Fic for xfdryad: The Fifteen Fruits of the Flesh (Galatians 5:19-21)
Title: The Fifteen Fruits of the Flesh (Galatians 5:19-21)
Recipient: xfdryad
Author: snarryfool/ancientreader
Characters/Pairings: Sherlock/John; Lestrade; OC
Rating: E
Warnings: Impious treatment of the Apostle Paul?
Word count: 2000-ish
Summary: “Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these.” In short, all the fixings for a rom-com.
Author’s Note: Happy Holmestice, xfdryad! I hope the sex and comedy are to your liking.
Read on Archive of our Own:
The Fifteen Fruits of the Flesh (Galatians 5:19-21)
Read on LJ:
The words by which the “fruits of the flesh” are named vary among translations of the Christian Bible. My list comes from http://constrictcon.livejournal.com/profile?mode_full_socconns=2. I’ve never been to ConStrict, but I hear it’s a warm and friendly event.
Many thanks to my betas, TSylvestris and Chryse.
1. Sexual Vice
In particular, pornography.
John permits Sherlock to photograph him. Sherlock has pictures of John’s hand cupping Sherlock’s balls. John’s hand cupping his own balls. John lounging with spread legs, his cock hot and purple with arousal, waiting for Sherlock to straddle him and sink his slicked, soft arse down onto him ...
In Sherlock’s Mind Palace are stored moving images and their accompanying soundtracks. For example, there is the one depicting the prelude to the aforementioned still, the one in which John awaits him. In this movie, Sherlock strips for John, listening for the softly punched-out exhale when he has unbuttoned his shirt and slid it just over his shoulders to frame his upper chest and neck almost formally; he pinches his own nipples and teases himself, running his hand over his belly and thighs but not touching his cock. “I want you to touch it,” Sherlock tells John. “I want to be desperate for it. I want you to make me plead with you.”
“Do you? Get yourself good and hot for me, then. ...” John thumbs the head of his cock. “I want to see you use that slick. Want you slippery and open for me - ”
When Sherlock is running this movie in his mind, the picture tends to break up just about here, because if Sherlock is running the movie that is because John is away at a medical conference or has caught a horrible cold or for some other reason is sexually unavailable, and therefore Sherlock has to content himself with the XXX ADULTS ONLY XXX portion of the Mind Palace, which is to say he’s having a wank, and the point in the movie where he’s sliding two fingers into his arse and John says, “Oh, Christ, I want you,” is generally the point where Sherlock comes.
2. Impurity
It is true that Sherlock is not so single-minded as he formerly was.
3. Sensuality
What? Sherlock looks good in a narrow suit and a shirt tailored exactly to his contours. Even if he didn’t already know this, it would have been proved to him by the frank Give Me That expression on John’s face.
And something extra happens now that Sherlock is regularly in a position to Give John That - to wit, the excellent smooth fabric moving with him, emphasizing each flexion and relaxation of muscle, every momentary or sustained prominence of muscle or bone or opulent rump, awakens his skin and makes it ready for John’s touch.
Well. Not just ready. Eager.
Burning, in fact.
4. Worship of False Gods
Sherlock is an empiricist and what he worships is undeniably present and real. He experiences it with all five senses, if we count the noises John makes, and oh, we do. Sherlock looks: John’s cock, solid as its owner, pink shining tip just protruding beyond his foreskin when John’s soft. Sherlock likes to run his forefinger up and down the veins and to dip his tongue into John’s slit, then take that cock into his mouth where it fills, so warm, and that is touch. Taste is, first, that already mentioned bonne bouche taken with the tip of Sherlock’s tongue, and then of course the salt-warm-heavy-slick flavor of John’s semen - or rather, flavors, complexly varied depending on what John’s eaten or drunk in the past few days. Taste is also John’s sweet velvety genital skin on Sherlock’s tongue, elusive, the flavor disappearing as Sherlock’s spit dilutes it and then reappearing when Sherlock’s mouth withdraws, so that Sherlock is always chasing it and recapturing it and losing it again.
Smell. Oh, God, how will Sherlock ever catalogue the smells of John’s sex? Fresh out of one of those long baths John favors: soap, skin, water, nothing else. Only a few minutes later, though, the faintest hint of musk at his balls, coming on faster if John is aroused, as he inevitably is by Sherlock’s investigations.
Or at the end of a long day: sweat fresh and dried. The faintest tang of piss - John would be embarrassed if he knew Sherlock could smell and taste it, would think it a reflection on his cleanliness; but Sherlock’s senses are just that keen, and just that attuned to everything about the object of his worship. And besides, Sherlock loves it.
