go and what freedoms you have are entirely at my say so.”
John couldn’t stop the tremble that crept through his body. He was glad he was still kneeling. He didn’t think he could stand.
“I did not give you permission to spend two hours at a coffee shop, pretending to be your own person.”
John nodded. At least he didn’t know about Sarah. At least his plans were still intact. Set back a bit maybe but intact.
“Eyes up!” Sherlock ordered, when John let them drift again. With enormous effort, John met Sherlock’s eyes again. Oh god, there was rage there. There was fury. It made John squirm to see such anger and at the same time feel so good.
“I have to punish you,” said Sherlock. “Simply having your collar shock you isn’t enough. This is a grave offence.”
John sniffed in a breath, remembering how much the crop had hurt.
“I think that the punishment should fit the crime,” said Sherlock. “Natural consequences work much better than one size fits all solutions. Don’t you agree?”
“Yes, Master,” said John automatically, while his belly turned to ice. Not the crop then. But what? With a mind as creative as Sherlocks, it could be anything.
“It’s time to pull the tether in tight, John. You don’t deserve your own room. And I want my laboratory back the way it used to be, not all crammed up so you can fit the soft bed I allowed you to buy.”
John felt both relief and dread. His room - his retreat. “Where will I sleep?”
“On the floor in my room, at the foot of my bed,” said Sherlock. “So that I can call you in the night and you will be handily at my side. There is a throw rug you can lie on. And I will allow you a pillow and a blanket for warmth. But that is all. From here on out, unless otherwise ordered, you will stay in whatever room I’m in, for both my convenience and to keep you out of mischief.”
John breathed deeply. “What of your privacy, Master,” he felt compelled to ask. Sherlock was an intensely private man at times, retreating to his own room for hours on end. This was as much a punishment of him as it was of John.
“What privacy do I need with you,” asked Sherlock, as if the matter were unimportant. “Why should I care how you see me? You are furniture, John. Should I wish to be alone, I shall simply order you to place yourself in a corner and be still - the way I’d put an chair. And for now until I have another case, we shall go out together. I don’t trust you out of my sight.”
John nodded. Shit. Sarah. “I’ll be less useful to you, Sir.”
“That may be true,” said Sherlock, the freeze coming out of his voice a bit. “But you won’t be any use at all to me if Mycroft takes you away. And trust me, if you remain this wilful, he will take you back and break you himself.” Sherlock’s hand came down and touched John’s head gently once, and then with a sharp rap of the knuckles. “Up. And get to work. I want the laboratory to be as you found it by bed time.”
Sherlock sat in a chair in the corner of the attic and supervised John’s work. Bit by bit the room went back to the way it had been when John had taken it over. He allowed John to keep a quarter of the cupboard for his clothes, but only because he didn’t want John cluttering up his own wardrobe with it. When John finished, sweaty, dusty, and aching from the effort, Sherlock ordered him downstairs to wash up in the sink and begin on dinner.
Sherlock was true to his word about keeping John close. When he went into his bedroom to fetch a book, John had to stop washing dishes to go in with him. When he went to the toilet, to John’s utter horror, he brought him in then too, and had him face the door while he did his business.
“You better use it yourself,” Sherlock mentioned casually while he washed his hands, the implication being that Sherlock might not give John permission to go later on. Peeing in front of Sherlock was probably the most embarrassing thing John had ever done. He almost couldn’t manage it. By the time he washed up, he was deeply red in the face. Sherlock didn’t seem the least bit perturbed, which didn’t give John much hope for the future.
“You should get used to it,” said Sherlock as they walked back to the living room. “You were a doctor once - and in the army. You should be inured to things like nudity or body functions. Or is it easier to have others be vulnerable and naked in front of you rather than the other way around?”
“I gave my patients as much privacy as I could. Sir,” said John belatedly.
“Consider me your doctor then,” said Sherlock. “And do as I prescribe. If I consider it dangerous to leave you on your own even for a second right now, then your privacy, and mine, will have to go. Later I might reconsider.”
