Fic: Behavioural Modification - 5/5 (BBC Sherlock)
Title: Behavioural Modification
Rating: R
Wordcount: 6.7k this part, 23.8k overall
Warnings: Extremely dysfunctional behaviour, sexual acts, swearing. Spoiler: ramifications of past emotional abuse.
Beta: vyctori
Disclaimer: Do not own.
Summary: Whatever it took, he was going to make this work.
step one: acclimatize subject
step two: reward behaviour
Step Three: Escalate Procedure
Step Four: Control Damages
Step Five: Analyze Results
Yelling, he could have handled. Apologies, he could have accepted. Silence, he could have overcome. There was an entire range of reactions from John that Sherlock had been prepared to cope with if or when the man picked up his mobile. Naturally, John managed to surprise him entirely.
John picked up before the third ring. He was speaking immediately and with the most beautiful words Sherlock had ever heard. “Sherlock? Are you all right? What’s going on?”
“I may have caused myself irreparable brain damage,” he said.
“If you’re joking, I’ll kill you.”
“What if I’m only exaggerating?”
“Maim, then.”
He closed his eyes, visualizing John’s progression through one expression to another. “All right,” he said. “Fine. Come home and maim me. I’ve hardly changed the locks.”
“No, Sherlock, really - what’s going on? You never call people.” Confused. Wary. Hooked.
“I couldn’t be sure you were reading my texts.”
John didn’t answer. He’d been reading.
“It stood to reason that the only way I could be sure of your attention was to call.”
John made a noise very similar to a scoff. A pause. A sigh. Annoyance to resignation. “So what important thing do you have to tell me?”
“I already told you: I just finished watching a monstrosity called ‘Terror of the Autons’ and may have caused myself irreparable brain damage.”
There was a long silence down the line.
“It was the most boring thing I have ever seen. It was worse than sitting through one of Mycroft’s stupid cello recitals when we were small. Anderson is more intelligent than this. And it took forever. That wasn’t a television programme, that was a feature length film of idiocy.”
“Wait,” John said. His voice was very nice, pressed up by Sherlock’s ear. “You’ve been sitting at home watching Doctor Who?”
“You kept referencing it,” Sherlock deflected. “I can’t see why. It’s more crap than crap telly. I can’t believe I sat through the entire thing. It was physically painful by the end. No, by the middle. By the middle of the first instalment, John. The first out of four.”
There was an odd sound from down the line, but Sherlock would recognize it anywhere, even over a phone and muffled by John’s hand. God, that giggle. “You’re insane,” John said.
“Driven to that sad state over two agonizing hours,” he confirmed.
“Obviously.” Still mimicking, unintentional now. Unconscious similarity. Sherlock had been incorporated into John’s phraseology.
“Come home and I’ll watch another.”
John went quiet.
“You’d have to watch it with me,” Sherlock continued.
“And get brain damage?” His voice had grown soft. Not in volume but in quality. Against Sherlock’s ear. Soft and wondering and there and maybe there was something to be said for ringing people up after all, provided those people were only a person and that person only ever John.
“It would save you the bother of having to maim me,” he explained.
John’s indecision was audible.
“Also, you’ll need to do laundry again tomorrow, so-”
John laughed.
God.
Sherlock pressed his mobile hard against his ear. “John?”
“No,” John said. “Neutral ground.”
Unacceptable. Reasonable. Fine. “Regent’s Park.”
“At this time of night? No. Somewhere warm. The Volunteer.”
“It’s practically next door. You’ll pass by me on your way from the tube stop.”
“Problem?”
Yes. “No. If you didn’t pass by me, we would end up going to the Globe or the Metropolitan.”
“Or Pizza Express.”
“We are not going to Pizza Express.”
“There’s a Pizza Hut around the corner,” John suggested. “Or we could go to Subway and, you know, eat fresh.”
“Shut up.”
He could hear John grinning as he said, “Make me.”
There was so much he wanted to say to that. “Just meet me there.”
“What time?”
“How long will it take you to get there?”
“Dunno. Forty minutes?”
“In forty-five minutes, then.”
“Sherlock.”
“Best get your jacket, John.”
“Sherlock.”
“You’re still not moving, I can hear you not moving.”
“I’m not going to come running back to you.”
“A brisk walk will do,” Sherlock assured him.
“You arrogant prat.”
“Forty-four minutes, John!” And he hung up, shaking inside.
An hour and a half later, Sherlock was still sitting outside the pub. The man on the bench next to him was on his third cigarette and the second-hand was smoothing Sherlock’s nerves just enough to make the situation tolerable. It was crowded, everyone with drinks wanted Sherlock to give up his seat at the outdoor table, and nothing remotely interesting had happened in an hour. Once the fifty-minute mark had passed, he’d tried calling again. John had either turned his mobile off or was on the Underground.
Sherlock sat and hoped and inhaled.
“Sure you don’t want one?” the man - accountant, three children, second wife - offered yet again.
He was itching for one. If he thought John wouldn’t mind the taste, he would have been chain smoking however many cigarettes the man would give him. Then again, if John didn’t come after all, if John wasn’t the figure rounding the corner with that black jacket and slight, barely perceptible limp-
“I’m sure,” he told the man, standing. He put his hands in his pockets and watched John walk. Ridiculous, how much better the world became for John simply being there. John was willing to be with him even while annoyed. How could this possibly improve?
“Sorry I’m late.”
“Now who’s the prat?” Not his best comeback, but he would rather resume their previous conversation than attempt a new one.
“Harry, actually.” John put his hands in his pockets as well. “She nicked my shoes and told me it was an intervention.” He smiled weakly. “Thought that was a bit rich, coming from her.”
“Siblings are idiots.”
John glanced up at the nearest CCTV camera. It was pointed in their direction. “Inside?” John suggested.
“No space. Just turn your back to it.”
“I’m getting a drink,” John said, not sitting. “Want anything?”
“I’m fine,” he lied. Tea would be misconstrued.
“Okay.” John went inside.
Sherlock waited at the table.
John returned. Sat. “Not really fair to Harry if I come back smelling like beer,” he explained, clearly long accustomed to justifying soft drinks in pint glasses.
“Or you could come home,” Sherlock suggested. From here, all it would take was a brisk walk and twenty seconds.
There it was, that nonverbal acknowledgement of Sherlock’s social ineptitude. “If I’d wanted to come home, I would have,” John told him.
“I’d noticed.” A glance at the pub to emphasize his point.
“Yes. Well.” John feigned an interest in his drink. “I think it’s safe to say that I can’t deal with this.”
“We can do something else,” he promised.
“Sherlock, I don’t even know what we’re doing now,” John told him.
“But you don’t want out.”
“Of course I want-” John checked himself, his manners muting him before he could shout. Too many people about for that. He swallowed. Turned his head to the side. Turned his head back and looked Sherlock in the eyes. “I want something else.”
“I told you, we can do that.” So much repeating himself. Only for John. “I’ll follow your lead.”
“You, what? No. No,” John stressed.
“If it’s a matter of enthusiasm-”
“No more.” John shook his head. “I’d rather you did nothing than watch you fake it.”
“Then it’s fine, because I haven’t faked anything.”
John’s eyebrows shot up. His eyes darted down to the table, through it, in the unmistakable direction of Sherlock’s crotch.
Sherlock rolled his eyes, heedless of the resemblance to his brother. “Please.” He leaned forward, reaching inside his coat. John leaned back with a soldier’s instincts. He didn’t relax at all at the sight of his little notebook. Sherlock set it on the table between them, open to the last entry. He tapped the lines of John’s scrawl.
“Okay,” John said slowly “What am I missing?”
“Primarily, that asexuals have needs too.”
John’s eyes were full of confusion and wariness, but the anger was gone. “Okay. Would you care to elaborate on that?”
“No.” And when the anger returned, he added, “It’s better if I don’t.” John was annoyed at Sherlock’s seeming disinterest, that was clear enough. If he knew Sherlock’s interest was emotional rather than sexual, he would no longer be annoyed, but he might be uncomfortable. Molly could be right. She was rejected often enough to know. Besides, if John hadn’t cottoned on by now, he was being willingly obtuse. That never boded well.
“But then I don’t have all the facts,” John pointed out. Elbows planted on the table, he folded his hands and looked at Sherlock over them. His eyes were patient and kind and just a little devious. Sherlock’s will to resist crumbled accordingly.
He dug his heels in anyway, but oh, John. “You won’t like it,” he warned.
“Don’t like being kept in the dark either.”
Sherlock glanced away, but he couldn’t seem to stop himself from looking back at John. It had been far too long.
John drank his ginger ale, eyes locked on his flatmate’s face. Up with the glass, down with the glass; the gaze remained steady as he folded his hands once more.
“If you don’t tell me, I’m going to leave-”
“I love you.”
John went silent.
There was a feeling inside his chest at that silence. He recognized it: complete and utter panic. That wouldn’t stop John from leaving. Just the opposite.
“That wasn’t funny,” John said. His clasped hands lowered to the table. His voice had lowered even further. Something between a growl and a hiss, anger forced into a polite volume.
“It wasn’t meant to be,” he agreed.