John groans, he gasps when Sherlock opens his throat for fucking, he says Sherlock’s name as though he too might be worshiping.
Sherlock hears, oh how he hears.
5. Sorcery
Sherlock does not believe in magic. Purely material, chemical explanations exist for the sensation that comes over him when he wakes to find John still asleep beside him: a sensation as if he, Sherlock, were levitating.
6. Antagonisms
The hostility Sherlock feels toward narrow buttonholes when either John or he himself is fumbling with the other’s clothes cannot be overstated.
7. Rivalry
Anderson’s replacement, Garson Williker, give him credit, is reasonably good at his job. This means he is more intelligent than most, and more discerning. This in turn means that he quickly becomes aware that John Watson is a man of high quality and a catch. Also he does not fail to notice that John carries one hell of a hefty package.
Williker makes his move the second time Sherlock and John are called in to one of his crime scenes - literally, makes his move: he steps right in front of Sherlock in order to direct John’s attention to the unusual tint of the foam coming out of the corpse’s mouth. (As if Sherlock would not have pointed it out himself in the next moment!)
8. Jealousy
Sherlock pitches his voice as low as it will go. He can drop to a pitch that makes men tremble - some for one reason, some for another. “Really, Garson, don’t you think it’s ill advised to make a play for the lover of a well-known sociopath with Scotland Yard connections and highly developed forensic skills?”
Williker actually quails away from John. Sherlock smiles, in a manner that gives Billy the skull a run for his creepy money.
John has hidden almost his entire face behind his hand but is unable to keep a snort from emerging.
You may work out for yourself why Williker is trembling. As for John, he’s shaking only with the effort of holding back his laugh. Sherlock’s voice makes him tremble under quite different circumstances, such as for example when Sherlock hums with John’s balls in his mouth. Or with his open mouth pressed against John’s perineum. Or while rubbing with his lips the crease of John’s thigh.
9. Bad Temper
“I cannot believe we are out of lube, Sherlock. For God’s sake, it’s one thing if you forget the milk ... !”
10. Disagreements
“It was your turn to get it, John.”
“No it bloody wasn’t! I distinctly remember texting you three days a - What, you think that’s going to distract me? You’re such a - Yeah, okay, that’s - Oh Jesus your mouth, how are you so good - ”
11. Factions
Scotland Yard is divided into three camps: one comprises those who believe John and Sherlock were shagging from the get-go; the second comprises those who refuse to believe they are shagging at all; and the third, which mainly comprises Lestrade, who is not an idiot, believes the shagging is a fairly recent development but expects it to continue indefinitely. No member of any camp has the temerity to inquire of those who could resolve the debate, and in consequence ...
12. Quarrels
... they argue about it constantly. Never let lack of information get in the way of a spirited dispute.
13. Malice
The next time they’re called in on a crime scene, it’s nearer to John’s clinic than to Baker Street, so John arrives ahead of Sherlock.
There, inevitably, is Williker, eyes wide. John sighs; he’s pretty sure what comes next.
Yep. The glance around. The evident relief: no sociopath in view. The solicitous approach, the hand on John’s arm, and the stage whisper: “Listen,” Williker says, “he’s got quite a line in threatening people. Are you sure you’re safe with him?”
John tilts his head in a way someone who knew him better would understand was dangerous.
“I could, you know, look into his history - see if he’s got any form for domestic vio- ”
“I’ve got a nice line in threat, myself,” John says. He is speaking directly into Williker’s ear, because his left forearm has somehow found itself pressed against Williker’s throat, while his right arm has got Williker’s arm shoved up behind his back. “And form for breaking the nose of a Chief Superintendent. So best shut up about my boyfriend, hm?”
“Hello, John,” says Sherlock. “Having an enjoyable party there?”
“Hell yes,” says John, and lets Williker go, in favor of giving Sherlock a kiss.
14. Drunkenness
“Shit, John, I’m shorry,” Lestrade says. How many pints has he had? “I hadda, had to arrest you. No choice. Shouldn’t … Shouldn’t, you know, with the arm. Thing. Where you twish- twish- twist it like that. Don’t do that shit, is what I’m saying.”