John said nothing. There was nothing to say. He sat down and wrote out his 100 words. They were laborious and difficult. In the end what he wrote made no sense at all.
That night John dreamed again. He was taking Sarah for a boat ride down the Thames. He paddled with no effort at all, feeling the joy of freedom and watching the banks on either side move terribly fast. Even though they had no provisions packed, he planned on paddling all the way down the river to the ocean, and then off to France. They’d be free there. The wires in his head would be defused and no one would ever catch him again.
Then suddenly to either side came a much larger steam boat. The huge bows pinched in towards him, cutting off his little boat. The water around suddenly pocked as a hail of bullets drew a line around him. Sarah screamed and curled in a ball, her hands over her head. John looked one way, then another, then knew he was caught and raised his arms.
He could see Mycroft standing up on the prow of the ship to his right. When he looked to his left, there was Sherlock, mirroring his brother. He understood he had to choose. Go with Mycroft and face unknown horrors in the hold of his massive battleship. Or go with Sherlock and deal with the anger that played across his face.
It was no choice. He went with Sherlock. And suddenly he was down below decks in Sherlock’s bedroom. The throw rug was on the floor where he knew he’d be expected to sleep. He was so exhausted and he wanted to lie down and sleep, but he had to wait for Sherlock’s orders.
For some reason, Sarah was still in the room. Part of John felt terror that Sherlock knew she existed, but then it seemed that Sherlock had always known she existed. Yes, of course! Sarah was a slave, too, like himself. They’d been escaping together. They’d been caught and now Sherlock had brought them home.
Lie down, Sherlock ordered. He sat at the end of the bed and watched as the two of them lay on the floor by his feet. Like dogs, John thought. Like possessions. He lay down and the pleasure from his collar rewarded him so nicely.
He wasn’t sure how it happened but it seemed that he was naked now and Sarah as well. Sherlock was watching on with interest as they made love to each other. This was John’s duty. His job. His punishment. He wasn’t sure it was all muddled. Part of him flinched in embarrassment at having sex in front of his Master, but the rest revelled in it. Sherlock’s voice filled John’s ears with orders for him to do ever more perverted things to her body. While John complied the collar fed him a steady stream of rewards making it all even better, more seductive.
And then it seemed that Sarah wasn’t really a person at all, but rather some sort of blow up doll or mannequin made of rubber that he was lying on and pushing himself into. John felt a surge of shame go through him, that he was degrading himself on this thing - this toy. All the while Sherlock’s hand stroked his hair and urged him to rut the thing harder. More.
John couldn’t resist. He couldn’t stop himself, not with his own needs and the collar both beating at him. He couldn’t stop Sherlock from holding him from behind and filling his mind with seductive orders. He couldn’t stop himself from arching back against the hard warmth of that masculine body and longing for more. More touching. More force. More orders. Take me and leave nothing left.
He was giving in. And he knew the moment he did that every trace of integrity he ever had would be lost entirely.
John woke, curled in a tight ball on the hard floor by the foot of Sherlock’s bed. Cold had crept up through the thin carpeting. The blanket didn’t seem warm enough. But there was no mistaking the raging hard on between his thighs. He remembered the dream far too well. The seductiveness and the shame of it. In the dark he could hear Sherlock’s breathing, slow and steady in an otherwise silent room.
God help him, he’d nearly had a wet dream about Sherlock fucking him. And ordering him. Though now that he thought back on it, the collar in his dream didn’t really give him the same feeling it did in reality. Dream Sherlock hadn’t been able to actually trigger it. Still, he’d dreamed of being taken equally by his Master and his collar, and it had been one of the most intensely sexual dreams he’d ever had.
What did it mean? Was he really being seduced? Did part of him actually like being treated like this? Was he starting to get off on slavery? God what an awful thought. And yet, even awake, it was hard not to grab his own cock and continue the fantasy to it’s conclusion. If he’d been up in the attic rather than Sherlock’s bedroom, he’d have done that.