“Then you’re a complete bastard and you should take that back.”
Sherlock lifted his chin. “No. I told you, you wouldn’t like it. You didn’t listen.”
John’s mouth worked. Not the way it did when he was angry, curiously enough. He was one of those words that sounded sillier than they should have: flabbergasted, gobsmacked. Bewildered. “Private. Now.” He snatched up his notebook from the table. When Sherlock didn’t follow, John snatched up his hand as well and pulled him up off the end of the bench.
Sherlock wove their fingers together. John cut off the circulation in his hand.
It was glorious.
John kept on going, eyes darting to the CCTV cameras. “Where’s a blind spot?”
“I’ll make one,” he promised, stopping. That they were metres from their front door was fully intentional. John stopped with him. “I’ll need my hand back, though.”
John’s hand twitched away.
“One moment....”
Stop watching and I’ll
tell you how it went in
the morning. SH
“There.”
“Nothing’s happenin- Oh.”
The closest camera turned away. Good enough.
“So,” John said. He’d put his notebook away while Sherlock had texted. “Care to run that by me again?”
Sherlock rolled his eyes. “I’ve gone on my knees. I’ve even watched your stupid programme. Do you need me to write it on my forehead?”
“Might be helpful, yeah,” John replied. “Is this how you usually go around declaring things?”
“Fifty percent of the time, if that qualifies as ‘usually’. I wasn’t the one to initiate, last time.” Following Victor’s lead had been so much simpler than conducting this mess himself.
John took a moment to process this. It was a long moment. “You want to... date? But you don’t actually want to have sex.”
Sherlock shrugged.
“I don’t have your mindreading powers, Sherlock,” John reminded him.
Sherlock stared over the wrought-iron fence to painted concrete. In the light from the streetlamp, it looked almost like real stone. No traffic to change the lighting, barely any. Three cars per minute, on average.
“Do you really love me?” Like it was this strange, unbelievable thing. Not even a viable possibility in John’s mind. Not terribly surprising. It hadn’t been in Victor’s either.
“That’s not open for discussion.”
“Christ.” Whatever expression was on John’s face, Sherlock didn’t dare look at it. “You actually do.”
“I thought you knew,” he said, neck aching to keep his face turned away so resolutely. “About me. And you didn’t mind, more or less. That’s why I thought it would be all right to proceed. It was my mistake and I’ll correct it.” John hadn’t known and so John hadn’t played. That was why John had never taken the initiative. Why hadn’t he seen that?
“‘Correct it’? What? No.” John shook his head. “No. Sherlock, come here.”
He didn’t move. “Why?”
“Because.” And John moved for him.
John’s hand on his lapel. John’s mouth pressing up against his. Lips closed, the pressure hard. Firm. Gentle. Demanding. Everything. A car passed by and John didn’t react. As if he didn’t care they’d been seen.
Sherlock screwed his eyes shut. Too much, too much, too much. He needed more. God, this. How was he going to be able to live with this being dangled over his head? He’d spend every waking hour jumping for it. He wouldn’t be able to prevent it.
A soft noise registered as John pulled his mouth away. John was shushing him. Petting his hair. “It’s all fine,” John said. Kissed his jaw. “I promise, it is.”
“What do you want?”
“What?”
Right, too vague. “What do you want me to do?” he clarified. Clearly, the relationship was back on. Actually on, this time. What did he have to do to keep it?
John pulled back to frown, eyebrows lifting and pulling in. “What do you mean?”
“Don’t be dense.” He wouldn’t be able to stand it if John played coy. “What do you want from me in exchange?”
The frown deepened. “You mean, like handjobs and tea? You-” Confusion found realization and boiled over into incomprehensible anger. John bit his own mouth shut until it came down to a simmer. “You mean sexual favours for me being kind to you.”
“Yes.”
“No.”
“No?” What was he upset about now? Really, this was getting ridiculous.
“That? More than a bit not good.”
“It’s a feasible dynamic.”
“Oh god,” John said, sounding faint. “I thought you were taking advantage of me.”
“Apparently, I was.” He could see why John had been upset now. John wasn’t someone who should be used. He wouldn’t enjoy it at all. After a moment, Sherlock remembered what else he was meant to say. “Sorry.”
“I know we’re never going to do something, oh, I don’t know, normal, but we’re not doing that,” John told him. “I’m not doing that to you. You can’t possibly think I’m doing that to you.”
No amount of trying could keep the disappointment off his face. “Oh.” He swallowed something thick in his throat, some psychosomatic lump of emotion.
“God, Sherlock. You deserve better than that.”
“A very subjective concept,” he replied. “I’m more concerned with what I can get, deserving or otherwise.”
“You have me,” John said. “And a deep-seated need for therapy, but I don’t think you’re going to do anything about that one.”
“On what terms?”
“No terms.”
“There are always terms.”
“All right,” John said. “What are yours?”
“You have to come home.” That sounded needy. “Long-distance is pointless and Mrs. Hudson has been hiding my skull again.” Better. “Besides, I need you to pay your half of the rent.” There. Satisfactory.
“Okay.” A gentle nod. John hovered in front of him, blunting himself, rounding out his edges the way his jumpers softened his body. As if suddenly convinced Sherlock was fragile. Why?
“The second condition is monogamy. Your eyes can wander, but none of the rest of you.”
John nodded again. He looked unsurprised but, if anything, his protectiveness increased. It was... wonderful. In a way. But it was also disconcerting. “What else?” John prompted when Sherlock didn’t continue.
“That’s all.”
“That’s a start,” John corrected. “What about, what was it, that bit about prostates and nothing on tables?”
“You’re obviously not going to put me into a position I’m uncomfortable with.” John would notice and he wouldn’t get off on it. It would go against the entire point of having sex in the first place. The “if you physically upset me, I get cuddled” clause would have no place here. Pity. He’d enjoyed abusing that particular condition of his last arrangement.
“No, I’m not,” John agreed. “I was starting to get scared you didn’t know that.” His left hand rose between them, then stopped. “Can I touch you?”
“You’re perfectly capable.”
“I’m perfectly capable of a lot of things, Sherlock.” This was something Sherlock had noticed with no small amount of glee. John could shoot people and make delicious tea and look at Sherlock as if he were seeing something extraordinary instead of merely impressive. No - something cherished. No man had ever looked at him like that before. “The question is whether you want me to.”
He couldn’t answer that. There was no faster way of losing his bargaining position. Even having been told, John clearly didn’t recognize the degree to which he had a handle on Sherlock. The only thing for it was to keep him in the dark as long as possible. He answered instead, “If I don’t want you to, I’ll say so.”
“Condition one,” John said. “I want to be wanted. If I go where I’m not wanted, I need to be told. No indifference. No self-sacrifice. Mutual participation only.”
How needy would it sound to agree to that? “What if-”
“That’s non-negotiable.”
Never mind. If John became suspicious when Sherlock didn’t call him on anything, they could deal with that later. “Fine. Second condition?”
“Condition two is condition one, just the other way around,” John replied. “And this time, you pay attention.”
“Simple enough.”
“It is as long as you do it.” A small amount of vehemence there. Confusion turned into anger? No. John had qualms. Sherlock had exacerbated them.
“I will,” he promised.
John stared at his face.
“I’m not lying,” Sherlock told him.
“No, I believe you,” John said. “I’m still working my head around the part where you love me.”
“You can drop it already.”
John grinned stupidly. “It’s fine, I won’t tell anyone. I already knew you weren’t a sociopath.”
“Drop it. And I’m still high-functioning.”
John laughed. “That’s one word for it.”
“That’s two hyphenated words.” He felt better for the correction. It was difficult to sound needy and critical at the same time.
John, damn him, understood anyway. Thankfully, he said the best thing he could have said anyway. “So, home?”
“Really?” Did he realize he was abandoning his drink? Would he care that Sherlock had no intention of reminding him?
“Yes.”
“Harry will throw a fit.”
“And don’t I know it.” He smiled tightly now, but the expression soon turned true. “Christ, you’re ridiculous.” His expression sobered. The realizations of what and whom he would have to put up with. “You know this is going to be difficult, right?”
“I’m aware.” Cost and benefit. Positive net benefit leading to significant gain, a worthwhile enterprise. Some part of Mycroft going on about economics had eventually stuck. It was applicable.
“Okay,” John said, and kissed him, and oh, it was applicable.
They took it slowly. For someone who kept saying that there would be no terms, John set a great deal of them. It was wonderful. Sherlock knew exactly what to do at any given moment. For his part, John soon learned that the relationship did not extend to the contents of the fridge. He’d been angry about that, particularly after what had happened to his breakfast, but Sherlock had to stand firm on something, or else John would get suspicious.
Best of all, John wasn’t remotely bothered by his affections. As expected, he seemed to take the same glee in the knowledge of his emotional control over Sherlock as Sherlock did in his physical control over John. The gamble had paid off. It was balanced. It required some amount of negotiation, but it worked.
