BBC Sherlock fic. Proposition part 2, Electric Boogaloo.
TITLE: Slow Sweet Surrender.
RATING: NC-17 oh yeah.
PAIRING: Sherlock/John with an appearance by Mycroft.
WARNING: Non-con. Bondage. Rather dark.
WORD COUNT: 9400. Yeah I got a wee bit indulgent.
A/N: This is a direct sequel of The Proposition. It makes more sense to read that one first.
SUMMARY: "I'm not evil," Sherlock said, letting his voice go ever so gentle. "But I'm not good either. I'm amoral. I want what I want, and that happens to be you. Even if you don't want me back, though I'd prefer if you did. Aren't you going to ask what I'd do to you? Aren't you curious to know how far I'd go?"
Nearly a month after their affair began, Sherlock realized that John and he were not on the same page. Possibly not even in the same book.
The trigger was the nonchalant way John reached for his coat without checking to see if Sherlock were even in the room. It wasn't a defiant, I-am-ignoring-you gesture, nor a shy I-don't-want-to-know one, but a truly unconscious you-are-not-a-part-of-my-thoughts-right-now obliviousness.
Sherlock did a double take in his chair and looked harder. This didn't fit. As soon as he realized that, a thousand facts and observations that had hitherto been neatly organized, compartmentalized, and discounted as trivial, heaved to the fore and reshuffled into a new, better fitting arrangement.
Sherlock's hands tightened on the arms of the chair.
"Stop where you are," he ordered firmly.
"What?" John asked, his right arm in the sleeve of his coat. The other sleeve dangled across his back. John, apparently, couldn't walk and chew gum at the same time, or in this case dress and discuss Sherlock's sudden change of attitude.
"No, you may not go out," said Sherlock. "Put your coat back on the hook."
John hesitated. His expression went through a series of quick tics: surprise (this one didn't last long), followed by irritation (continuing), excitement (as always happened when Sherlock ordered him about), and finally, most annoyingly, worry. Sherlock could see the little hamster racing round in his mind, scampering back and forth between the pleasure pleasing him and the bother of canceling a coffee date with an old friend.
Two whole seconds later he finally asked, "Do you have some reason for me to be here?" John's nostrils flared fractionally while he spoke, irritation had increased. He also slightly shifted his weight as if to calm an itch in his groin. You want sex now? Couldn't you pick a more convenient time? he didn't say, and didn't need to.
"Do I need to have a reason?" asked Sherlock, testing.
No shift. John's budding lust backed down, thwarted. John was obviously more interested in his coffee date than simply hanging out. Irritation was winning out.
Ever so delayed came John's verbal reaction. "Yes, you do. You can't just ask for me to put my life aside so that I can twiddle my thumbs while you ignore me."
"Why not?" asked Sherlock.
"Because I'm not your property," said John, firmly.
Wrong! A fierce surge of possessiveness welled up in Sherlock's chest and on its heels frustration.
This was exactly as he feared. John, it seemed, was under the impression that Sherlock had been playacting all this time. He thought their arrangement was some sort of wink-and-nod dominance-and-submission game - a mere kink that could be called off at anytime when one of them got bored of it or it became too much of burden. He'd never been further from the truth.
How could he have misunderstood so badly? Sherlock had spelled it out explicitly. Did he need to draw a map as well? Tattoo it on his hand, perhaps? And yet somehow -- seemingly impossibly, given the fact that John was quite bright for a normal -- he had dismissed their verbal contract as a sex game. A sex game. Really.
Perhaps because they happened to be having sex when John had agreed to it. Hmmm.
"Ah, I see," said John, jumping to some wrong conclusion about Sherlock's silence. "Well, if that's all, don't wait up."
In the time it took John to put on his other sleeve and shrug the coat straight, Sherlock had devised eighty-three ways in which he could prevent John from walking out the door. Seventy-two of them constituted assault of one form or another. He discounted those because John's mobile was in his pocket and he had Lestrade's number on speed dial. The remaining eleven were forms of verbal persuasion.
"A moment, John. I believe you've forgotten something." Appeal to curiosity -- the least likely way to raise John's irritation.
John stopped. "Forgotten what?"
"Your agreement with me."
"To go sixty-forty on the food bill because I eat more than you?"
Now John was being willfully obtuse. Sherlock rolled his eyes. "The terms and conditions of your surrender."
"I wasn't aware that we were at war," said John, his face seemed calm, but the cadence of his speech revealed his interest had picked up. "Or that I had lost."
"You never really had a chance," said Sherlock. "You were outclassed and ambushed."
"You consider me your prisoner?" John shifted his weight, relaxing his shoulders in the process. His lids lowered the tiniest fraction and pupils expanded. Sexual tension up, Sherlock interpreted, guard lowering. John was back into playacting mode. He wasn't taking it seriously. Wrong, wrong, ever so annoyingly wrong!
"Do you have any concept of what a sociopath is?" Sherlock asked.
The shift out of metaphor brought both a quizzical look and a tightening of John's muscles. "Of course."
"Then why on Earth would you decide that what I do is primarily for your sexual gratification?"
"I… I don't," said John. "Listen, I'm not following you. I see that you're irritated with me for something, God only knows what. Do you not want me meeting with Stamford? I assure you this is just a friendly visit, not a romantic tryst."
"This isn't about jealousy, this is about you thinking that what we have between us ends at the bedroom door."
It was John's turn to sigh and touch his hand to his temple, as if Sherlock had something exasperatingly stupid and needed clarification.
"Listen, Sherlock, we've been doing a power play thing, which I admit is pretty kinky. It's a testament to your personal magnetism that I've agreed to go along with it. But it's just for fun. I don't particularly care to go the whole wearing a collar and calling you 'master' route out in public, if that's what you're angling for. People talk enough about us as is. I do have my dignity."
Sherlock bounced in his seat as frustration made it's way to his muscles. He flung out an accusatory finger. "You have it wrong again. Wrong. Completely wrong."
John stared and waited, arms across his chest. Not frightened, not yet. But not playacting either. Confused and annoyed.
"I don't force you to wear a collar and call me master because I find neither of those things remotely appealing," explained Sherlock. "I've read up on BDSM enough to know that it's full of tedious, silly rituals designed to instill trust between the partners, to create a 'safe and sane' environment in case I felt the urge to whip or degrade you. Which by the way, I don't care to do, either."
"--I'm glad you aren't into whipping and degrading."
"You are missing the point. I don't do it because it's irrelevant," said Sherlock, astonishing himself with his patience. "I don't need to put you in your place through symbolic gestures. I don't need some ritualized proof of my power over you."
"I have no argument with that!" said John. Pandering. "In fact, I have no clue what we are even arguing about." Truthful exasperation.
"I don't need to do that because I have power over you! Real power. Not simply your permission. There is nothing safe or sane about our relationship. The fact that don't exercise the fullest, darkest extent of my hold over you is because, up to this point, I haven't needed to. You've cooperated with me freely, and I prefer you to be happy. But don't mistake my priorities. If I'm not happy, I guarantee you won't be."
"Is that a threat?" said John, actually surprised.
"I get no pleasure out of hurting you. I'm not a sadist. But I do need to you to conform to my will, not just in the bedroom. At all times. When I want you to be here, you will be here - even if it's to twiddle your thumbs while I ignore you."
"And that doesn't seem very fair to me. What do I get out of this arrangement?"
"The pleasure of my company. Intellectual stimulation. Sex, at times. Enough stress to keep life interesting to you. And I'm sure if you bothered to put your mind to it, you can find any number of other excuses. But even should you get nothing at all, it wouldn't alter what we are to each other."
"And what's that?" Incredulity.
"You belong to me. You are mine to do with what I wish."