Maybe that’s all it was - built up sexual tension. It had been several days since he’d wanked. There just hadn’t been any time for it, with trying to arrange meetings with Sarah around Sherlock’s tricky schedule. It could just be as simple as needing release and his mind manipulating the circumstances of his life to allow it. That made John feel a bit better. He sighed and unballed himself.
“Oh, do go back to sleep,” muttered Sherlock suddenly, from above him. “Or I’ll drug your tea tomorrow night so you won’t squirm so much.”
John stayed still. No definitely not going to whack off now - or God, when would he ever get to, with Sherlock hovering about. He closed his eyes and despite the unfulfilled tension, he slept again. This time he didn’t remember his dreams.
The epiphany came on the morning of the second day of John’s punishment. Sherlock got up just before six as usual, and John, stiff and aching from a poor night’s sleep almost didn’t keep up with him as he strode across the hall to the flat’s toilet. Perhaps Sherlock was a bit overtired himself because he forgot to tell John to look at the wall before whipping himself out and emptying his bladder. John, feeling groggy and surly, wasn’t in the mood to correct the oversight.
So he stood and stared. He might have grinned a bit, because watching the his “master” the “great genius” scratching his arse and filling the pot made him seem a lot less of an implacable god and more of an ordinary human being. But for a collar, John thought, we would be the same.
Mid-piss, Sherlock happened to turn his head slightly and realised that John was faced the wrong direction. John saw a ripple of tension snake its way over Sherlock’s body, making his arm shake and his back straighten. Sherlock’s eyes widened and his hand pinched down harder on the head of his cock, cutting off the flow. His nostrils flared as he breathed in quickly. And then it was gone, Sherlock’s face was a blank mask, he quite deliberately turned away.
“Curiosity appeased?” he asked dryly. “I’m sure you’ve seen plenty of cocks before.” He then let out the last dribbling spurts with a stiffness in his posture that suggested he was being valiantly defiant.
Actually, John could barely see Sherlock’s limp member at all. Between his hand and the folds of his clothes, Sherlock’s modesty was nearly entirely preserved. John considered mentioning this but then he realised something important: Sherlock was miserably body shy.
And wouldn’t you know it, suddenly Sherlock reminded John of the sad blighters who used to wait until everyone was finished and dressing before sneaking into the showers after sport. John fought to keep a snicker back.
As humiliated as John had been peeing in front of Sherlock yesterday, it wasn’t like he’d never been in situations where he’d been naked in front of others before. And most of them hadn’t been terrible experiences at all. John had shared showers with his fellow rugby players, hell, he’d taken dumps in front of his fellows in the army. And in between, he’d gone skinny dipping with friends and even poked his naked bum out of a car window once on his drunken way back from the championship game against Brighton. The trick was to decide that your body was a bloody gift to mankind and that everyone one around was privileged to get a glimpse of it. Either that or you didn’t give a flying fuck. John waffled between the two approaches. Much as he wasn’t a fan of exposing himself to Sherlock, he’d had a fair degree of experiences coping with bodily exposure. And now that John was over the shock of being ordered to do it, he could probably channel the carefree attitude of his youth.
But Sherlock had had none of that. The man didn’t even use public urinals.
A slow smile crept across John’s face. He had power in this. If the goal was to wear John down through embarrassment, Sherlock had finally made a real tactical mistake.
So instead admitting he hadn’t seen much of anything, John said, “I don’t know, you could give a better show. You a grower or a shower?” This was pure locker room cheek. He knew he was going to pay for it, but damn if it didn’t feel good.
Sherlock’s reaction was instant. John watched as he tried to get control over his involuntary reactions, but in the end he blushed, then realising that he was blushing made him blush deeper. “That’s a dangerous question to ask, considering.”
“Considering what?” said John, feeling nearly drunk on the power he suddenly realised had. “Go on, take the rest off. Don’t worry about me. I’m just a piece of furniture, remember? Who cares what a chair sees. Unless that is, you are afraid I’ll laugh.”