John had been working to even out his sexual debt. Not something Sherlock could allow him to do entirely, of course, but he was more than willing to enjoy the process. John sat shoulder-to-arm with him on the couch. John came over and massaged his shoulders after one made an unpleasant clicking sound. John went on making the tea and doing the shopping and looking at Sherlock the way Sherlock looked at Stradivarius violins. When Sherlock smiled at him after each act, John brightened up in return. The imbalance had been affecting him more than Sherlock had realized. Accordingly, he resolved to keep it smaller in the future.
John took to kissing him. Not satisfactorily, but it was a start. If Sherlock was sitting at the kitchen table, working on an experiment, John kissed the top of his head while passing by. If they were on the couch, so close to cuddling, John turned his head, pressed his lips to Sherlock’s shoulder, and resumed watching telly.
John also took to masturbating. A lot. If Sherlock ever realized halfway through an experiment that John wasn’t downstairs with him, his flatmate was inevitably upstairs, having a wank. It was more than a little ridiculous. John was growing tetchy - when he wasn’t being unrelentingly kind, that was. Clearly, the sexual debt was fading.
Something would have to be done.
While he was working out what that something was, certain noticeable changes in his life occurred.
First, Harry Watson began texting him with some regularity. Dwindling regularity, fortunately. Mainly threats that meant she loved John. Sherlock would have responded, as he clearly loved John more, but John flatly told him not to answer back.
“I’ll ignore yours if you ignore mine,” he’d said, showing Sherlock his latest text from Mycroft.
Really, Sherlock was getting the better end of that deal.
Second, the hugs from Molly continued unabated. John had been speechless. Lestrade seemed to believe he’d developed a problem with his eyesight, or possibly schizophrenia. Frankly, it bewildered even Sherlock, but he liked hugs.
He liked even more the resulting way John put his hand on the small of his back. Each time Molly let go of him, John’s hand would find its way there, sliding down his spine through his coat.
Not to mention, the look on Lestrade’s face at that? Perfection. Sherlock had dreams of that expression transposed onto Mycroft’s smug features and woke up better-humoured than he had in years.
Third, Anderson.
For the first time in Anderson’s life, the idiot had brought about something marvellous.
Walking onto a crime scene, Sherlock may have had a moment of losing track of John. He checked for the man when he left, not when he arrived, so it was hardly some dreadful piece of neglect.
Anderson thought otherwise: “Boyfriend still missing, then?”
And John, walking up behind them: “Boyfriend stopped to tie his shoe, actually. What’ve we got there, broken neck from a fall?”
This surpassed Lestrade’s Molly-induced expression by miles.
And John, half an hour later, climbing into the taxi. He held in his laughter only until the door was shut and the address given. “Did you see his face?” he crowed. His laughter made its natural deterioration into gasps and giggling. “That was brilliant. I want to do that every day.”
“I love you.” Impossible not to say. He’d tried.
And John. His smile. His eyes soft. The way he said “Come here, you” and reached for Sherlock. The way the kiss broke back into those giggles. Sherlock kissed him through it until the laughter subsided and John began to hum. “Yes, please,” he said against Sherlock’s mouth, all confidence, no begging. Approval.
Perfect, save for one detail.
“Defenestration,” Sherlock reminded him. He didn’t have the time or focus to jerk him off while a case was on, not if he wanted to gain anything from it. All the same, he didn’t pull back, especially not when the cab went around a corner and John tumbled against him just a little.
“Yeah, yeah.” And he kissed Sherlock again. He pulled back abruptly a second later, a startled look across his face. “Sorry,” he said to the cabbie. “This doesn’t normally happen.”
Sherlock sunk into his seat. He tried not to and it happened anyway, just like a love confession.
The cabbie laughed. “Trust me, that was tame compared to what I’ve seen.”
John and the cabbie chatted on, John sneaking his hand into Sherlock’s as if giving a sulking child a toy to distract him. It worked, but that was hardly the point.
Getting out, Sherlock paid the cabbie and the cabbie winked at them. Again, John didn’t seem to mind. Not the cabbie’s behaviour, at least. “Sherlock,” John began, “you know I-”
“There’s a murderer to catch! This isn’t the time to talk about feelings.” There would never be a time to talk about feelings, not if he had anything to do with it. He knew John was fine with his affections but there was no sense in continually shoving them in the other man’s face.
“Right, yeah.” John smiled indulgently. “But you do know-”
“Yes, yes, will you come on already.”
Shaking his head, John followed him all the same.
“That was brilliant,” John kept saying. “Really, that was amazing.”
A man who became horny at intellectual stimulation. Sherlock could take this places. Upstairs in a minute, for a start. For now, he stopped on the landing, halfway up those stairs. He turned, his motions unexpected by the man following at his heels, and John almost collided with him. As dismissively as he could, he said, “It was simple.”
“When it’s convoluted enough that it takes five minutes for even you to explain, it’s not simple.” John lifted his face. Permission? Or unconscious, trained into him?
Either way, Sherlock took advantage of the opportunity.
John was wonderful at kissing. It must have been from the women he’d dated, the need to ply them with acts of affection before getting to the sex. However it had come about, he really was quite brilliant. Since when could kissing be playful? John played with his mouth, toyed with his lips, his tongue. Those hands, slipping beneath his coat, splaying against his back. Pulling him closer.
Sherlock set him against the wall. Captured him. His John. His John relaxing into him, hands secure on Sherlock’s body. Hands moving. Investigating - very good, John.
He risked moving his own hands. He lifted them from John’s sides to remove his scarf. Into his pocket that went, joining two paperweights. That done, he shrugged out of his coat. It fell with a very loud thump.
“What the hell are you keeping in there?” John laughed into his mouth.
Sherlock kissed him quiet and kept him that way for the time it took Mrs. Hudson to come check on them. All noises from their flat were steadfastly ignored, but the stairs were a different matter entirely.
“Sherlock?” she called from below and behind him. “Are you- Oh. Never mind!”
“Hello, Mrs. Hudson,” John said, face hidden by Sherlock’s shoulder. Sherlock kept his thigh pressed against John’s crotch. It was a complete lack of subtlety and unendingly effective.
“Glad you two made up, dear, but if you wouldn’t mind keeping it upstairs?”
Sherlock shifted his leg and watched John focus very hard on keeping silent. “Yes, Mrs. Hudson,” he said for them both. He pulled back and let John go first, ostensibly to help the man hide his erection, more truthfully to steer him. He picked up his coat, crouching rather than bending to do so. “Upstairs, then?” he asked John, sure to look up at him from that position.
Sporting all the symptoms of arousal, John took an extra second to respond. He nodded. “Upstairs.” As expected, his voice had dropped in pitch.
John took a bit more guiding than even that, needing to be kept on the stairs to get to his room rather than the couch. He got the message when Sherlock chucked his coat in through the door and went right past it. As expected: much more pliable when flustered. One more flight and there. John’s room.
Sherlock closed the door and John reached for him. Kissing, more kissing. “Whatever you want,” John murmured, ducking his head to mouth at Sherlock’s neck. “No pressure.” His ear. “None.” Hands over his shoulder blades.
He kept quiet. Caught John’s mouth again. Walked him back against that bare spot of wall and found that particularly sensitive place on John’s neck.
“You like this position,” John noted between soft little sounds. His hands slid down Sherlock’s sides, held above his hips. “I’m not normally on this side of it. It’s nice.”
“It can be nicer.”
John had some sort of involuntary response to a thigh against his crotch that Sherlock found fascinating. Before was the tease, now the reality. The forewarning didn’t seem to have acclimated John to the concept. “Oh, fuck,” he breathed. His hips bucked forward, grinding his erection against Sherlock’s leg before he stopped himself. “Wait, no. Not ready. You don’t have to.”
“I hardly need to be protected from your penis, John.”
“If you don’t want sex, you shouldn’t have it.” This insistence was significantly softened by further application of pressure and suction to, respectively, his crotch and neck.
“What if I want to watch?” he dared to ask. Not what if I want you. Not a sexual debt means you’ll stay. Definitely not what if I want proof you need me too. Not that, never that, don’t be needy. Don’t smother and don’t show weakness. Nothing but interest. Interest was good. Safe.
“What, you want to jerk me off for science?” John asked, somehow managing an incredulous tone despite his transition into a deliciously vocal mess.
Sherlock laughed and then John laughed with him, high and breathy.
“No, really, do you?”
“There’s been sufficient research on that subject already, I think.”
“Good.” John’s hand on the back of his head, John insisting on kisses. Rewards for good behaviour. Fine, then, no sexual experimentation in the literal sense. When Sherlock set about unbuttoning his shirt, John reciprocated. “This all right?”
It was a bit cold. Not unbearable. “Yes.”
Off with John’s shirt, down with his pants and trousers. “Shoes,” John protested, hobbled by his clothing.
“Too bad.”
Once certain it would catch John off-guard, Sherlock dropped to his knees. No sooner was he down than his mouth was on John’s prick, turning protest into incoherency.
“Sherlock- fuck- no, I thought- fuck-”
He waited for John to grow truly inarticulate before pulling off with a pop. Looked up at him mildly. “Are you asking me to stop?”
“Oh god,” John said, gasping.
Holding eye contact, Sherlock grinned.
“Okay, yes, you’re enjoying yourself, no problems here.”