"I'm not a plaything, Sherlock," said John, coldly. "I'm a person. Not a pet." Sexual tension had reached a nadir. Anger and frustration were in the fore. John didn't like this conversation. Tough. "And I don't like you staring at me that way, either."
Sherlock didn't alter his gaze. Now more than ever he needed to be aware of every transient emotion, every fleeting thought that could be discerned. They were at a crux.
"I know full well you are a person." Sherlock kept his voice even and calm. "You would have very little interest to me if you were a dog or an inanimate object. That doesn't make our relationship any less diametric. I control you. You submit to me. You are indeed my property."
There. No sex to confuse the matter. John should finally get it.
But he didn't.
"Oh, codswallop!" John blurted. "You've given in to me on occasions before."
"Really? When?"
"You've … attempted … to pick up after yourself when I've nagged you," reasoned John, his voice just a little more rushed, just a tad higher. Sherlock smiled. "--You usually warn me when you leave body parts around. You've even made me tea on more than one occasion. You don't do that for property."
Sherlock tilted his head. "From any objective standpoint, very little of what I've done for you didn't also benefit myself. Having you stumble accidentally upon my experiments meant a chance that you could mess them up. Even before you came around, I occasionally picked up after myself. I wanted tea as well, it's no harder to make it for two than it is one."
"You are trivializing your actions."
"And you are romanticizing them. I'm a selfish person. Arrogant. Aloof. And very, very dangerous. You were warned, repeatedly, not to become involved with me."
John just shook his head and held onto denial like it was a lifering. "You aren't that entitled." His arms uncrossed and his hands jabbed into the pockets of his coat.
"Am I not? You care to wager on that now? Do you wish to find out what lengths I'll go to prevent you from meeting your friend?" The threat hung in the air, almost visible. John wavered for several seconds, the hamster scampered behind his furrowed brow.
"You aren't an evil person," said John, firmly, but Sherlock recognized a last gasp when he heard one.
"I'm not evil," he said, letting his voice go ever so gentle. "But I'm not good either. I'm amoral. I want what I want, and that happens to be you. Even if you don't want me back, though I'd prefer if you did. Aren't you going to ask what I'd do to you? Aren't you curious to know how far I'd go?"
John had crossed over into fear now. Just a little bit. He could see it in the shape of John's eyes. The narrowing of the pupil. The sudden sharp scent of sweat laced with adrenaline.
"You would actually wreck what is between us to make a point?"
"I wouldn't be wrecking anything, because clearly what you think is between us isn't the case at all. I would merely be correcting a delusion on your part." Sherlock felt a rush. Yes, finally he was breaking through.
"Enough. This isn't fun. Don't make me call Mycroft, Sherlock." It wasn't an idle threat. John's hand was in the pocket with his phone.
"Do you think he will help you? How droll!"
John was taken aback by Sherlock's laugh. Sherlock in turn felt a sharp thrill. The warrior's armor had cracked completely. Sparring was fun.
"What are you saying?"
"Who do you think gave you to me?" Sherlock pointed out. "Do you think I can't recognize interference when a man who is absolutely my type and compatible to a fault just happens to show up when I went looking for a flatmate? The timing of it! The specificity! Who but Mycroft would have the resources and motivation to pull off such a thing?"
"I can't have… no, that's impossible!"
"Really, what of your circumstances since leaving Afghanistan were entirely of your own choosing? SPACES found you that ungodly depressing, overpriced flat; you were assigned an incompetent shrink who ever-so-sweetly undermined your confidence; your luck at finding employment was dismal despite your record of competence. Then, just as your desperation and loneliness had reached a peak, you were contacted out of the blue by an old friend who talked you into a flatshare and just happened to know someone who had one. Surely on some level you must have noticed how you've been bullied around?"
There was a twitch to John's eyes. He had noticed. Perhaps he'd felt helpless about it, perhaps the subtlety and reasonableness of it all had made it impossible to not to go along. Either way, John didn't like having it pointed out. That much was clear.
"If Mycroft gave me to you, you wouldn't have accepted." Flat, statement of fact. Perhaps even a dare to be contradicted.
"You're grasping at straws," Sherlock pointed out. "I'm not going to shoot myself in the foot just to spite my brother. He's a meddling bastard, but a talented one. And if he had to go all the way to Afghanistan to find you, I doubt I'd be so lucky waiting for lightning to strike closer to home."
"Afghanistan?"
Too much, Sherlock recognized. Time to dial it back before John panicked. It was one thing to be threatened with dire but vague consequences, it was another to know that manipulation by gunpoint not only was on the table, but already used. Sherlock didn't want to be shot in his sleep by a man who legitimately feared for his life.
"Listen, you don't need to be afraid of me. I'm not looking to change our relationship. I'm not going to curtail your freedoms, or dictate what you do from moment to moment. I'm not going to kill you in a fit of rage. I'm not going to torment or humiliate you or belittle you any more than I have been. I don't want change. I want things remain as they are."
"How can they be when you've just informed me that I'm your literal prisoner?" John swallowed.
"You've been my prisoner for weeks and it hasn't bothered you. Besides, you agreed to it yourself, so the blame is shared."
"So you are saying, had I taken Mycroft up on his offer of a flat and a job, you really would have let me walk out of your life?"
"I did it with two others. Most likely I would have done the same for you." Sherlock shifted slightly. "Though God only knows where Mycroft would have found your replacement. The States probably. Which begs the question, could I live with that annoyingly flat Midwestern accent? Or worse, Brooklyn. So nasal." He snorted.
"This isn't funny."
"No, it's not. And it's also irrelevant. You don't want to walk out of my life. Not even now."
"The hell I don't! I am not a slave."
Sherlock shook his head. "This is reflex. This is pride telling you to stand up for yourself."
"Damn right it is!"
"If you left me you would be bored out of your mind in days. I know this and you know this, or else you'd have walked out the door already. From then on things would play out in a predictable way: You would seek out dangerous situations, dangerous people, in an attempt to get back something resembling what we have now. But you wouldn't find it. All you would find is abusers who beat you when they get angry, or some dull accountant who would insist you wear a collar and eat from a dog dish in a hollow attempt to seem powerful. There would be no genuine thrills. Only the monotonous plodding of daily life and the company of people who are far beneath you. Day by day, month by month, your intellect would atrophy, your habits would stiffen, and worst of all would be the bitterness of loss which would color everything you did. You would live in regret until you could bear it no more."
"You don't know that."
"Do you honestly think there is another out there in the world like me?"
"No."
Sherlock spread his hands. "Well there you go. Don't fight yourself. Call off your coffee and stay and have tea with me."
John did nothing for several seconds, then he pulled his hand out of his pocket, revealing the mobile he'd been clenching the last few minutes. The face was lightly steamed from the sweat of his hand.
"Hello, Stamford. Something's come up, I'm terribly sorry. I can't get around it. Dreadfully inconvenient. Of course, it's the wages of being on-call. Next Tuesday?" John glanced over to Sherlock who said nothing. "Absolutely." There was a dare in his tone of voice. "Three it is." He put the phone back in his pocket.
"Are you going to make a liar out of me twice?" he asked a moment later.
"You lie quite well without my help."
"I'll make the tea then," John's voice was leaden. Without waiting he walked to the kitchen and filled the electric kettle at the sink. Placing it back on its base, he pushed down the button to start it heating, then reached for cups.
The next move was subtle enough that Sherlock would have missed it if he hadn't been staring. As John placed the mugs beside the kettle, his eyes glanced to the side at the stack of books shoved under the microwave. Sherlock knew that John had meticulously cut a gun shaped cavity in the pages of an artificially dusty 1998 edition Physician's Desk Reference. He also knew there was a very high probability that the gun was in there, though he hadn't checked.