Sherlock just stared as if he couldn’t believe what was coming out of John’s mouth. And to be honest, John was nearly as surprised himself. More over he was surprised he was getting away with it. It was as if Sherlock had momentarily forgotten how easy it was to punish John. There he stood at a complete loss for what to do, three long seconds. John could practically see Sherlock contemplating his options: Did he take off his clothes and prove his own point that he didn’t care (when in fact he did) or did he turn John around and have him face the door, and admit his shame.
John had just the time to crow to himself that this most simple school yard bullying was actually working when Sherlock snapped out of his shock. “John, HEEL!”
For a moment, there was nothing but pain. But the moment came and went and it wasn’t quite as awful as John had expected it to be.
When he came back to himself, Sherlock’s face was furious, but John wasn’t afraid anymore. He’d actually found a chink in Sherlock’s armour. An odd, inexplicable, yet very exploitable shyness. John could hurt him. John had power - more power than Sherlock had! After all, what could Sherlock do that he hadn’t already done? What could he take away? John had already been whipped. He’d already been humiliated. He’d already been stripped of everything. Sherlock was only hurting himself at this point. This crazy punishment, this “tightening the leash” as he’d termed it was only punishing Sherlock.
And god if that wasn’t freeing.
John made the mistake of grinned up at Sherlock triumphantly as soon as the pain faded. Sherlock’s face went white. John who had thought he’d seen Sherlock angry before was utterly taken aback by the deadly fury on his face now. It was like a tsunami rising up on the horizon, pausing at the shore, and then crashing down.
“Heel, John, Heel, John, Heel, John….” Over and over.
John regretted everything by the second iteration, by the fourth he was too far gone to do even that. Words came out of his mouth but they were garbled with his sobs and screams to make sense. When Sherlock paused long enough for breath, John begged him to stop. And when, after a few more “heel”s, he did stop, all John could do for several minutes was grovel and apologise. He was curled on the floor by Sherlock’s feet, shaking like a leaf. Sherlock waited, unmoving until John’s babbling had stopped and he’d caught his breath. And when at last John’s shuddering died down, a deep silence filled the room.
Slowly, John ventured to look up at Sherlock. His face was still pale but the fury was gone and in it’s place was an odd disgust, but John wasn’t sure if it were aimed at him, or if Sherlock was levelling it at himself.
Sherlock stared at him a bit longer. Then to John’s surprise, he stripped for his shower and got in. “You are just furniture,” he said tightly. “Look or don’t, I don’t care.”
John had plenty of time to think while Sherlock took the world’s longest shower. The steam had long settled and he could tell that the water had gone beyond tepid to fully cold minutes before Sherlock shut it off. John did much the same: cooling from hot anger to cold reasoning. And in the wake of his fury, John felt oddly ashamed of having goaded Sherlock, even though he was the one who’d been hurt.
He’d never been a bully before. He’d argued passionately, he’d tried to change people’s minds when he thought they were wrong, but he’d never teased in a mean way or tried to make someone feel ashamed of their own weaknesses. He didn’t much like those who did.
He tried to justify his behaviour in his mind with the fact that this was war and Sherlock was the enemy. But it was hard to see Sherlock as the enemy. Not when he’d been through so much with the man. Not when he knew how the man took his tea, and what his face looked like when a new case came in. Not when he’d heard those infrequent words of praise that he’d never heard Sherlock give anyone else.
Not when he knew that Sherlock was going this far out of his comfort zone to try to discipline John. Really, what master would do this tethering thing? Most would simply have lashed John with “heel” from the start. Clearly that was what Mycroft was expecting Sherlock to do.
Something had changed between them. John didn’t know if this was what stockholm syndrome felt like, but there was a bond between them now. There was something odd and disturbingly like love.
That wasn’t the only change. The revelation still held. John was just not as bothered by lack of privacy as Sherlock was. It was so obvious now that he was looking at it. He could see the irritation that Sherlock felt every time he turned and found John in his face. And yet Sherlock couldn’t say anything about it, since John was only following his orders. Sherlock paced like a caged animal while John cooked, wanting dearly to go up to his lab, but knowing if he did that his dinner would either be left half cooked or become a fire hazard. Last night when John had slowly put the lab back to it’s former place, Sherlock had been all but crawling out of his skin to get up and do something other than watch.