No problems at all. Just John and heat and the slap of two palms against the wall as Sherlock sucked him down. Simple. Besides the growing aches in his jaw and knees, he couldn’t see what John had been making so much fuss about. Especially when John wanted it. Especially when he was vocal about wanting it, vocal and beautiful. Sherlock looked up, slightly regretful he hadn’t paid more attention to that scar before kneeling down, and John, John was staring down at him.
John looked directly into his eyes and his cock jerked in Sherlock’s mouth. John’s head lolled, his eyes tried to fall shut, but he fought it, the strain obvious, fought to keep looking, keep watching. Like some sort of facial spasm.
“Gorgeous.” A rough gasp. “You are. Best thing I’ve ever seen. Perfect like that, Sherlock, you - are - so....”
His eyes fluttered shut when he came.
He melted against the wall, under Sherlock’s hands.
Panting.
Spent.
His.
Sherlock licked him clean and, with his face pressed against John’s hip, untied his flatmate’s shoes.
John recovered. Cooperated in removing his shoes and bunched trousers. Kept a hand on Sherlock’s shoulder. “Think I need to lie down,” John said. He sounded the same as he did when dizzy from laughter.
“Bed,” Sherlock agreed, standing, and John kissed him. Warm, loose-limbed. His muscles the closest they ever came to being soft. Theirs was a happy, sated tumble across the room. Sherlock removed his footwear as well while John peeled off his socks, unselfconscious in his nudity.
Very unselfconscious. The most Sherlock had ever seen in person. “Keeping your trousers on?” John asked when Sherlock didn’t immediately follow suit. “I don’t mind, I’m only asking.”
“No sense in wrinkling them.” Just as there was no sense in letting a good excuse pass him by. Sherlock took them off, kept his pants on. He crawled onto the bed after John and was pulled down immediately. John rolled him over, laid him out on his back, and covered Sherlock’s body with his own. A sleepy nuzzle pressed John’s face against his neck, kept him there. Sherlock stroked his back. “Aren’t you cold?” he asked. Once they were under the blankets, John would likely sleep. Right on top of him. Already, his mind felt a little less crowded. Softer. More comfortable.
“Give me a minute.” A contented mumble.
“If you need one.”
Unfortunately, John took far less than even that. John sat up into a straddling position, hands ghosting across Sherlock’s torso. Uncertain of what this was about, Sherlock availed himself of the opportunity to look. Upon comparison, the skin of John’s chest was darker than that of Sherlock’s hands. His scar was out of comfortable reach, skin raised, dark, intricate. A different shade from his nipples. Little chest hair, difficult to see due to the shade. Sherlock touched his hips, his thighs, his knees.
He realized John was staring at him too.
Once caught, John smiled softly. He didn’t look away. His hand stroked up Sherlock’s chest and neck. Fingertips on his face. Brushing his hair off his forehead. John’s eyes were so open.
Sherlock shut his. He couldn’t stand it. He didn’t want John to see him, not when he would actually observe. He didn’t want John to leave. Was this why Victor had made him stop staring? With that sudden understanding, much was forgiven.
Shifting weight. Hands beside his head. Gentle kisses. Eyes closed, he lifted his face for them.
“Your turn,” John murmured.
“I’m not going to come,” he answered, dismissive. “You might as well save yourself the frustration.”
“That’s fine.” Slowly nuzzling up to his ear. “It’s still your turn.”
“What does that even mean, ‘my turn’? The sex is over. We just had it.”
“Half of it,” John wrongly corrected. He went back to sucking Sherlock’s earlobe. It was... strange. Damp.
“I already told you, I’m not going to come.” His hands didn’t seem able to leave John’s back. His spine and shoulders, the movement of muscle, the heat of him.
Propped up on one forearm, the other hand stroking his side. “Does that bother you?”
“No, why should it?”
“Then it doesn’t bother me.” Mouthing his neck, touching him, legs pressed against his. “Second girlfriend I had, she had problems getting off, too. I’m used to being graded on effort.”
The image of John inside a woman wouldn’t leave his brain. He wrinkled his nose at it. “John, unless you want me to start talking about my ex too, I’d advise you to choose other topics while we’re in bed. Now.”
John lifted himself up enough to look down at his face. “Will you? Sometime, I mean. I want to know.”
“Why? You’re not that voyeuristic.”
John blinked at him, then smiled as if at a joke. Ducking his head down, John kissed his chin, lips and nose in quick, playful succession. “I mean it,” he added. “However much you’re willing to let me, I want to understand. Because then.” A kiss to his throat. “This.” Right shoulder. “Will work.” Collarbone. “So much.” Breastbone. “Better.” John lifted his head, his eyes. Crouched over Sherlock’s body, he was a sight to tremble at. “Never going to hurt you like that.”
Lying now between Sherlock’s legs, John continued. He stopped that damp licking without needing to be told. He used his cheek instead, his jaw, the pleasing scrape of the slightest stubble. What Sherlock had previously thought of as nuzzling suddenly became laughable. John stroked him with lips and nose and breath. His head was bent over Sherlock’s body and he welcomed Sherlock’s hands in his hair.
It felt like- He didn’t know. He had no idea what it felt like. Any of it.
With no basis for comparison, there was only John. John naked and calm and owning him.
His face pressed against Sherlock’s stomach, pillowed. Breathing hot breath across his skin. Warm hands stroking over his shoulders. Steady, careful fingers tracing his ribs. Kisses ever lower, soft presses through his pants. Body bending, legs shifting. The return to higher territory, murmuring nonsense all the way. A quiet shush as Sherlock began to quiver beneath him.
“It’s all right,” John said. “Do you need me to stop?”
“No.” Something was wrong with his voice. It sounded thick, sob-like.
“Too much?”
He nodded. He shook his head. He didn’t understand what was happening.
John climbed up his body. Bent over him on all fours, not touching. He butted his head lightly against Sherlock’s, did it again to make him open his eyes. “Hey,” he said, using that ridiculous voice meant for people who were fragile. “It’s okay.”
“Don’t be an idiot, of course it is.” He returned his hands to John’s sides, proving it.
John’s mouth broke out of its tight line and into a smile. “I’m allowed to be an idiot. Think it’s a requirement, actually, for being in love and all that.”
“Much more of a default state than-” What. “What did you say?” But they’d agreed. Monogamy. Emotional infidelity counted.
John let out a long-suffering sigh. “I said I love you. And now we can go right back to not talking about it.”
For a long moment, Sherlock was silent. His mind was silent. Words were gone.
And then he said, “You can talk about it. If you want to.”
John’s eyebrows tried to rise but were kept in check. There was another moment of silence before John asked, “About what? You mean, that I love you? That I love you or that I’m in love with you, does it matter which? Do I get to talk about how much I love you as long as I use precise and accurate terms?” John wasn’t grinning. John was not grinning to the extent that it pained Sherlock’s face to watch. “If I want to talk about how I love you, that’s okay? It’s okay that I talk about loving you, then?”
“Shut up,” Sherlock tried to say, but it turned into some sort of helpless laughter.
“Make me,” John answered and kissed him. “Too bad, you can’t: I love you. You’re going to have to endure snogging and people being right when they think we’re a couple. It’ll be horrible. You’ll go mad. Honestly, I’m surprised you haven’t already.”
He hurt. Inside his chest. Some sort of strain. “John,” he said.
“I love you,” John said. “Just so we’re clear on that. Idiot.”
Sherlock kissed him.
John kissed him back.
After, he rested his cheek on Sherlock’s shoulder. Breathing softly, steadily, as he approached sleep. Sprawled with his front against bony hips and his back bare to the cold. A naked man, relaxed to the point of seeming defencelessness. As if it didn’t matter that bargaining could no longer work, that conditions couldn’t hold. As if emotion would simply accomplish what it took careful leverage to arrange. There would be nothing to hide behind. What absurd, stupid bravery. He thought of John at his mercy and felt terrified.
Mumbling something, John snuffled at the warmth of his neck.
“John?”
“You can shove me off whenever,” John went on in a sleepy slur. “Gonna be unconscious now. Pet me, prod me, whatever, just don’t kill me in my sleep.”
His jaw rubbing lightly against John’s forehead, he said softly, “You can stay.”
“You’re tense, I’m heavy.” Half-hearted protest, more than half asleep.
As if it were really so simple, as if John could be kept without being trapped, Sherlock wrapped his arms around John’s back. Warm and secure, he could almost believe it.
John hummed, holding him in return, and slept.
And stayed.
This story was inspired by very pretty artwork on deviantart. I wanted to know if I could write a story that went from here to here. Seriously two of my favorite pieces of fanart in the fandom. So, did it work? Am I eternally too confusing or, that more positive adjective, just subtle enough? Let me know whichever way it falls, please and thanks, and I'll try to nudge things whichever way they most need to go.
Much thanks, as always, to vyctori for general prodding and particularly ending help. Other thanks to fogbutton for staying up to (re)watch the series with me, then listening to me ramble fic ideas for a ridiculous length of time. Yet more thanks to everyone who has poked me for being vague and helped with the general clarity (alltoseek , I'm looking at you). I get better as you help make me better. Cheers!