Sherlock didn't believe that John would shoot him. Nonetheless there was a little thrill of terror knowing that John could reach the gun before he could intercept or leave the room. Part of him, a dark part, almost wished he would. Just to see what would happen then. Would Sherlock be able to dodge? Would John hesitate long enough for Sherlock to disarm him? Would John attempt to wing, or would he go for a head shot?
The rational part knew no matter what happened, it would be disaster, with unpleasant consequences spinning out into the future. He wasn't quite that self-destructive.
"If you shoot me, Mycroft will exact his revenge," Sherlock mentioned. "You've seen how revoltingly devoted he is to me. You can be assured not only of the maximum sentence, but also the most unpleasant choice of cellmates."
"I'm not going to shoot you," said John. "I do love you, you know." The last bit carried a tang of hurt. "Even though you're being an utter prick right now."
"You love the danger of it, admit it."
But John's behavior wasn't saying he loved it. The limp was back. The sag in the shoulder. The stiffness in his bad arm.
For the first time Sherlock doubted what he was doing.
John served the tea in silence. It was precisely the way Sherlock liked it. John had made tea often enough to know. He'd poured himself a cup as well, but didn't drink it. Instead he let it slowly cool between the palms of his hands. Sherlock tried to ignore this. He tried to ignore the dead look in John's eye. He tried to ignore the fact that John wasn't turned on the way he'd been all those other times before.
Did thinking it was an act really make that much of a difference? Sherlock wondered. What if John was right and he had just wrecked was between them?
That wasn't a good feeling. It felt like an uncomfortable itch in his chest. A soreness in his throat. Sherlock was shocked at this realization. I don't like John angry with me. It feels… scary.
"Surely," he said, as if they hadn't been sitting in silence for the last ten minutes, "You prefer to know the truth than to labour on under a false impression."
"Can't say as I do."
"But nothing has changed between us!" said Sherlock, feeling slightly desperate.
"Except the little bit where I learn that I have no choice in the matter and never did," John sat back. "I have the worlds smartest man controlling my life, and should he fail, his big bad brother will call the dogs on me."
"I would never call Mycroft to do my dirty work," said Sherlock, insulted.
"Because you don't need to, he'll call himself."
This was true.
"You Holmeses are the most manipulative, self-centered bastards I've ever met. It's terrifying how dependant you've made the world on you."
"The world, you mean yourself."
"Yes, I mean myself!" His frown deepened. "Why, Sherlock? Why would you do this to me?"
"Because I love you," said Sherlock. "Because, damn it, Mycroft is hideously clever and much as I want to spit in his smarmy face, I can't resist his gift. The thought of you leaving me, ever, is unbearable."
John's expression softened. "I don't want to leave you. You don't have to clench me in your fist to keep me."
"No, I do," said Sherlock. That uncomfortable feeling deepened, skirting perilously close to panic. "I can't help it. I can't. This is why I don't let people in, John. If I don't care, I don't care. Those around me are free to do as they wish. But when I start caring - my mind won't stop until I've achieved what I want. I don't let things go."
"Even if I promised I'd stay?"
"You say that now, but what about the future? What if you meet someone more socially adept and physically attractive? What if I irritate you too much?" Sherlock's heart raced and pressed his sweaty palms flat against his pants. He was being absolutely textbook in his tell-tales, but perhaps that was just as well if it helped convince John of his sincerity.
But John, ever more conscious of Sherlock's words than his actions, let his mouth form into an incredulous gape. "Did you just hear yourself? A few minutes ago you argued, beautifully, about how I devastated I would be at losing you, and yet now you accuse me of being fickle? Do you hear the broken logic?"
"My logic is perfectly sound," said Sherlock, defensively. "Short-sighted behavior has to be factored in. You can't help being stupid." John rolled his eyes. "I'm not saying that to be insulting. I'm aware and accept my social flaws, you should be aware of your intellectual ones."
"You'll have to trust me," said John.
"Trust is nothing but an assumption that the status quo will be kept." Sherlock glanced away from John for the first time since the encounter began. "Only a fool relies on it when it comes to the important things."
He heard John put his cooled cup on the tray table and run his fingers through his own hair.
"John, please help me," said Sherlock, looking back. John's hair was ruffled and his face looked dogged and sad. In that moment, Sherlock wanted nothing more than to cross the space between them and smooth the hair down, feel the warmth of his skin benieth his hands. Bury his nose behind John's ear and smell everything he could. He wanted to feel John's body melt under his, conform, mold itself to his chest as if it were an extension of his own flesh. But John's stare was guarded and forbidding and everything about his posture said that he wouldn't melt. He'd go wooden.
"Help you?"
"I don't like the way you are right now. And I find myself at a loss. How can I make you happy without making myself miserable?"
"Well, helping me push this mess back into the realm of consensual would be nice. Maybe what we need is some ground rules."
No, was Sherlock's first urge. He hated rules. Most of them were unnecessary and many of them got in the way. But caution made him curb his tongue. After all, John had all but told him that he preferred a lie to the truth. And besides he wanted his happy, cooperative John back.
Sherlock hedged. "Very well. Within reason." So long as they were something he might do anyway. So long as it wasn't boring. Maybe he could consider it a challenge, though it seemed an awfully artificial one.
"Rule One: You can boss me around as much as you like in the bedroom. I actually like that."
"Done." Sherlock smiled. This didn't sound too bad.
"Rule Two: Outside of the bedroom, you need a reason. And if I don't think the reason is good enough, I reserve the right to tell you to sod the hell off."
"Dull." Sherlock's smile dropped. "What if doing it would make me happy? Is my happiness a good enough reason?"
John's eyes narrowed, sensing a trap. "Getting your way all the time makes you happy, so no. However, I can give you, say, one 'just do this' pass a day. Use it wisely."
Sherlock lips quirked. He was fairly confident he could work around that.
"Rule Three, and I mean this: Don't in any way suggest that I am your pet, slave, possession or any of that in front of others, that includes not pulling the 'do this' card in company. I already have a reputation as your doormat, it doesn't need reinforcing. Besides it sounds creepy."
Lame, thought Sherlock and dismissed it off into the 'ignore' file.
"And Rule Four: If you get one 'do this' card, so do I."
"What do you mean?" asked Sherlock sitting up.
"I can ask you to do one thing, no reason, and you'll do it."
"Oh, but that is stupid!"
"It's fair."
"You'll ask for something horribly daft, I know it. Probably get us both killed." Sherlock crossed his arms over his chest and pouted.
"If it presents a clear danger to life and limb, you are free to tell me piss off. But not if it's just disagreeable." John was firm. "Also I'll point out that implying that I'm a terrific imbecile just because you are mad at me doesn't actually improve my mood. -- Oh, for God's sake," he snapped when Sherlock leveled a look of annoyance. "Can't you, just this once, not be a total prig?"
Sherlock looked away, hurt. He knew he was being insufferably selfish. That was his nature, always had been. And he'd been fine with that. Normally. But now he actually wanted something that selfishness couldn't give him. This sucked!
-- But maybe there was a way out.
"All right, I'll consider it," said Sherlock, slyly. He could do the "cursed wishes" gambit. A bit passive aggressive, perhaps, but likely John would dismiss the rule as too much bother if it was consistently negatively reinforced. Eventually John would have to realize that he was asking too much and let things slide back to the way they'd been before. The way that things worked.
To Sherlock's relief, John relaxed. "Okay."
Then a small, tight smile appeared on his face. "Let's test this. I'm using my 'do this' card. Since you had me cancel what I wanted to do this afternoon, I feel I should at least get something nice in return for the favor. How about you give me a blow job for once."
Even though John's words were reasonable, Sherlock's insides rankled uncomfortably at being ordered. He didn't like the feeling. As the moment stretched the feeling only got worse. It felt like a weight being clamped around his chest while his stomach seemed to scrabble for escape from his body. The urge to say "fuck off" rose and it was all he could do to keep the words pinched off. He jumped to his feet and tried to pace out the feeling.