John tested his theory:
“Would you like me to scrub the shower? It looks a bit dingy,” asked John, not because he really wanted to take on the chore, but because it would have forced Sherlock to stand around in the tiny room being bored while he did it.
“Dear god, no,” Sherlock replied, with a shudder. “Find something to do in this room.” He watched the telly with his knees folded to his chin. His eyes kept flicking to the window as if he were contemplating escape.
“I could hoover,” suggested John, after a minute.
“Alright! Hoover!” Sherlock turned up the sound on the telly to compensate.
John suppressed a grin, because the punishment of that morning was too raw to risk it again. Still he couldn’t help but feeling oddly cheerful. He’d found a way to tweak Sherlock’s nose without being punished and without it going so far as to make Sherlock genuinely uncomfortable the way he had with his remarks that morning. It felt positively empowering. The best part of it was that he knew it wouldn’t last.
Sherlock was going to break before he did, John was certain of it. He’d break and end this rule of being in the same room together. And they would go back to normal, or what John had begun to feel was normal. John just had to be patient.
There must have been a crack in Sherlock’s window that allowed a cold air to seep in and settle across the floor. No matter how tightly John balled himself against it, he just couldn’t get warm enough to fully sleep. He’d wedged himself against the bed frame and wall to help build a little triangle of warmth that wouldn’t be swept away by the draft. Though he tried to be quiet about it, every movement made the floor boards creak, and judging by the soft cursing, woke Sherlock.
Finally, Sherlock sat up and snapped: “That’s it. Up you go, in the bed.”
The old John of two days ago would have been mortified. Now he couldn’t give a rats arse. He was exhausted and aching from cold. The bed felt soft and inviting and having another body heating it up sounded just fine. Sherlock stood so that John could crawl in and take the side against the wall. He didn’t even need the collar rewarding him: The bed was already so deliciously warm and soft that his muscles relaxed and out he went. If anything untoward happened in the night John wasn’t aware of it because his next memory was Sherlock shaking him awake so he could go have his morning slash.
John got up and lurched after him like a zombie. This morning there were no revelations, just John leaning against the wall and trying to catch a few more winks while Sherlock went through his normal routine, looking only the slightest bit haggard from two days of less than optimal sleep.
Something’s going to break soon, John thought to himself vaguely. We can’t go on like this. But he was no longer sure which of them it would be to fold first.
Neither of them remembered it was Wednesday until Mycroft knocked at the door promptly at 9. John opened the door automatically, half expecting it to be Mrs. Hudson and jumped to full wakefulness when the impeccably dressed monster walked jauntily right in.
Mycroft scanned John, then Sherlock, then his face settled into a frown. “No.” He pronounced with utter finality.
“No what?” asked Sherlock, dully from the sofa.
“Sherlock,” said Mycroft, resting his umbrella next to a chair and crossing his arms. “Whatever it is the two of you are up to, it’s not good. You look like you’ve barely slept in two days and John is practically stumbling over his own feet. How is he to see to your health if you allow him to neglect his own?”
“Temporary,” said Sherlock with a wave of his hand. “I’ve gone without sleep longer.”
“And I repeat myself: ‘no’.” Mycroft turned to John. “If you would go up to your room John, I wish to talk to Sherlock in private.”
John stiffened and looked at Sherlock. If he followed Mycroft’s orders he’d be in a different room from Sherlock.
“John go make me some tea,” said Sherlock wearily. John went to the edge of the living room and paused. Sherlock considered the kitchen to be a separate room, even if there were no walls between the two areas. Sherlock realised the problem and got up, and though he tried to make it seem as if it were his own idea all along, Mycroft’s sharp eyes caught the interplay between them and his face went grim.
“Spill it,” he said sharply. “What on earth is going on. Why must John be so close to you.” He turned to John. “Tell me.”