Rating: R
Wordcount: 6.7k this part, 23.8k overall
Warnings: Extremely dysfunctional behaviour, sexual acts, swearing. Spoiler: ramifications of past emotional abuse.
Beta: vyctori
Disclaimer: Do not own.
Summary: Whatever it took, he was going to make this work.
step one: acclimatize subject
step two: reward behaviour
Step Three: Escalate Procedure
Step Four: Control Damages
Step Five: Analyze Results
Yelling, he could have handled. Apologies, he could have accepted. Silence, he could have overcome. There was an entire range of reactions from John that Sherlock had been prepared to cope with if or when the man picked up his mobile. Naturally, John managed to surprise him entirely.
John picked up before the third ring. He was speaking immediately and with the most beautiful words Sherlock had ever heard. “Sherlock? Are you all right? What’s going on?”
“I may have caused myself irreparable brain damage,” he said.
“If you’re joking, I’ll kill you.”
“What if I’m only exaggerating?”
“Maim, then.”
He closed his eyes, visualizing John’s progression through one expression to another. “All right,” he said. “Fine. Come home and maim me. I’ve hardly changed the locks.”
“No, Sherlock, really - what’s going on? You never call people.” Confused. Wary. Hooked.
“I couldn’t be sure you were reading my texts.”
John didn’t answer. He’d been reading.
“It stood to reason that the only way I could be sure of your attention was to call.”
John made a noise very similar to a scoff. A pause. A sigh. Annoyance to resignation. “So what important thing do you have to tell me?”
“I already told you: I just finished watching a monstrosity called ‘Terror of the Autons’ and may have caused myself irreparable brain damage.”
There was a long silence down the line.
“It was the most boring thing I have ever seen. It was worse than sitting through one of Mycroft’s stupid cello recitals when we were small. Anderson is more intelligent than this. And it took forever. That wasn’t a television programme, that was a feature length film of idiocy.”
“Wait,” John said. His voice was very nice, pressed up by Sherlock’s ear. “You’ve been sitting at home watching Doctor Who?”
“You kept referencing it,” Sherlock deflected. “I can’t see why. It’s more crap than crap telly. I can’t believe I sat through the entire thing. It was physically painful by the end. No, by the middle. By the middle of the first instalment, John. The first out of four.”
There was an odd sound from down the line, but Sherlock would recognize it anywhere, even over a phone and muffled by John’s hand. God, that giggle. “You’re insane,” John said.
“Driven to that sad state over two agonizing hours,” he confirmed.
“Obviously.” Still mimicking, unintentional now. Unconscious similarity. Sherlock had been incorporated into John’s phraseology.
“Come home and I’ll watch another.”
John went quiet.
“You’d have to watch it with me,” Sherlock continued.
“And get brain damage?” His voice had grown soft. Not in volume but in quality. Against Sherlock’s ear. Soft and wondering and there and maybe there was something to be said for ringing people up after all, provided those people were only a person and that person only ever John.
“It would save you the bother of having to maim me,” he explained.
John’s indecision was audible.
“Also, you’ll need to do laundry again tomorrow, so-”
John laughed.
God.
Sherlock pressed his mobile hard against his ear. “John?”
“No,” John said. “Neutral ground.”
Unacceptable. Reasonable. Fine. “Regent’s Park.”
“At this time of night? No. Somewhere warm. The Volunteer.”
“It’s practically next door. You’ll pass by me on your way from the tube stop.”
“Problem?”
Yes. “No. If you didn’t pass by me, we would end up going to the Globe or the Metropolitan.”
“Or Pizza Express.”
“We are not going to Pizza Express.”
“There’s a Pizza Hut around the corner,” John suggested. “Or we could go to Subway and, you know, eat fresh.”
“Shut up.”
He could hear John grinning as he said, “Make me.”
There was so much he wanted to say to that. “Just meet me there.”
“What time?”
“How long will it take you to get there?”
“Dunno. Forty minutes?”
“In forty-five minutes, then.”
“Sherlock.”
“Best get your jacket, John.”
“Sherlock.”
“You’re still not moving, I can hear you not moving.”
“I’m not going to come running back to you.”
“A brisk walk will do,” Sherlock assured him.
“You arrogant prat.”
“Forty-four minutes, John!” And he hung up, shaking inside.
An hour and a half later, Sherlock was still sitting outside the pub. The man on the bench next to him was on his third cigarette and the second-hand was smoothing Sherlock’s nerves just enough to make the situation tolerable. It was crowded, everyone with drinks wanted Sherlock to give up his seat at the outdoor table, and nothing remotely interesting had happened in an hour. Once the fifty-minute mark had passed, he’d tried calling again. John had either turned his mobile off or was on the Underground.
Sherlock sat and hoped and inhaled.
“Sure you don’t want one?” the man - accountant, three children, second wife - offered yet again.
He was itching for one. If he thought John wouldn’t mind the taste, he would have been chain smoking however many cigarettes the man would give him. Then again, if John didn’t come after all, if John wasn’t the figure rounding the corner with that black jacket and slight, barely perceptible limp-
“I’m sure,” he told the man, standing. He put his hands in his pockets and watched John walk. Ridiculous, how much better the world became for John simply being there. John was willing to be with him even while annoyed. How could this possibly improve?
“Sorry I’m late.”
“Now who’s the prat?” Not his best comeback, but he would rather resume their previous conversation than attempt a new one.
“Harry, actually.” John put his hands in his pockets as well. “She nicked my shoes and told me it was an intervention.” He smiled weakly. “Thought that was a bit rich, coming from her.”
“Siblings are idiots.”
John glanced up at the nearest CCTV camera. It was pointed in their direction. “Inside?” John suggested.
“No space. Just turn your back to it.”
“I’m getting a drink,” John said, not sitting. “Want anything?”
“I’m fine,” he lied. Tea would be misconstrued.
“Okay.” John went inside.
Sherlock waited at the table.
John returned. Sat. “Not really fair to Harry if I come back smelling like beer,” he explained, clearly long accustomed to justifying soft drinks in pint glasses.
“Or you could come home,” Sherlock suggested. From here, all it would take was a brisk walk and twenty seconds.
There it was, that nonverbal acknowledgement of Sherlock’s social ineptitude. “If I’d wanted to come home, I would have,” John told him.
“I’d noticed.” A glance at the pub to emphasize his point.
“Yes. Well.” John feigned an interest in his drink. “I think it’s safe to say that I can’t deal with this.”
“We can do something else,” he promised.
“Sherlock, I don’t even know what we’re doing now,” John told him.
“But you don’t want out.”
“Of course I want-” John checked himself, his manners muting him before he could shout. Too many people about for that. He swallowed. Turned his head to the side. Turned his head back and looked Sherlock in the eyes. “I want something else.”
“I told you, we can do that.” So much repeating himself. Only for John. “I’ll follow your lead.”
“You, what? No. No,” John stressed.
“If it’s a matter of enthusiasm-”
“No more.” John shook his head. “I’d rather you did nothing than watch you fake it.”
“Then it’s fine, because I haven’t faked anything.”
John’s eyebrows shot up. His eyes darted down to the table, through it, in the unmistakable direction of Sherlock’s crotch.
Sherlock rolled his eyes, heedless of the resemblance to his brother. “Please.” He leaned forward, reaching inside his coat. John leaned back with a soldier’s instincts. He didn’t relax at all at the sight of his little notebook. Sherlock set it on the table between them, open to the last entry. He tapped the lines of John’s scrawl.
“Okay,” John said slowly “What am I missing?”
“Primarily, that asexuals have needs too.”
John’s eyes were full of confusion and wariness, but the anger was gone. “Okay. Would you care to elaborate on that?”
“No.” And when the anger returned, he added, “It’s better if I don’t.” John was annoyed at Sherlock’s seeming disinterest, that was clear enough. If he knew Sherlock’s interest was emotional rather than sexual, he would no longer be annoyed, but he might be uncomfortable. Molly could be right. She was rejected often enough to know. Besides, if John hadn’t cottoned on by now, he was being willingly obtuse. That never boded well.
“But then I don’t have all the facts,” John pointed out. Elbows planted on the table, he folded his hands and looked at Sherlock over them. His eyes were patient and kind and just a little devious. Sherlock’s will to resist crumbled accordingly.
He dug his heels in anyway, but oh, John. “You won’t like it,” he warned.
“Don’t like being kept in the dark either.”
Sherlock glanced away, but he couldn’t seem to stop himself from looking back at John. It had been far too long.
John drank his ginger ale, eyes locked on his flatmate’s face. Up with the glass, down with the glass; the gaze remained steady as he folded his hands once more.
“If you don’t tell me, I’m going to leave-”
“I love you.”
John went silent.
There was a feeling inside his chest at that silence. He recognized it: complete and utter panic. That wouldn’t stop John from leaving. Just the opposite.
“That wasn’t funny,” John said. His clasped hands lowered to the table. His voice had lowered even further. Something between a growl and a hiss, anger forced into a polite volume.
“It wasn’t meant to be,” he agreed.
“Then you’re a complete bastard and you should take that back.”