"Take your time," said John, smile gone. "I'm not going anywhere. Apparently."
"This will make you not mad at me anymore?" asked Sherlock cautiously. There at least would be a temptation.
"It will improve my mood a lot," assured John.
"Very well." Sherlock hesitated as the first problem reared its head. Should he give a stunning blowjob, and reinforce John's idea that it was a good idea to order him about? Or to give a stunningly poor blowjob, and imply that he was incompetent at something simple and basic? Which was worse? Both options seemed bad.
Then an achingly long half second later the answer came to him. Obvious, obvious! Stupidly, obvious. If he hadn't been thrown into such a panic, he'd have seen it right away. John had handed the answer on a plate earlier.
"Off we go, then," said Sherlock, feeling better than he had since this whole altercation had started. Feeling downright glorious, in fact. He couldn't contain a little leap in his step as he walked purposely to his bedroom (his bedroom, it was important) and waited in the door for John to follow.
John got up, shaking his head slightly. Not nearly as suspicious as he should have been given Sherlock's change of attitude. Ah, the wonders of the dull ordinary mind, so easy to manipulate. Still Sherlock couldn't help but try to hurry him up, "Come come, your blowjob awaits."
John narrowed his eyes slightly. "Are you really going to give me a blowjob?"
"Absolutely," said Sherlock, in a low voice, putting all the sincerity he could into the word. He certainly was, and it would be a stunningly good one.
John rocked backwards, "You can pin a person with that stare," he said. "Okay, I believe you. I'm just a bit surprised. You've never given one before."
"You've demonstrated often enough, I'm sure I can manage."
"It's just that you seem to not like the idea," John was wavering. The idea of making Sherlock do something he didn't want to do was already starting to weigh on his conscious. That was good, but in this case Sherlock actually wanted to give the damn blowjob.
"There is a first time for everything. I didn't see the purpose before, being that it wasn't my own genitals being stimulated. But now I see the point. Besides it expends your one daily wish on something that won't hurt anything and sounds pleasingly challenging. Now please, into the room. I'm hard."
He was, wonderfully hard. Rock hard. The thrill of the chase was on him and his quarry was mere inches away from the trap. And John really needed to move those last little bit, get his feet over the threshold before Sherlock wrecked everything by pushing him.
Move, move, move, please, God, John just move already.
Finally, John took the last step in, both feet across the threshold (important!) and Sherlock closed the door behind them for emphasis. There is no possible way to deny where they were.
Rule One stated that Sherlock was free to boss John around as he liked in the bedroom. Rule One said that John liked that.
With a single yank, Sherlock pulled the coat off John's back and send it, and the mobile within, into a corner. John jumped, surprised and raised his arms defensively, Sherlock's second move was to grasp the jumper by the waist and pull upwards, using his extra inches and longer reach to full advantage. Sherlock stopped tugging when the jumper was half off, John's face hidden under the fabric, his arms, bent at the elbows, now awkwardly trapped in the material.
"Careful!" said John, his voice muffled by the wool.
Sherlock spun him and gave a solid push, sending him face forward into the mattress. Two more yanks and the Jumper was now free of John's face, but still trapped around his forearms. Sherlock considered, then rejected a notion. The wool was far too stretchy for the purposes he had in mind. The shirt beneath, however, was perfect. A moment later the jumper made a soft landing near the coat.
John was breathless. "I'm pretty sure this is not a blow job."
"Only pretty sure?" asked Sherlock amused and delighted at the connotations. "Do I truly have that latitude? Can I redefine the dictionary to suit my needs? Fascinating."
He let John roll over. Needed him to, really, for this next bit.
"What?" asked John, distracted again by Sherlock's teasing. "No! No, you don't get to redefine the dictionary! You can't turn my 'do this' into something completely different because you decided that 'this' means whatever the hell you've made up!"
John was concentrating far too much on his words and not nearly enough on what Sherlock was doing to his shirt. So it was that it caught him by surprised when the buttons of his starched white oxford went flying in every direction as Sherlock simply grabbed both sides and yanked apart.
"Hey! That cost 20 quid!"
Sherlock grinned fiercely. "The shirt is not permanently damaged. You can sew the buttons back on later."
Taking advantage of the disconcertion, Sherlock rolled John back onto his belly and pulled the shirt off his shoulders. The cuffs, still buttoned, caught on John's hands and would come off no further. But then that was the intent. He looped the inside-out sleeves thrice around John's wrists and then tightened the bonds using the shirt tails. When he was done the work shirt had wadded into a large, unwieldy knot, with John's hands tightly balled in the fabric, unable to flex, much less pick apart Sherlock's work.
"What are you doing?" John asked when Sherlock finished the last knot. He tested the bonds carefully. "Are you tying me up? After what we just discussed?"
Sherlock raised an eyebrow that John couldn't see, given his belly down position. "You seem surprised."
"Wait a second, I thought we agreed this was my turn! I used my 'do this' card. I get to say what we do!"
"You used your 'do this' for a blow job. If you wanted to play the dominant partner you should have specified that."
"Okay, I'm specifying it now! Untie me."
"Too late, the card is used up."
"Well then I'm just disagreeing to this."
"But we are already in the bedroom. You gave me specific permission to do what I like to you here. 'Boss you around,' I believe were the words." Sherlock put a gentle hand on John's clothed thigh, then suddenly pushed between the mattress and his body, seeking, then finding the erection he knew would be there. "Oh yes, I can feel how much you disagree with this," he purred.
John gave up verbalizing in favor of struggle. He thrashed and pulled in vain, trying to push his fingers through the fabric, trying to use his shoulders and elbows to force one of the other hand past the knot. The movements became more frantic as time went on. Rolling over one way, then the other, then sliding off the bed entirely to kneel on the floor. The room smelled deliciously of adrenaline, sweat, and arousal.
Sherlock merely stood back and watched in deep satisfaction. He could keep John like this. Half naked, his skin in goosepimples. Nipples hard from evaporation and chill. Blood and effort had turned John's cheeks rosy and his lips dark. He gasped and grunted, his efforts coming in little fruitless spurts, now. Repeating the same twisting and rubbing that had gained him nothing all the times before. He could keep John like this for hours. For days. Years.
"Sherlock," John said, surrender making his voice soft and pleading. "Can't you let me have this once? Just once? This…."
He couldn't even articulate what he wanted. But Sherlock knew. He could see the torment of need and the conflict of John's pride warring it out with each other. Good sense was in there too, weakly throwing in its part in a three way battle towards a terribly unsatisfying goal. What John thought he wanted - thought he should want -- was to take control and demand that they be equals. He thought that was the manly thing to want. The sane thing to want.
But it wasn't what John wanted.
Sherlock shushed him with his finger against John's lips. He could feel the throb of blood in them. John's breath caressed his hand.
"If I let you take over, John, you would demand that blow job because you feel that it would put you on equal footing with me. Therefore it seems the proper thing to do. But you already feel guilty about it. You almost backed down before we even started. You worry that you'd be forcing me to do something against my will and you can't stand anything but the fullest, most enthusiastic consent on my part. You couldn't even bear to tell me how attracted you were to me when you thought I didn't want you. You'd rather run than fight. Run away from your feelings. Your needs. So ironic for a soldier to be this… scared. Conflicted."
"No," said John. Just that. Denial of everything that was obvious to both of them.
"Your trousers are damp, and not with sweat. Do you need more proof?"
"This once. All I'm asking. Once."
"No. You wouldn't be able to keep it up," said Sherlock, certain. "If you suspected that I might be in any way reluctant or forced, you'd go limp. You'd feel humiliated. The sex would be highly unsatisfying for both of us, though I suppose a small piece of your pride would be appeased."