“Right,” says John. His head is really quite comfortable where it rests on his arms, he reflects. He could stay here all night. “ ’S all right, Greg, I know you’ve go- ” He belches. Some observers might feel that, being undignified, this undercuts the effect of his generosity of spirit. If there were any such observers. Fortunately, it’s near closing time on a Monday and he and Lestrade have the place almost to themselves. “To do your ... What is it? Your duty, yeah.” How has John never realized what an excellent song that phrase would make? He begins to sing it: “Do your duty, do your duty, do your duty ... ”
“Ah ha ha you’re a funny guy, mate. Funny guy.” Lestrade nods, wiping the tears from his eyes.
15. Orgies
Sherlock, naked, arse wet with all the lube he can cram into it, straddles John and reaches behind himself to guide his prick home. Oh, the sweet expanding feeling, how it pierces into him, how good it is to take and be taken. His eyes have fallen shut. Beneath him John murmurs, brings up his knees for Sherlock to brace against, chants the second person pronoun, groans it, gasps it. Sherlock takes hold of John’s hand that reaches for him, presses the hand against his heart.
His heart beats for John. This is literally true.
Sherlock rises and falls, rises and falls. “Please,” he says, and “Please,” in counterpoint to John’s “You … you … you”; John’s hand slips out from under Sherlock’s and traces down Sherlock’s midline, long slow brush under Sherlock’s cock, rubbing lightly at his balls, then holding him, curved around his cock, just holding steady as Sherlock moves. Sherlock yelps, urgent. Now John begins to surge under him, up and down and up, up and down and up till Sherlock tips forward, frotting against John’s belly. Oh, God it’s not enough. Oh God oh God. Prayers avail not. “On your back,” John urges, and Sherlock can hardly bear to give up that sweet piercing heat inside him even for a moment. “Come back, come back,” he begs, and yes, again yes, there it is, in me, in me; “Touch yourself, go on,” John bids Sherlock, breathless, forcing his eyes open for the sake of seeing Sherlock’s neck, the scatter of moles all exposed making him groan and that’s it, the last millimeter of enough, but he makes himself hold off till Sherlock has come because it’s just so good when Sherlock feels that shade, that merest mist of too much right after his orgasm, but Sherlock likes to give that to John, I will let you take everything, and then …
… a wet heap, two wet heaps commingling, a few tired sounds, a face cloth that has gone cold since being laid out half an hour before, and sleep. Nudging and settling into some arrangement of bodies that leaves them both free to adjust as a shoulder stiffens or a knee wants to lie straight but that always includes some point of contact between them. Good night. Good night.
Here is a little-known fact: an orgy may succeed with no more than two persons in attendance.
Recipient: xfdryad
Author: snarryfool/ancientreader
Characters/Pairings: Sherlock/John; Lestrade; OC
Rating: E
Warnings: Impious treatment of the Apostle Paul?
Word count: 2000-ish
Summary: “Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these.” In short, all the fixings for a rom-com.
Author’s Note: Happy Holmestice, xfdryad! I hope the sex and comedy are to your liking.
Read on Archive of our Own:
The Fifteen Fruits of the Flesh (Galatians 5:19-21)
Read on LJ:
The words by which the “fruits of the flesh” are named vary among translations of the Christian Bible. My list comes from http://constrictcon.livejournal.com/profile?mode_full_socconns=2. I’ve never been to ConStrict, but I hear it’s a warm and friendly event.
Many thanks to my betas, TSylvestris and Chryse.
1. Sexual Vice
In particular, pornography.
John permits Sherlock to photograph him. Sherlock has pictures of John’s hand cupping Sherlock’s balls. John’s hand cupping his own balls. John lounging with spread legs, his cock hot and purple with arousal, waiting for Sherlock to straddle him and sink his slicked, soft arse down onto him ...
In Sherlock’s Mind Palace are stored moving images and their accompanying soundtracks. For example, there is the one depicting the prelude to the aforementioned still, the one in which John awaits him. In this movie, Sherlock strips for John, listening for the softly punched-out exhale when he has unbuttoned his shirt and slid it just over his shoulders to frame his upper chest and neck almost formally; he pinches his own nipples and teases himself, running his hand over his belly and thighs but not touching his cock. “I want you to touch it,” Sherlock tells John. “I want to be desperate for it. I want you to make me plead with you.”
“Do you? Get yourself good and hot for me, then. ...” John thumbs the head of his cock. “I want to see you use that slick. Want you slippery and open for me - ”
When Sherlock is running this movie in his mind, the picture tends to break up just about here, because if Sherlock is running the movie that is because John is away at a medical conference or has caught a horrible cold or for some other reason is sexually unavailable, and therefore Sherlock has to content himself with the XXX ADULTS ONLY XXX portion of the Mind Palace, which is to say he’s having a wank, and the point in the movie where he’s sliding two fingers into his arse and John says, “Oh, Christ, I want you,” is generally the point where Sherlock comes.