Sherlock lifted his chin. “No. I told you, you wouldn’t like it. You didn’t listen.”
John’s mouth worked. Not the way it did when he was angry, curiously enough. He was one of those words that sounded sillier than they should have: flabbergasted, gobsmacked. Bewildered. “Private. Now.” He snatched up his notebook from the table. When Sherlock didn’t follow, John snatched up his hand as well and pulled him up off the end of the bench.
Sherlock wove their fingers together. John cut off the circulation in his hand.
It was glorious.
John kept on going, eyes darting to the CCTV cameras. “Where’s a blind spot?”
“I’ll make one,” he promised, stopping. That they were metres from their front door was fully intentional. John stopped with him. “I’ll need my hand back, though.”
John’s hand twitched away.
“One moment....”
Stop watching and I’ll
tell you how it went in
the morning. SH
“There.”
“Nothing’s happenin- Oh.”
The closest camera turned away. Good enough.
“So,” John said. He’d put his notebook away while Sherlock had texted. “Care to run that by me again?”
Sherlock rolled his eyes. “I’ve gone on my knees. I’ve even watched your stupid programme. Do you need me to write it on my forehead?”
“Might be helpful, yeah,” John replied. “Is this how you usually go around declaring things?”
“Fifty percent of the time, if that qualifies as ‘usually’. I wasn’t the one to initiate, last time.” Following Victor’s lead had been so much simpler than conducting this mess himself.
John took a moment to process this. It was a long moment. “You want to... date? But you don’t actually want to have sex.”
Sherlock shrugged.
“I don’t have your mindreading powers, Sherlock,” John reminded him.
Sherlock stared over the wrought-iron fence to painted concrete. In the light from the streetlamp, it looked almost like real stone. No traffic to change the lighting, barely any. Three cars per minute, on average.
“Do you really love me?” Like it was this strange, unbelievable thing. Not even a viable possibility in John’s mind. Not terribly surprising. It hadn’t been in Victor’s either.
“That’s not open for discussion.”
“Christ.” Whatever expression was on John’s face, Sherlock didn’t dare look at it. “You actually do.”
“I thought you knew,” he said, neck aching to keep his face turned away so resolutely. “About me. And you didn’t mind, more or less. That’s why I thought it would be all right to proceed. It was my mistake and I’ll correct it.” John hadn’t known and so John hadn’t played. That was why John had never taken the initiative. Why hadn’t he seen that?
“‘Correct it’? What? No.” John shook his head. “No. Sherlock, come here.”
He didn’t move. “Why?”
“Because.” And John moved for him.
John’s hand on his lapel. John’s mouth pressing up against his. Lips closed, the pressure hard. Firm. Gentle. Demanding. Everything. A car passed by and John didn’t react. As if he didn’t care they’d been seen.
Sherlock screwed his eyes shut. Too much, too much, too much. He needed more. God, this. How was he going to be able to live with this being dangled over his head? He’d spend every waking hour jumping for it. He wouldn’t be able to prevent it.
A soft noise registered as John pulled his mouth away. John was shushing him. Petting his hair. “It’s all fine,” John said. Kissed his jaw. “I promise, it is.”
“What do you want?”
“What?”
Right, too vague. “What do you want me to do?” he clarified. Clearly, the relationship was back on. Actually on, this time. What did he have to do to keep it?
John pulled back to frown, eyebrows lifting and pulling in. “What do you mean?”
“Don’t be dense.” He wouldn’t be able to stand it if John played coy. “What do you want from me in exchange?”
The frown deepened. “You mean, like handjobs and tea? You-” Confusion found realization and boiled over into incomprehensible anger. John bit his own mouth shut until it came down to a simmer. “You mean sexual favours for me being kind to you.”
“Yes.”
“No.”
“No?” What was he upset about now? Really, this was getting ridiculous.
“That? More than a bit not good.”
“It’s a feasible dynamic.”
“Oh god,” John said, sounding faint. “I thought you were taking advantage of me.”
“Apparently, I was.” He could see why John had been upset now. John wasn’t someone who should be used. He wouldn’t enjoy it at all. After a moment, Sherlock remembered what else he was meant to say. “Sorry.”
“I know we’re never going to do something, oh, I don’t know, normal, but we’re not doing that,” John told him. “I’m not doing that to you. You can’t possibly think I’m doing that to you.”
No amount of trying could keep the disappointment off his face. “Oh.” He swallowed something thick in his throat, some psychosomatic lump of emotion.
“God, Sherlock. You deserve better than that.”
“A very subjective concept,” he replied. “I’m more concerned with what I can get, deserving or otherwise.”
“You have me,” John said. “And a deep-seated need for therapy, but I don’t think you’re going to do anything about that one.”
“On what terms?”
“No terms.”
“There are always terms.”
“All right,” John said. “What are yours?”
“You have to come home.” That sounded needy. “Long-distance is pointless and Mrs. Hudson has been hiding my skull again.” Better. “Besides, I need you to pay your half of the rent.” There. Satisfactory.
“Okay.” A gentle nod. John hovered in front of him, blunting himself, rounding out his edges the way his jumpers softened his body. As if suddenly convinced Sherlock was fragile. Why?
“The second condition is monogamy. Your eyes can wander, but none of the rest of you.”
John nodded again. He looked unsurprised but, if anything, his protectiveness increased. It was... wonderful. In a way. But it was also disconcerting. “What else?” John prompted when Sherlock didn’t continue.
“That’s all.”
“That’s a start,” John corrected. “What about, what was it, that bit about prostates and nothing on tables?”
“You’re obviously not going to put me into a position I’m uncomfortable with.” John would notice and he wouldn’t get off on it. It would go against the entire point of having sex in the first place. The “if you physically upset me, I get cuddled” clause would have no place here. Pity. He’d enjoyed abusing that particular condition of his last arrangement.
“No, I’m not,” John agreed. “I was starting to get scared you didn’t know that.” His left hand rose between them, then stopped. “Can I touch you?”
“You’re perfectly capable.”
“I’m perfectly capable of a lot of things, Sherlock.” This was something Sherlock had noticed with no small amount of glee. John could shoot people and make delicious tea and look at Sherlock as if he were seeing something extraordinary instead of merely impressive. No - something cherished. No man had ever looked at him like that before. “The question is whether you want me to.”
He couldn’t answer that. There was no faster way of losing his bargaining position. Even having been told, John clearly didn’t recognize the degree to which he had a handle on Sherlock. The only thing for it was to keep him in the dark as long as possible. He answered instead, “If I don’t want you to, I’ll say so.”
“Condition one,” John said. “I want to be wanted. If I go where I’m not wanted, I need to be told. No indifference. No self-sacrifice. Mutual participation only.”
How needy would it sound to agree to that? “What if-”
“That’s non-negotiable.”
Never mind. If John became suspicious when Sherlock didn’t call him on anything, they could deal with that later. “Fine. Second condition?”
“Condition two is condition one, just the other way around,” John replied. “And this time, you pay attention.”
“Simple enough.”
“It is as long as you do it.” A small amount of vehemence there. Confusion turned into anger? No. John had qualms. Sherlock had exacerbated them.
“I will,” he promised.
John stared at his face.
“I’m not lying,” Sherlock told him.
“No, I believe you,” John said. “I’m still working my head around the part where you love me.”
“You can drop it already.”
John grinned stupidly. “It’s fine, I won’t tell anyone. I already knew you weren’t a sociopath.”
“Drop it. And I’m still high-functioning.”
John laughed. “That’s one word for it.”
“That’s two hyphenated words.” He felt better for the correction. It was difficult to sound needy and critical at the same time.
John, damn him, understood anyway. Thankfully, he said the best thing he could have said anyway. “So, home?”
“Really?” Did he realize he was abandoning his drink? Would he care that Sherlock had no intention of reminding him?
“Yes.”
“Harry will throw a fit.”
“And don’t I know it.” He smiled tightly now, but the expression soon turned true. “Christ, you’re ridiculous.” His expression sobered. The realizations of what and whom he would have to put up with. “You know this is going to be difficult, right?”
“I’m aware.” Cost and benefit. Positive net benefit leading to significant gain, a worthwhile enterprise. Some part of Mycroft going on about economics had eventually stuck. It was applicable.
“Okay,” John said, and kissed him, and oh, it was applicable.
They took it slowly. For someone who kept saying that there would be no terms, John set a great deal of them. It was wonderful. Sherlock knew exactly what to do at any given moment. For his part, John soon learned that the relationship did not extend to the contents of the fridge. He’d been angry about that, particularly after what had happened to his breakfast, but Sherlock had to stand firm on something, or else John would get suspicious.
Best of all, John wasn’t remotely bothered by his affections. As expected, he seemed to take the same glee in the knowledge of his emotional control over Sherlock as Sherlock did in his physical control over John. The gamble had paid off. It was balanced. It required some amount of negotiation, but it worked.