"I won't," said John, he glanced up, his eyes defiant with anger. "This should be a partnership, not a fight. There's got to be something between you raping me and me raping you. There's got to be some sane ground!"
"I won't let you fail," said Sherlock, ignoring the stupid, pointless words and speaking directly to John's heart. "I won't let you sabotage yourself."
He grabbed the pillow and pulled the cover off of it. Knotting it twice in the middle, leaving the ends loose and long. It's purpose was obvious. Inevitable.
"Please," begged John, then twisted his face away as if in pain. Sherlock could see the lust coiling up in him, tying itself around John's middle as tightly as the gag Sherlock now pressed into his mouth.
"This is how I show my love to you." Sherlock finished tying the knot behind John's neck. "I've taken the responsibility away from you. I'm taking away your guilt. You don't need to protest anymore or insistently ask for things you don't really want. You don't need to worry about my consent because it's obvious that I am doing of my free will. And I really don't care if I do things against your will - I feel no guilt at all for it. So you don't even have that worry to bear."
John snuffed in a breath, his head rocking back. His muscles seemed to vibrate under his skin. He'd backed himself against the bed, too wound up to realize that kneeling like this, his legs were going slowly numb.
"It's delicious to watch you suffer," murmured Sherlock. It was. Gorgeous. "Suffer for me, John. Suffer with absolutely no guilt."
He couldn't bear the wait any longer. Dropping to his knees on the hard wood floor, he ran his long hands over John's bare flesh, feeling the silky texture of it. The roughness of the occasional patch of hair. Tacky here from dried sweat, soft as powder here. And here, the bullet wound, like a raised and angry lump of red. Not enough time had passed for it to fade into the white pit it would eventually become. Sherlock knelt forward and mouthed it, running his tongue over it's texture. It wasn't a new experience, but somehow it always felt like discovery every time he did this.
John moaned behind the gag. Not with pleasure. The wound itched and hurt when heated or touched too firmly. Nerves were still too sensitive. Sherlock sucked the oval scar into his mouth and gently bit on it, getting a satisfying yelp. He backed off, with a kiss, to move farther down.
The nipples were like small rocks, warm, almost firey hot to the touch, fighting the pressure of his fingers as he pinched, first firmly, then with all his strength. Behind the gag John let out a small scream. He released the pressure, and felt John relax, then pinched again. And again. When John stopped jolting, Sherlock gave up the game. Moved on. Always something new.
Sherlock let his hands gently slide down John's sides. The skin here was cooler. John's belly shuddered irregularly, then he twisted and struggled once more as Sherlock's touches grew so soft they could be nothing but ticklish, falling to his side and attempting to squirm away, his legs left floppy and weak from lack of circulation. Kneeling was still strange to him. Sherlock simply shuffled forward to keep with him, tormenting him with feather light touches. At last John was reduced to simply thrashing, growing ever more exhausted. Pain had been more bearable. John's cock had at last detumesced a bit, his trousers growing slack.
"Ah, ah, just so," said Sherlock, more to himself than to John. "I will give you that blow job now. It will take very little to make you come. But that won't end the session." John stared at him, not understanding what Sherlock meant.
John's curled posture was more than a little defensive. It took a careful elbow in just the right spot to get him to straighten up so that Sherlock had access to his belt and the zip of his trousers. The kick was entirely expected and countered with a thumbnail to the large muscle of the thigh.
"Stop fighting me," said Sherlock. "You can't win. Let it go. Let it all go. Accept surrender."
John was too tired to struggle actively. Instead he went entirely stiff. It really didn't make it any more difficult to remove his shoes and shimmy the trousers and pants off of him. It only served to make John look a bit comical, like a store mannequin. A resentful, surly one.
Despite this, John was hard again by the time Sherlock had thrown the rest of his clothes into the pile with his coat. His cock bobbed and a single drop of precum slid down it's side. Sherlock leaned forward on hands and knees and tentatively licked it.
Salty. Smooth texture. A bit of savor. Not unpleasant at all.
John moaned and Sherlock looked up to see him twist his face to one side again. Still fighting himself tenaciously. He wanted so desperately not to be turned on by this. Let it go! Sherlock willed. I've become happy and content with my quirks and needs, you can too!
"I'm following your rules," said Sherlock, soothingly. "Not bending the instructions. Not redefining the dictionary. I'm giving you what you want. Just under my terms. Which, in a very real way, are your terms, too." He then licked up and down the shaft of John's cock. So soft, the veins an interesting diversion. He explored meticulously, working one side, then the other.
At last John bucked. He couldn't help it. His body knew what it needed even if his mind didn't.
Sherlock spoke again, to give John time to back down from the brink. "We are completely compatible, even in this. You need this as much as I do. Just admit it to yourself already. Admit that you don't need to follow some outside convention. Who wins when you deny yourself what clearly feels right? You don't want to be equal to me, John. You really don't. You want me to possess you. To use you. To bully you about mercilessly because that is what makes you feel good. Yes, that. It makes you feel wanted. Needed. Loved.
"And to hell with what society thinks of it. To hell with Anderson and Donovan and all the other sniggering dolts. Who cares about their judgment. Let them make their own lives miserable. I won't let them make mine so. I want to own you, and you want to be owned. We complete each other."
John breathed slowly in with his nose. Relaxing at last. Giving in. At last.
Sherlock leaned back down and took him in his mouth, sucking for the first time and John was just as wound up as before but in a good way this time. Sherlock remembered everything that John had done to him that had felt good, and played it back, slowly, with breaks to prevent John from coming too quickly. Sherlock's technique was only compromised by his need to give himself an occasional relieving squeeze. But he didn't give in to masturbation. The last thing he wanted was to come himself. Not yet.
This was discovery for him, too. Who knew that the brush of a cock against his lips would be so sensual? Who knew that the taste would go straight from his tongue to that part of his brain that controlled his libido? It wasn't rational, or obvious, but it was real. It wasn't just John's need that drove him to suck hard and long, to push as much of that cock into his mouth as he could before it gagged him. This was new territory, very interesting. Fascinating.
Sherlock knew that John was going to come, but he'd reached the point where he couldn't stop himself from continuing. A moment later his mouth was filled with a bitter-salty fluid whose texture, unlike the precum, was gummy and oddly gritty. He spat it out immediately onto John's hip and gagged. That part of this experiment didn't need to be repeated.
John was panting through his nose. His eyes had almost rolled up into his head.
Sherlock smiled. He was still hard, achingly now. Blue-balled. Despite this, he had the patience to strip himself slowly. "Look at me," he ordered John.
John blinked rocked a little to relieve the pressure on his shoulder. Now that the endorphins of sex were waning, the huge knot must be digging uncomfortably in his back. Eventually he'd moved enough to relieve the worst of the discomfort and was able to give Sherlock the attention he demanded. Sherlock watched with satisfaction as his eyes moved from his face, to his hard cock, then back up to his face and he realized what Sherlock meant to do.
John's mouth was occupied, his hands were helpless. There was really only part of him left to accommodate. But Sherlock had never fucked him when he was anything less that fully turned on and now he was satiated. His body longed for sleep not sex. Sherlock could see the questioning look, the fear of pain.
Sherlock took John's sticky cock in his hands and gave it a pump. It remained limp. John twisted and drew his legs up. The refractory period should almost be over, but he wasn't ready for round two.
Good.
Because the first round had been for John's body. This time was for John's soul. This time was about the enjoyment of simply submitting. Of being a part of Sherlock's enjoyment. In a way, this was the most difficult thing for Sherlock to parse because he couldn't fully put himself in John's shoes. Academically he understood the problem, but viscerally he'd never been in a place where he found deferring to someone else a pleasure.