John froze. He turned from Sherlock to Mycroft. Obviously, Sherlock wanted this punishment held secret or he’d have told Mycroft. Just as obviously Mycroft wasn’t going to let it go until he knew. “I’ll remind you, Sherlock, that I’m John’s primary owner. As such I demand to know what his orders are. If you are doing something that will put my experiment at risk, I need to know.” Sherlock mouth tightened. Mycroft turned again to John. “Well?”
“I was late coming back with the groceries,” said John. “I’m being punished.”
“How.” The word was like a branch being snapped.
“I must be in the same room as Sherlock at all times. I’m not to be allowed any privacy until he’s satisfied that I’ve learned my lesson.”
“What lesson is that?”
“That I’m not my own man. That I belong to him. Like a piece of furniture.”
Mycroft thought a bit. “I see.” He lifted his head. “No. I forbid it. This punishment ends right now.”
“Why?” said Sherlock. “It’s working. You wanted me to push him past his comfort zone, and I have.”
Mycroft shook his head. “Sherlock, my dear. John not your toddler, he’s your slave. It’s his duty to serve you, not yours to serve him. And he’s much tougher than you are giving him credit for. This method of discipline is all wrong!”
“What does it matter to you what methods I use for discipline - so long as they work.”
“That’s where you are wrong, it does matter what you use!” Mycroft turned his patronising glower back towards Sherlock. “No don’t glare at me like that, I see what you are trying to do. You think if you watch him closely enough you can nip his defiance in the bud, and bring his misbehaviour to extinction this way. And knowing you, you probably can, given enough time.”
“Your problem then?”
“Well that’s very fine for you, Sherlock, but if you are able to break him by these means he’ll be worthless to me. John isn’t just your slave and he’s not just mine, either. He’s an example of what all slaves in the future can become with this new technology. There are precious few people in the world who would be willing to devote this kind of energy to break a slave. For heaven’s sake, Sherlock, take the easy route for once. Let the collar do its work!”
Sherlock’s posture stiffened, but he said nothing.
“I told you from the start that my experiment takes precedence over everything. Now, John,” said Mycroft harsher. “Go upstairs to your room immediately. Forget the tea. I need to talk to Sherlock alone.”
Sherlock nodded.
John didn’t hesitate this time. He headed up the stairs quickly. As he entered the lab he felt the reward for his good behaviour wash over him. When that was done, he sat down in the chair by the door, with every intention of being good and staying out of the way for the duration of Mycroft’s visit. The man spooked him.
But then so did having people talk about him behind his back. As the seconds wore on the weirdness of being suddenly alone after nearly three days of continuous togetherness, combined with the knowledge of his future being discussed behind his back, led to a kind of an itchy feeling that wouldn’t let John settle down. John would have liked to have believed that it was his strength of character that lead him to defy Mycroft, but his weakness took more of the credit.
Quietly, quietly, he crept through the door, avoiding the creakiest floorboards. He reached the top of the stairs, but didn’t dare go farther.
“I’m not in love with him,” Sherlock denied, his voice was faint.
“He is with you constantly. It’s only natural that you’d develop some sort of fondness. Many masters do with their personal slaves. And really, why else would you insist on coddling him so. You don’t want him to be hurt.”
Sherlock scoffed, “Yes, that would be why I whipped him.”
“You barely knew him when you did that. Sherlock, I’m not against you showing some affection to him - provided he earns it.” Mycroft’s voice lowered, and John could only barely catch the words, “If you are afraid I plan on removing him, I won’t. At least not permanently. Current exhaustion aside, he’s done wonders for you. You’ve put on two pounds in the last few weeks and your flat looks and smells much better. And it’s good to see you expanding your interest beyond your extremely narrow area of expertise.
“But I’m starting to think that, rather than having you fight your obviously deep emotional commitment to him, perhaps I should take it on myself to perform some of the more … potentially problematic parts of his training. I can be the ‘villain’, at least until such time as John has become used to the the treatment.”
“No,” said Sherlock sharply. “Whatever it is, I’ll do it. Leave him alone.”
“Hmm,” said Mycroft. “We’ll see.”
Chapter 7