John had been working to even out his sexual debt. Not something Sherlock could allow him to do entirely, of course, but he was more than willing to enjoy the process. John sat shoulder-to-arm with him on the couch. John came over and massaged his shoulders after one made an unpleasant clicking sound. John went on making the tea and doing the shopping and looking at Sherlock the way Sherlock looked at Stradivarius violins. When Sherlock smiled at him after each act, John brightened up in return. The imbalance had been affecting him more than Sherlock had realized. Accordingly, he resolved to keep it smaller in the future.
John took to kissing him. Not satisfactorily, but it was a start. If Sherlock was sitting at the kitchen table, working on an experiment, John kissed the top of his head while passing by. If they were on the couch, so close to cuddling, John turned his head, pressed his lips to Sherlock’s shoulder, and resumed watching telly.
John also took to masturbating. A lot. If Sherlock ever realized halfway through an experiment that John wasn’t downstairs with him, his flatmate was inevitably upstairs, having a wank. It was more than a little ridiculous. John was growing tetchy - when he wasn’t being unrelentingly kind, that was. Clearly, the sexual debt was fading.
Something would have to be done.
While he was working out what that something was, certain noticeable changes in his life occurred.
First, Harry Watson began texting him with some regularity. Dwindling regularity, fortunately. Mainly threats that meant she loved John. Sherlock would have responded, as he clearly loved John more, but John flatly told him not to answer back.
“I’ll ignore yours if you ignore mine,” he’d said, showing Sherlock his latest text from Mycroft.
Really, Sherlock was getting the better end of that deal.
Second, the hugs from Molly continued unabated. John had been speechless. Lestrade seemed to believe he’d developed a problem with his eyesight, or possibly schizophrenia. Frankly, it bewildered even Sherlock, but he liked hugs.
He liked even more the resulting way John put his hand on the small of his back. Each time Molly let go of him, John’s hand would find its way there, sliding down his spine through his coat.
Not to mention, the look on Lestrade’s face at that? Perfection. Sherlock had dreams of that expression transposed onto Mycroft’s smug features and woke up better-humoured than he had in years.
Third, Anderson.
For the first time in Anderson’s life, the idiot had brought about something marvellous.
Walking onto a crime scene, Sherlock may have had a moment of losing track of John. He checked for the man when he left, not when he arrived, so it was hardly some dreadful piece of neglect.
Anderson thought otherwise: “Boyfriend still missing, then?”
And John, walking up behind them: “Boyfriend stopped to tie his shoe, actually. What’ve we got there, broken neck from a fall?”
This surpassed Lestrade’s Molly-induced expression by miles.
And John, half an hour later, climbing into the taxi. He held in his laughter only until the door was shut and the address given. “Did you see his face?” he crowed. His laughter made its natural deterioration into gasps and giggling. “That was brilliant. I want to do that every day.”
“I love you.” Impossible not to say. He’d tried.
And John. His smile. His eyes soft. The way he said “Come here, you” and reached for Sherlock. The way the kiss broke back into those giggles. Sherlock kissed him through it until the laughter subsided and John began to hum. “Yes, please,” he said against Sherlock’s mouth, all confidence, no begging. Approval.
Perfect, save for one detail.
“Defenestration,” Sherlock reminded him. He didn’t have the time or focus to jerk him off while a case was on, not if he wanted to gain anything from it. All the same, he didn’t pull back, especially not when the cab went around a corner and John tumbled against him just a little.
“Yeah, yeah.” And he kissed Sherlock again. He pulled back abruptly a second later, a startled look across his face. “Sorry,” he said to the cabbie. “This doesn’t normally happen.”
Sherlock sunk into his seat. He tried not to and it happened anyway, just like a love confession.
The cabbie laughed. “Trust me, that was tame compared to what I’ve seen.”
John and the cabbie chatted on, John sneaking his hand into Sherlock’s as if giving a sulking child a toy to distract him. It worked, but that was hardly the point.
Getting out, Sherlock paid the cabbie and the cabbie winked at them. Again, John didn’t seem to mind. Not the cabbie’s behaviour, at least. “Sherlock,” John began, “you know I-”
“There’s a murderer to catch! This isn’t the time to talk about feelings.” There would never be a time to talk about feelings, not if he had anything to do with it. He knew John was fine with his affections but there was no sense in continually shoving them in the other man’s face.
“Right, yeah.” John smiled indulgently. “But you do know-”
“Yes, yes, will you come on already.”
Shaking his head, John followed him all the same.
“That was brilliant,” John kept saying. “Really, that was amazing.”
A man who became horny at intellectual stimulation. Sherlock could take this places. Upstairs in a minute, for a start. For now, he stopped on the landing, halfway up those stairs. He turned, his motions unexpected by the man following at his heels, and John almost collided with him. As dismissively as he could, he said, “It was simple.”
“When it’s convoluted enough that it takes five minutes for even you to explain, it’s not simple.” John lifted his face. Permission? Or unconscious, trained into him?
Either way, Sherlock took advantage of the opportunity.
John was wonderful at kissing. It must have been from the women he’d dated, the need to ply them with acts of affection before getting to the sex. However it had come about, he really was quite brilliant. Since when could kissing be playful? John played with his mouth, toyed with his lips, his tongue. Those hands, slipping beneath his coat, splaying against his back. Pulling him closer.
Sherlock set him against the wall. Captured him. His John. His John relaxing into him, hands secure on Sherlock’s body. Hands moving. Investigating - very good, John.
He risked moving his own hands. He lifted them from John’s sides to remove his scarf. Into his pocket that went, joining two paperweights. That done, he shrugged out of his coat. It fell with a very loud thump.
“What the hell are you keeping in there?” John laughed into his mouth.
Sherlock kissed him quiet and kept him that way for the time it took Mrs. Hudson to come check on them. All noises from their flat were steadfastly ignored, but the stairs were a different matter entirely.
“Sherlock?” she called from below and behind him. “Are you- Oh. Never mind!”
“Hello, Mrs. Hudson,” John said, face hidden by Sherlock’s shoulder. Sherlock kept his thigh pressed against John’s crotch. It was a complete lack of subtlety and unendingly effective.
“Glad you two made up, dear, but if you wouldn’t mind keeping it upstairs?”
Sherlock shifted his leg and watched John focus very hard on keeping silent. “Yes, Mrs. Hudson,” he said for them both. He pulled back and let John go first, ostensibly to help the man hide his erection, more truthfully to steer him. He picked up his coat, crouching rather than bending to do so. “Upstairs, then?” he asked John, sure to look up at him from that position.
Sporting all the symptoms of arousal, John took an extra second to respond. He nodded. “Upstairs.” As expected, his voice had dropped in pitch.
John took a bit more guiding than even that, needing to be kept on the stairs to get to his room rather than the couch. He got the message when Sherlock chucked his coat in through the door and went right past it. As expected: much more pliable when flustered. One more flight and there. John’s room.
Sherlock closed the door and John reached for him. Kissing, more kissing. “Whatever you want,” John murmured, ducking his head to mouth at Sherlock’s neck. “No pressure.” His ear. “None.” Hands over his shoulder blades.
He kept quiet. Caught John’s mouth again. Walked him back against that bare spot of wall and found that particularly sensitive place on John’s neck.
“You like this position,” John noted between soft little sounds. His hands slid down Sherlock’s sides, held above his hips. “I’m not normally on this side of it. It’s nice.”
“It can be nicer.”
John had some sort of involuntary response to a thigh against his crotch that Sherlock found fascinating. Before was the tease, now the reality. The forewarning didn’t seem to have acclimated John to the concept. “Oh, fuck,” he breathed. His hips bucked forward, grinding his erection against Sherlock’s leg before he stopped himself. “Wait, no. Not ready. You don’t have to.”
“I hardly need to be protected from your penis, John.”
“If you don’t want sex, you shouldn’t have it.” This insistence was significantly softened by further application of pressure and suction to, respectively, his crotch and neck.
“What if I want to watch?” he dared to ask. Not what if I want you. Not a sexual debt means you’ll stay. Definitely not what if I want proof you need me too. Not that, never that, don’t be needy. Don’t smother and don’t show weakness. Nothing but interest. Interest was good. Safe.
“What, you want to jerk me off for science?” John asked, somehow managing an incredulous tone despite his transition into a deliciously vocal mess.
Sherlock laughed and then John laughed with him, high and breathy.
“No, really, do you?”
“There’s been sufficient research on that subject already, I think.”
“Good.” John’s hand on the back of his head, John insisting on kisses. Rewards for good behaviour. Fine, then, no sexual experimentation in the literal sense. When Sherlock set about unbuttoning his shirt, John reciprocated. “This all right?”
It was a bit cold. Not unbearable. “Yes.”
Off with John’s shirt, down with his pants and trousers. “Shoes,” John protested, hobbled by his clothing.
“Too bad.”
Once certain it would catch John off-guard, Sherlock dropped to his knees. No sooner was he down than his mouth was on John’s prick, turning protest into incoherency.
“Sherlock- fuck- no, I thought- fuck-”
He waited for John to grow truly inarticulate before pulling off with a pop. Looked up at him mildly. “Are you asking me to stop?”
“Oh god,” John said, gasping.
Holding eye contact, Sherlock grinned.
“Okay, yes, you’re enjoying yourself, no problems here.”