2. Impurity
It is true that Sherlock is not so single-minded as he formerly was.
3. Sensuality
What? Sherlock looks good in a narrow suit and a shirt tailored exactly to his contours. Even if he didn’t already know this, it would have been proved to him by the frank Give Me That expression on John’s face.
And something extra happens now that Sherlock is regularly in a position to Give John That - to wit, the excellent smooth fabric moving with him, emphasizing each flexion and relaxation of muscle, every momentary or sustained prominence of muscle or bone or opulent rump, awakens his skin and makes it ready for John’s touch.
Well. Not just ready. Eager.
Burning, in fact.
4. Worship of False Gods
Sherlock is an empiricist and what he worships is undeniably present and real. He experiences it with all five senses, if we count the noises John makes, and oh, we do. Sherlock looks: John’s cock, solid as its owner, pink shining tip just protruding beyond his foreskin when John’s soft. Sherlock likes to run his forefinger up and down the veins and to dip his tongue into John’s slit, then take that cock into his mouth where it fills, so warm, and that is touch. Taste is, first, that already mentioned bonne bouche taken with the tip of Sherlock’s tongue, and then of course the salt-warm-heavy-slick flavor of John’s semen - or rather, flavors, complexly varied depending on what John’s eaten or drunk in the past few days. Taste is also John’s sweet velvety genital skin on Sherlock’s tongue, elusive, the flavor disappearing as Sherlock’s spit dilutes it and then reappearing when Sherlock’s mouth withdraws, so that Sherlock is always chasing it and recapturing it and losing it again.
Smell. Oh, God, how will Sherlock ever catalogue the smells of John’s sex? Fresh out of one of those long baths John favors: soap, skin, water, nothing else. Only a few minutes later, though, the faintest hint of musk at his balls, coming on faster if John is aroused, as he inevitably is by Sherlock’s investigations.
Or at the end of a long day: sweat fresh and dried. The faintest tang of piss - John would be embarrassed if he knew Sherlock could smell and taste it, would think it a reflection on his cleanliness; but Sherlock’s senses are just that keen, and just that attuned to everything about the object of his worship. And besides, Sherlock loves it.
John groans, he gasps when Sherlock opens his throat for fucking, he says Sherlock’s name as though he too might be worshiping.
Sherlock hears, oh how he hears.
5. Sorcery
Sherlock does not believe in magic. Purely material, chemical explanations exist for the sensation that comes over him when he wakes to find John still asleep beside him: a sensation as if he, Sherlock, were levitating.
6. Antagonisms
The hostility Sherlock feels toward narrow buttonholes when either John or he himself is fumbling with the other’s clothes cannot be overstated.
7. Rivalry
Anderson’s replacement, Garson Williker, give him credit, is reasonably good at his job. This means he is more intelligent than most, and more discerning. This in turn means that he quickly becomes aware that John Watson is a man of high quality and a catch. Also he does not fail to notice that John carries one hell of a hefty package.
Williker makes his move the second time Sherlock and John are called in to one of his crime scenes - literally, makes his move: he steps right in front of Sherlock in order to direct John’s attention to the unusual tint of the foam coming out of the corpse’s mouth. (As if Sherlock would not have pointed it out himself in the next moment!)
8. Jealousy
Sherlock pitches his voice as low as it will go. He can drop to a pitch that makes men tremble - some for one reason, some for another. “Really, Garson, don’t you think it’s ill advised to make a play for the lover of a well-known sociopath with Scotland Yard connections and highly developed forensic skills?”
Williker actually quails away from John. Sherlock smiles, in a manner that gives Billy the skull a run for his creepy money.
John has hidden almost his entire face behind his hand but is unable to keep a snort from emerging.
You may work out for yourself why Williker is trembling. As for John, he’s shaking only with the effort of holding back his laugh. Sherlock’s voice makes him tremble under quite different circumstances, such as for example when Sherlock hums with John’s balls in his mouth. Or with his open mouth pressed against John’s perineum. Or while rubbing with his lips the crease of John’s thigh.
9. Bad Temper
“I cannot believe we are out of lube, Sherlock. For God’s sake, it’s one thing if you forget the milk ... !”
10. Disagreements
“It was your turn to get it, John.”