But John did. And even if John didn't, he needed to. Because this had to work.
Sherlock's breath shuddered out, in part due to fear, in part with excitement. He licked his lips and felt and anticipatory crawl of pleasure across his skin at the mere notion of taking John purely, solely for his own pleasure. It wasn't rape, but it was as close to it as one could possibly get. And even if it were rape, it would be okay, since that was what he craved. Every fiber of his being told him that this was the right way to go.
John needed to sacrifice this to know that he could. He needed to sacrifice so Sherlock knew it was okay.
It took willpower not to simply grab John's legs and shove them apart. Take him, unprepared, hard, on the floor. But that would hurt John far more than was necessary and Sherlock truly wasn't that much of a sadist.
Instead he lifted John, helped him to his unsteady feet, then positioned him on the bed in the way that he'd been many times before. The differences occupied Sherlock's mind more than the similarities. Instead of gripping the sheets, John's arms were tight across the small of his back, instead of eyes closed, John's head turned to one side to stare blindly at the wall. John was exposed, open, ready. Sherlock stretched and lubed him with efficiency. He lined up, hands lightly gripping each hip, then slowly, savoring every inch, he sank in.
Stillness. Total quiet. Even John's breath was slow and soft. Sherlock would have liked to have been able to see John's face, but the muscles of his back more than sufficed to tell him that John had reached a moment of true surrender.
It had been like peeling an onion getting to this, but finally there were there: on the same page. This wasn't the angry resignation of their tea, nor the calculating truce afterwards. This wasn't the exhausted surrender to his bonds, nor the sensuous one to Sherlock's mouth. No this one was simple, and pure, and complete. The tension had gone out of his body, and John was simply going to do whatever Sherlock wanted without question or expectation because that was the way things were.
Sherlock groaned and thrust, slowly, drawing it out, letting the friction build with aching slowness. Once, twice, building more speed now. The incompleteness of each thrust added pressure to continue. It was a positive feedback loop, every movement amplifying the need to move more, quicker, harder.
John grunted softly in time. Then he squeezed him gently, intimately, making the friction even more exquisite.
Not just surrender - participation.
Sherlock felt something deep inside fall into place. Relief, as powerful as his lust, rose up to overwhelm him. His hands held on tight to John's hips and he reveled in that little squeeze, that little acknowledgment that this was okay and oh-so-right. Sherlocked thrust, a little more passionately now. A little rougher. And the pleasure that kept ratcheting with clockwork efficiency towards a crisis. Faster now. Faster. And then he'd reached the top and all there was left were the jags of pleasure that blotted everything, even reason, out.
Sherlock pulled out only after he'd softened. Without a sound, John collapsed, lying on his stomach on the bed. His arms relaxed against his bonds. His eyes were closed. Sherlock reached over and smoothed the tousled hair because he could and it appeased his sense of aesthetics.
"So you see," he murmured. "It's not so bad is it? Together, like this? Forever?"
John sighed.
Fresh and damp from the shower, Sherlock reached for his mobile to turn the damn insistent ringing off.
Mycroft. Maybe he should have been surprised Mycroft knew something was up but he was far more surprised that his brother actually waited until he'd showered and dressed. Nosy parker. In any case he was more resigned than resentful for the call.
"Shall I come up?" Mycroft asked, his voice dripping with concern. "Or would you rather come to me?"
Sherlock lifted the drapes long enough to see the car. Typical.
"Been waiting long?"
"I allowed what I thought was a reasonable amount of time. Then doubled it. I'm not sure whether to be envious or appalled."
Sherlock's lips tweaked. "I'll come down."
Less than a minute later he sat in the car next to his brother. Who was, as expected, leveling that look of patented "what have you gotten yourself into this time" disapproval.
"So is this purely a social call or merely coincidentally?" asked Sherlock, not bothering to suppress yawn. His eye grew keener, no dossier, no particular hurry as the car peeled out into the sparse traffic. "Social then. I assume you noticed the domestic? I shall have to go looking for bugs again. Clearly."
"Thermal imaging camera from the opposite building, Sherlock," said Mycroft with a little tut. "If you didn't want me spying, you should have let John go to his coffee, or at least have the foresight to give him a more plausible cover story. What happened between you?"
"I told him the truth about his situation." Sherlock smiled.
Mycroft rolled his eyes. "Why on Earth would you do such a thing! Sometimes I think you sabotage yourself deliberately. Show a little delicacy with him, Sherlock. He's a good man."
"I assure you I haven't wrecked your present."
"If you do, I won't give you another." It was clear warning.
"Ah, but you do have others, don't you."
"Would you truly want one?" It was chiding. And the answer obvious.
"Very well then," Mycroft prattled on. "I think you'll agree, this is my arena more than yours -"
Sherlock glowered. Mycroft hesitated just a tick then continued.
"-- As such I have a number of solutions. Persuasion, by me, I think is the most ideal, but should you insist I keep my face out of the picture, we can move on to more intrusive methods. There are drugs of course. Hypnotics. A tasteless powder can easily be introduced to his nightcap. Record and replay a simple message, and in a week we'll see quite satisfactory responses. Or if you need something more immediate, I can arrange a kidnapping. Let you play hero. All done with the utmost care--"
Sherlock laughed. "Whenever I think I've done something bad, you always come along to show me how much worse I could be."
Mycroft pursed his lips and looked mawkishly wounded. "I only do this because I care."
"If you, or any of your minions touch him, I shall personally break your arm," said Sherlock in a low growl. He had half an urge to do so now.
Mycroft pulled his arms back around his bulk and switched his look to offended. "No need to be snippy. I am on your side."
"It's handled, thank you," said Sherlock. "Your mitts will not be needed."
"Ah, by leaving poor John tied and gagged on your bed? Hardly a permanent solution. Not to mention a bit rough on the poor chaps shoulder. Remember he's been shot."
"Yes, what an interesting thing for you to show concern about. Considering."
Mycroft smiled. "I won't dignify that accusation with a response."
"It's done," said Sherlock. "I handled it. And even though you all but gift wrapped the man, he's still mine, not yours. Never. Ever. Yours. Go drug one of your minions--"
"They are employees," corrected Mycroft.
"Piss off."
And as if on cue, the car stopped in front of 221B Baker. Sherlock swept out of the car and up the stairs, running to his room.
Let it not be too late. Please. Let it not be too late.
John still lay on the bed as he'd been left, but no longer asleep. He turned his head when Sherlock came in. With practiced hands Sherlock pulled apart his own knots and released him. John lay a minute, rubbing his wrists and jaw.
"I was afraid that you'd gone off on one of your missions and forgotten me."
Sherlock grabbed him into a bear hug. He breathed in John's smell, rank with sperm and sweat and lubricant, and that uniqueness that was him. Revolting, yet impossibly desirable.
"Don't leave me, John. I know I have so many failings. Please, don't leave me. Don't let this have driven you away. Please."
John's arms came up and returned the embrace. "I'm not going anywhere."
RATING: NC-17 oh yeah.
PAIRING: Sherlock/John with an appearance by Mycroft.
WARNING: Non-con. Bondage. Rather dark.
WORD COUNT: 9400. Yeah I got a wee bit indulgent.
A/N: This is a direct sequel of The Proposition. It makes more sense to read that one first.
SUMMARY: "I'm not evil," Sherlock said, letting his voice go ever so gentle. "But I'm not good either. I'm amoral. I want what I want, and that happens to be you. Even if you don't want me back, though I'd prefer if you did. Aren't you going to ask what I'd do to you? Aren't you curious to know how far I'd go?"
Nearly a month after their affair began, Sherlock realized that John and he were not on the same page. Possibly not even in the same book.