No problems at all. Just John and heat and the slap of two palms against the wall as Sherlock sucked him down. Simple. Besides the growing aches in his jaw and knees, he couldn’t see what John had been making so much fuss about. Especially when John wanted it. Especially when he was vocal about wanting it, vocal and beautiful. Sherlock looked up, slightly regretful he hadn’t paid more attention to that scar before kneeling down, and John, John was staring down at him.
John looked directly into his eyes and his cock jerked in Sherlock’s mouth. John’s head lolled, his eyes tried to fall shut, but he fought it, the strain obvious, fought to keep looking, keep watching. Like some sort of facial spasm.
“Gorgeous.” A rough gasp. “You are. Best thing I’ve ever seen. Perfect like that, Sherlock, you - are - so....”
His eyes fluttered shut when he came.
He melted against the wall, under Sherlock’s hands.
Panting.
Spent.
His.
Sherlock licked him clean and, with his face pressed against John’s hip, untied his flatmate’s shoes.
John recovered. Cooperated in removing his shoes and bunched trousers. Kept a hand on Sherlock’s shoulder. “Think I need to lie down,” John said. He sounded the same as he did when dizzy from laughter.
“Bed,” Sherlock agreed, standing, and John kissed him. Warm, loose-limbed. His muscles the closest they ever came to being soft. Theirs was a happy, sated tumble across the room. Sherlock removed his footwear as well while John peeled off his socks, unselfconscious in his nudity.
Very unselfconscious. The most Sherlock had ever seen in person. “Keeping your trousers on?” John asked when Sherlock didn’t immediately follow suit. “I don’t mind, I’m only asking.”
“No sense in wrinkling them.” Just as there was no sense in letting a good excuse pass him by. Sherlock took them off, kept his pants on. He crawled onto the bed after John and was pulled down immediately. John rolled him over, laid him out on his back, and covered Sherlock’s body with his own. A sleepy nuzzle pressed John’s face against his neck, kept him there. Sherlock stroked his back. “Aren’t you cold?” he asked. Once they were under the blankets, John would likely sleep. Right on top of him. Already, his mind felt a little less crowded. Softer. More comfortable.
“Give me a minute.” A contented mumble.
“If you need one.”
Unfortunately, John took far less than even that. John sat up into a straddling position, hands ghosting across Sherlock’s torso. Uncertain of what this was about, Sherlock availed himself of the opportunity to look. Upon comparison, the skin of John’s chest was darker than that of Sherlock’s hands. His scar was out of comfortable reach, skin raised, dark, intricate. A different shade from his nipples. Little chest hair, difficult to see due to the shade. Sherlock touched his hips, his thighs, his knees.
He realized John was staring at him too.
Once caught, John smiled softly. He didn’t look away. His hand stroked up Sherlock’s chest and neck. Fingertips on his face. Brushing his hair off his forehead. John’s eyes were so open.
Sherlock shut his. He couldn’t stand it. He didn’t want John to see him, not when he would actually observe. He didn’t want John to leave. Was this why Victor had made him stop staring? With that sudden understanding, much was forgiven.
Shifting weight. Hands beside his head. Gentle kisses. Eyes closed, he lifted his face for them.
“Your turn,” John murmured.
“I’m not going to come,” he answered, dismissive. “You might as well save yourself the frustration.”
“That’s fine.” Slowly nuzzling up to his ear. “It’s still your turn.”
“What does that even mean, ‘my turn’? The sex is over. We just had it.”
“Half of it,” John wrongly corrected. He went back to sucking Sherlock’s earlobe. It was... strange. Damp.
“I already told you, I’m not going to come.” His hands didn’t seem able to leave John’s back. His spine and shoulders, the movement of muscle, the heat of him.
Propped up on one forearm, the other hand stroking his side. “Does that bother you?”
“No, why should it?”
“Then it doesn’t bother me.” Mouthing his neck, touching him, legs pressed against his. “Second girlfriend I had, she had problems getting off, too. I’m used to being graded on effort.”
The image of John inside a woman wouldn’t leave his brain. He wrinkled his nose at it. “John, unless you want me to start talking about my ex too, I’d advise you to choose other topics while we’re in bed. Now.”
John lifted himself up enough to look down at his face. “Will you? Sometime, I mean. I want to know.”
“Why? You’re not that voyeuristic.”
John blinked at him, then smiled as if at a joke. Ducking his head down, John kissed his chin, lips and nose in quick, playful succession. “I mean it,” he added. “However much you’re willing to let me, I want to understand. Because then.” A kiss to his throat. “This.” Right shoulder. “Will work.” Collarbone. “So much.” Breastbone. “Better.” John lifted his head, his eyes. Crouched over Sherlock’s body, he was a sight to tremble at. “Never going to hurt you like that.”
Lying now between Sherlock’s legs, John continued. He stopped that damp licking without needing to be told. He used his cheek instead, his jaw, the pleasing scrape of the slightest stubble. What Sherlock had previously thought of as nuzzling suddenly became laughable. John stroked him with lips and nose and breath. His head was bent over Sherlock’s body and he welcomed Sherlock’s hands in his hair.
It felt like- He didn’t know. He had no idea what it felt like. Any of it.
With no basis for comparison, there was only John. John naked and calm and owning him.
His face pressed against Sherlock’s stomach, pillowed. Breathing hot breath across his skin. Warm hands stroking over his shoulders. Steady, careful fingers tracing his ribs. Kisses ever lower, soft presses through his pants. Body bending, legs shifting. The return to higher territory, murmuring nonsense all the way. A quiet shush as Sherlock began to quiver beneath him.
“It’s all right,” John said. “Do you need me to stop?”
“No.” Something was wrong with his voice. It sounded thick, sob-like.
“Too much?”
He nodded. He shook his head. He didn’t understand what was happening.
John climbed up his body. Bent over him on all fours, not touching. He butted his head lightly against Sherlock’s, did it again to make him open his eyes. “Hey,” he said, using that ridiculous voice meant for people who were fragile. “It’s okay.”
“Don’t be an idiot, of course it is.” He returned his hands to John’s sides, proving it.
John’s mouth broke out of its tight line and into a smile. “I’m allowed to be an idiot. Think it’s a requirement, actually, for being in love and all that.”
“Much more of a default state than-” What. “What did you say?” But they’d agreed. Monogamy. Emotional infidelity counted.
John let out a long-suffering sigh. “I said I love you. And now we can go right back to not talking about it.”
For a long moment, Sherlock was silent. His mind was silent. Words were gone.
And then he said, “You can talk about it. If you want to.”
John’s eyebrows tried to rise but were kept in check. There was another moment of silence before John asked, “About what? You mean, that I love you? That I love you or that I’m in love with you, does it matter which? Do I get to talk about how much I love you as long as I use precise and accurate terms?” John wasn’t grinning. John was not grinning to the extent that it pained Sherlock’s face to watch. “If I want to talk about how I love you, that’s okay? It’s okay that I talk about loving you, then?”
“Shut up,” Sherlock tried to say, but it turned into some sort of helpless laughter.
“Make me,” John answered and kissed him. “Too bad, you can’t: I love you. You’re going to have to endure snogging and people being right when they think we’re a couple. It’ll be horrible. You’ll go mad. Honestly, I’m surprised you haven’t already.”
He hurt. Inside his chest. Some sort of strain. “John,” he said.
“I love you,” John said. “Just so we’re clear on that. Idiot.”
Sherlock kissed him.
John kissed him back.
After, he rested his cheek on Sherlock’s shoulder. Breathing softly, steadily, as he approached sleep. Sprawled with his front against bony hips and his back bare to the cold. A naked man, relaxed to the point of seeming defencelessness. As if it didn’t matter that bargaining could no longer work, that conditions couldn’t hold. As if emotion would simply accomplish what it took careful leverage to arrange. There would be nothing to hide behind. What absurd, stupid bravery. He thought of John at his mercy and felt terrified.
Mumbling something, John snuffled at the warmth of his neck.
“John?”
“You can shove me off whenever,” John went on in a sleepy slur. “Gonna be unconscious now. Pet me, prod me, whatever, just don’t kill me in my sleep.”
His jaw rubbing lightly against John’s forehead, he said softly, “You can stay.”
“You’re tense, I’m heavy.” Half-hearted protest, more than half asleep.
As if it were really so simple, as if John could be kept without being trapped, Sherlock wrapped his arms around John’s back. Warm and secure, he could almost believe it.
John hummed, holding him in return, and slept.
And stayed.
This story was inspired by very pretty artwork on deviantart. I wanted to know if I could write a story that went from here to here. Seriously two of my favorite pieces of fanart in the fandom. So, did it work? Am I eternally too confusing or, that more positive adjective, just subtle enough? Let me know whichever way it falls, please and thanks, and I'll try to nudge things whichever way they most need to go.
Much thanks, as always, to vyctori for general prodding and particularly ending help. Other thanks to fogbutton for staying up to (re)watch the series with me, then listening to me ramble fic ideas for a ridiculous length of time. Yet more thanks to everyone who has poked me for being vague and helped with the general clarity (alltoseek , I'm looking at you). I get better as you help make me better. Cheers!