“No it bloody wasn’t! I distinctly remember texting you three days a - What, you think that’s going to distract me? You’re such a - Yeah, okay, that’s - Oh Jesus your mouth, how are you so good - ”
11. Factions
Scotland Yard is divided into three camps: one comprises those who believe John and Sherlock were shagging from the get-go; the second comprises those who refuse to believe they are shagging at all; and the third, which mainly comprises Lestrade, who is not an idiot, believes the shagging is a fairly recent development but expects it to continue indefinitely. No member of any camp has the temerity to inquire of those who could resolve the debate, and in consequence ...
12. Quarrels
... they argue about it constantly. Never let lack of information get in the way of a spirited dispute.
13. Malice
The next time they’re called in on a crime scene, it’s nearer to John’s clinic than to Baker Street, so John arrives ahead of Sherlock.
There, inevitably, is Williker, eyes wide. John sighs; he’s pretty sure what comes next.
Yep. The glance around. The evident relief: no sociopath in view. The solicitous approach, the hand on John’s arm, and the stage whisper: “Listen,” Williker says, “he’s got quite a line in threatening people. Are you sure you’re safe with him?”
John tilts his head in a way someone who knew him better would understand was dangerous.
“I could, you know, look into his history - see if he’s got any form for domestic vio- ”
“I’ve got a nice line in threat, myself,” John says. He is speaking directly into Williker’s ear, because his left forearm has somehow found itself pressed against Williker’s throat, while his right arm has got Williker’s arm shoved up behind his back. “And form for breaking the nose of a Chief Superintendent. So best shut up about my boyfriend, hm?”
“Hello, John,” says Sherlock. “Having an enjoyable party there?”
“Hell yes,” says John, and lets Williker go, in favor of giving Sherlock a kiss.
14. Drunkenness
“Shit, John, I’m shorry,” Lestrade says. How many pints has he had? “I hadda, had to arrest you. No choice. Shouldn’t … Shouldn’t, you know, with the arm. Thing. Where you twish- twish- twist it like that. Don’t do that shit, is what I’m saying.”
“Right,” says John. His head is really quite comfortable where it rests on his arms, he reflects. He could stay here all night. “ ’S all right, Greg, I know you’ve go- ” He belches. Some observers might feel that, being undignified, this undercuts the effect of his generosity of spirit. If there were any such observers. Fortunately, it’s near closing time on a Monday and he and Lestrade have the place almost to themselves. “To do your ... What is it? Your duty, yeah.” How has John never realized what an excellent song that phrase would make? He begins to sing it: “Do your duty, do your duty, do your duty ... ”
“Ah ha ha you’re a funny guy, mate. Funny guy.” Lestrade nods, wiping the tears from his eyes.
15. Orgies
Sherlock, naked, arse wet with all the lube he can cram into it, straddles John and reaches behind himself to guide his prick home. Oh, the sweet expanding feeling, how it pierces into him, how good it is to take and be taken. His eyes have fallen shut. Beneath him John murmurs, brings up his knees for Sherlock to brace against, chants the second person pronoun, groans it, gasps it. Sherlock takes hold of John’s hand that reaches for him, presses the hand against his heart.
His heart beats for John. This is literally true.
Sherlock rises and falls, rises and falls. “Please,” he says, and “Please,” in counterpoint to John’s “You … you … you”; John’s hand slips out from under Sherlock’s and traces down Sherlock’s midline, long slow brush under Sherlock’s cock, rubbing lightly at his balls, then holding him, curved around his cock, just holding steady as Sherlock moves. Sherlock yelps, urgent. Now John begins to surge under him, up and down and up, up and down and up till Sherlock tips forward, frotting against John’s belly. Oh, God it’s not enough. Oh God oh God. Prayers avail not. “On your back,” John urges, and Sherlock can hardly bear to give up that sweet piercing heat inside him even for a moment. “Come back, come back,” he begs, and yes, again yes, there it is, in me, in me; “Touch yourself, go on,” John bids Sherlock, breathless, forcing his eyes open for the sake of seeing Sherlock’s neck, the scatter of moles all exposed making him groan and that’s it, the last millimeter of enough, but he makes himself hold off till Sherlock has come because it’s just so good when Sherlock feels that shade, that merest mist of too much right after his orgasm, but Sherlock likes to give that to John, I will let you take everything, and then …
… a wet heap, two wet heaps commingling, a few tired sounds, a face cloth that has gone cold since being laid out half an hour before, and sleep. Nudging and settling into some arrangement of bodies that leaves them both free to adjust as a shoulder stiffens or a knee wants to lie straight but that always includes some point of contact between them. Good night. Good night.
Here is a little-known fact: an orgy may succeed with no more than two persons in attendance.