The trigger was the nonchalant way John reached for his coat without checking to see if Sherlock were even in the room. It wasn't a defiant, I-am-ignoring-you gesture, nor a shy I-don't-want-to-know one, but a truly unconscious you-are-not-a-part-of-my-thoughts-right-now obliviousness.
Sherlock did a double take in his chair and looked harder. This didn't fit. As soon as he realized that, a thousand facts and observations that had hitherto been neatly organized, compartmentalized, and discounted as trivial, heaved to the fore and reshuffled into a new, better fitting arrangement.
Sherlock's hands tightened on the arms of the chair.
"Stop where you are," he ordered firmly.
"What?" John asked, his right arm in the sleeve of his coat. The other sleeve dangled across his back. John, apparently, couldn't walk and chew gum at the same time, or in this case dress and discuss Sherlock's sudden change of attitude.
"No, you may not go out," said Sherlock. "Put your coat back on the hook."
John hesitated. His expression went through a series of quick tics: surprise (this one didn't last long), followed by irritation (continuing), excitement (as always happened when Sherlock ordered him about), and finally, most annoyingly, worry. Sherlock could see the little hamster racing round in his mind, scampering back and forth between the pleasure pleasing him and the bother of canceling a coffee date with an old friend.
Two whole seconds later he finally asked, "Do you have some reason for me to be here?" John's nostrils flared fractionally while he spoke, irritation had increased. He also slightly shifted his weight as if to calm an itch in his groin. You want sex now? Couldn't you pick a more convenient time? he didn't say, and didn't need to.
"Do I need to have a reason?" asked Sherlock, testing.
No shift. John's budding lust backed down, thwarted. John was obviously more interested in his coffee date than simply hanging out. Irritation was winning out.
Ever so delayed came John's verbal reaction. "Yes, you do. You can't just ask for me to put my life aside so that I can twiddle my thumbs while you ignore me."
"Why not?" asked Sherlock.
"Because I'm not your property," said John, firmly.
Wrong! A fierce surge of possessiveness welled up in Sherlock's chest and on its heels frustration.
This was exactly as he feared. John, it seemed, was under the impression that Sherlock had been playacting all this time. He thought their arrangement was some sort of wink-and-nod dominance-and-submission game - a mere kink that could be called off at anytime when one of them got bored of it or it became too much of burden. He'd never been further from the truth.
How could he have misunderstood so badly? Sherlock had spelled it out explicitly. Did he need to draw a map as well? Tattoo it on his hand, perhaps? And yet somehow -- seemingly impossibly, given the fact that John was quite bright for a normal -- he had dismissed their verbal contract as a sex game. A sex game. Really.
Perhaps because they happened to be having sex when John had agreed to it. Hmmm.
"Ah, I see," said John, jumping to some wrong conclusion about Sherlock's silence. "Well, if that's all, don't wait up."
In the time it took John to put on his other sleeve and shrug the coat straight, Sherlock had devised eighty-three ways in which he could prevent John from walking out the door. Seventy-two of them constituted assault of one form or another. He discounted those because John's mobile was in his pocket and he had Lestrade's number on speed dial. The remaining eleven were forms of verbal persuasion.
"A moment, John. I believe you've forgotten something." Appeal to curiosity -- the least likely way to raise John's irritation.
John stopped. "Forgotten what?"
"Your agreement with me."
"To go sixty-forty on the food bill because I eat more than you?"
Now John was being willfully obtuse. Sherlock rolled his eyes. "The terms and conditions of your surrender."
"I wasn't aware that we were at war," said John, his face seemed calm, but the cadence of his speech revealed his interest had picked up. "Or that I had lost."
"You never really had a chance," said Sherlock. "You were outclassed and ambushed."
"You consider me your prisoner?" John shifted his weight, relaxing his shoulders in the process. His lids lowered the tiniest fraction and pupils expanded. Sexual tension up, Sherlock interpreted, guard lowering. John was back into playacting mode. He wasn't taking it seriously. Wrong, wrong, ever so annoyingly wrong!
"Do you have any concept of what a sociopath is?" Sherlock asked.
The shift out of metaphor brought both a quizzical look and a tightening of John's muscles. "Of course."
"Then why on Earth would you decide that what I do is primarily for your sexual gratification?"
"I… I don't," said John. "Listen, I'm not following you. I see that you're irritated with me for something, God only knows what. Do you not want me meeting with Stamford? I assure you this is just a friendly visit, not a romantic tryst."
"This isn't about jealousy, this is about you thinking that what we have between us ends at the bedroom door."
It was John's turn to sigh and touch his hand to his temple, as if Sherlock had something exasperatingly stupid and needed clarification.
"Listen, Sherlock, we've been doing a power play thing, which I admit is pretty kinky. It's a testament to your personal magnetism that I've agreed to go along with it. But it's just for fun. I don't particularly care to go the whole wearing a collar and calling you 'master' route out in public, if that's what you're angling for. People talk enough about us as is. I do have my dignity."
Sherlock bounced in his seat as frustration made it's way to his muscles. He flung out an accusatory finger. "You have it wrong again. Wrong. Completely wrong."
John stared and waited, arms across his chest. Not frightened, not yet. But not playacting either. Confused and annoyed.
"I don't force you to wear a collar and call me master because I find neither of those things remotely appealing," explained Sherlock. "I've read up on BDSM enough to know that it's full of tedious, silly rituals designed to instill trust between the partners, to create a 'safe and sane' environment in case I felt the urge to whip or degrade you. Which by the way, I don't care to do, either."
"--I'm glad you aren't into whipping and degrading."
"You are missing the point. I don't do it because it's irrelevant," said Sherlock, astonishing himself with his patience. "I don't need to put you in your place through symbolic gestures. I don't need some ritualized proof of my power over you."
"I have no argument with that!" said John. Pandering. "In fact, I have no clue what we are even arguing about." Truthful exasperation.
"I don't need to do that because I have power over you! Real power. Not simply your permission. There is nothing safe or sane about our relationship. The fact that don't exercise the fullest, darkest extent of my hold over you is because, up to this point, I haven't needed to. You've cooperated with me freely, and I prefer you to be happy. But don't mistake my priorities. If I'm not happy, I guarantee you won't be."
"Is that a threat?" said John, actually surprised.
"I get no pleasure out of hurting you. I'm not a sadist. But I do need to you to conform to my will, not just in the bedroom. At all times. When I want you to be here, you will be here - even if it's to twiddle your thumbs while I ignore you."
"And that doesn't seem very fair to me. What do I get out of this arrangement?"
"The pleasure of my company. Intellectual stimulation. Sex, at times. Enough stress to keep life interesting to you. And I'm sure if you bothered to put your mind to it, you can find any number of other excuses. But even should you get nothing at all, it wouldn't alter what we are to each other."
"And what's that?" Incredulity.
"You belong to me. You are mine to do with what I wish."
"I'm not a plaything, Sherlock," said John, coldly. "I'm a person. Not a pet." Sexual tension had reached a nadir. Anger and frustration were in the fore. John didn't like this conversation. Tough. "And I don't like you staring at me that way, either."
Sherlock didn't alter his gaze. Now more than ever he needed to be aware of every transient emotion, every fleeting thought that could be discerned. They were at a crux.
"I know full well you are a person." Sherlock kept his voice even and calm. "You would have very little interest to me if you were a dog or an inanimate object. That doesn't make our relationship any less diametric. I control you. You submit to me. You are indeed my property."
There. No sex to confuse the matter. John should finally get it.
But he didn't.
"Oh, codswallop!" John blurted. "You've given in to me on occasions before."
"Really? When?"
"You've … attempted … to pick up after yourself when I've nagged you," reasoned John, his voice just a little more rushed, just a tad higher. Sherlock smiled. "--You usually warn me when you leave body parts around. You've even made me tea on more than one occasion. You don't do that for property."
Sherlock tilted his head. "From any objective standpoint, very little of what I've done for you didn't also benefit myself. Having you stumble accidentally upon my experiments meant a chance that you could mess them up. Even before you came around, I occasionally picked up after myself. I wanted tea as well, it's no harder to make it for two than it is one."
"You are trivializing your actions."
"And you are romanticizing them. I'm a selfish person. Arrogant. Aloof. And very, very dangerous. You were warned, repeatedly, not to become involved with me."
John just shook his head and held onto denial like it was a lifering. "You aren't that entitled." His arms uncrossed and his hands jabbed into the pockets of his coat.
"Am I not? You care to wager on that now? Do you wish to find out what lengths I'll go to prevent you from meeting your friend?" The threat hung in the air, almost visible. John wavered for several seconds, the hamster scampered behind his furrowed brow.
"You aren't an evil person," said John, firmly, but Sherlock recognized a last gasp when he heard one.
"I'm not evil," he said, letting his voice go ever so gentle. "But I'm not good either. I'm amoral. I want what I want, and that happens to be you. Even if you don't want me back, though I'd prefer if you did. Aren't you going to ask what I'd do to you? Aren't you curious to know how far I'd go?"
John had crossed over into fear now. Just a little bit. He could see it in the shape of John's eyes. The narrowing of the pupil. The sudden sharp scent of sweat laced with adrenaline.
"You would actually wreck what is between us to make a point?"
"I wouldn't be wrecking anything, because clearly what you think is between us isn't the case at all. I would merely be correcting a delusion on your part." Sherlock felt a rush. Yes, finally he was breaking through.
"Enough. This isn't fun. Don't make me call Mycroft, Sherlock." It wasn't an idle threat. John's hand was in the pocket with his phone.
"Do you think he will help you? How droll!"
John was taken aback by Sherlock's laugh. Sherlock in turn felt a sharp thrill. The warrior's armor had cracked completely. Sparring was fun.
"What are you saying?"
"Who do you think gave you to me?" Sherlock pointed out. "Do you think I can't recognize interference when a man who is absolutely my type and compatible to a fault just happens to show up when I went looking for a flatmate? The timing of it! The specificity! Who but Mycroft would have the resources and motivation to pull off such a thing?"
"I can't have… no, that's impossible!"
"Really, what of your circumstances since leaving Afghanistan were entirely of your own choosing? SPACES found you that ungodly depressing, overpriced flat; you were assigned an incompetent shrink who ever-so-sweetly undermined your confidence; your luck at finding employment was dismal despite your record of competence. Then, just as your desperation and loneliness had reached a peak, you were contacted out of the blue by an old friend who talked you into a flatshare and just happened to know someone who had one. Surely on some level you must have noticed how you've been bullied around?"
There was a twitch to John's eyes. He had noticed. Perhaps he'd felt helpless about it, perhaps the subtlety and reasonableness of it all had made it impossible to not to go along. Either way, John didn't like having it pointed out. That much was clear.
"If Mycroft gave me to you, you wouldn't have accepted." Flat, statement of fact. Perhaps even a dare to be contradicted.
"You're grasping at straws," Sherlock pointed out. "I'm not going to shoot myself in the foot just to spite my brother. He's a meddling bastard, but a talented one. And if he had to go all the way to Afghanistan to find you, I doubt I'd be so lucky waiting for lightning to strike closer to home."
"Afghanistan?"
Too much, Sherlock recognized. Time to dial it back before John panicked. It was one thing to be threatened with dire but vague consequences, it was another to know that manipulation by gunpoint not only was on the table, but already used. Sherlock didn't want to be shot in his sleep by a man who legitimately feared for his life.
"Listen, you don't need to be afraid of me. I'm not looking to change our relationship. I'm not going to curtail your freedoms, or dictate what you do from moment to moment. I'm not going to kill you in a fit of rage. I'm not going to torment or humiliate you or belittle you any more than I have been. I don't want change. I want things remain as they are."
"How can they be when you've just informed me that I'm your literal prisoner?" John swallowed.
"You've been my prisoner for weeks and it hasn't bothered you. Besides, you agreed to it yourself, so the blame is shared."
"So you are saying, had I taken Mycroft up on his offer of a flat and a job, you really would have let me walk out of your life?"
"I did it with two others. Most likely I would have done the same for you." Sherlock shifted slightly. "Though God only knows where Mycroft would have found your replacement. The States probably. Which begs the question, could I live with that annoyingly flat Midwestern accent? Or worse, Brooklyn. So nasal." He snorted.
"This isn't funny."
"No, it's not. And it's also irrelevant. You don't want to walk out of my life. Not even now."
"The hell I don't! I am not a slave."
Sherlock shook his head. "This is reflex. This is pride telling you to stand up for yourself."
"Damn right it is!"
"If you left me you would be bored out of your mind in days. I know this and you know this, or else you'd have walked out the door already. From then on things would play out in a predictable way: You would seek out dangerous situations, dangerous people, in an attempt to get back something resembling what we have now. But you wouldn't find it. All you would find is abusers who beat you when they get angry, or some dull accountant who would insist you wear a collar and eat from a dog dish in a hollow attempt to seem powerful. There would be no genuine thrills. Only the monotonous plodding of daily life and the company of people who are far beneath you. Day by day, month by month, your intellect would atrophy, your habits would stiffen, and worst of all would be the bitterness of loss which would color everything you did. You would live in regret until you could bear it no more."
"You don't know that."
"Do you honestly think there is another out there in the world like me?"
"No."
Sherlock spread his hands. "Well there you go. Don't fight yourself. Call off your coffee and stay and have tea with me."
John did nothing for several seconds, then he pulled his hand out of his pocket, revealing the mobile he'd been clenching the last few minutes. The face was lightly steamed from the sweat of his hand.
"Hello, Stamford. Something's come up, I'm terribly sorry. I can't get around it. Dreadfully inconvenient. Of course, it's the wages of being on-call. Next Tuesday?" John glanced over to Sherlock who said nothing. "Absolutely." There was a dare in his tone of voice. "Three it is." He put the phone back in his pocket.
"Are you going to make a liar out of me twice?" he asked a moment later.
"You lie quite well without my help."
"I'll make the tea then," John's voice was leaden. Without waiting he walked to the kitchen and filled the electric kettle at the sink. Placing it back on its base, he pushed down the button to start it heating, then reached for cups.
The next move was subtle enough that Sherlock would have missed it if he hadn't been staring. As John placed the mugs beside the kettle, his eyes glanced to the side at the stack of books shoved under the microwave. Sherlock knew that John had meticulously cut a gun shaped cavity in the pages of an artificially dusty 1998 edition Physician's Desk Reference. He also knew there was a very high probability that the gun was in there, though he hadn't checked.
Sherlock didn't believe that John would shoot him. Nonetheless there was a little thrill of terror knowing that John could reach the gun before he could intercept or leave the room. Part of him, a dark part, almost wished he would. Just to see what would happen then. Would Sherlock be able to dodge? Would John hesitate long enough for Sherlock to disarm him? Would John attempt to wing, or would he go for a head shot?
The rational part knew no matter what happened, it would be disaster, with unpleasant consequences spinning out into the future. He wasn't quite that self-destructive.
"If you shoot me, Mycroft will exact his revenge," Sherlock mentioned. "You've seen how revoltingly devoted he is to me. You can be assured not only of the maximum sentence, but also the most unpleasant choice of cellmates."
"I'm not going to shoot you," said John. "I do love you, you know." The last bit carried a tang of hurt. "Even though you're being an utter prick right now."
"You love the danger of it, admit it."
But John's behavior wasn't saying he loved it. The limp was back. The sag in the shoulder. The stiffness in his bad arm.
For the first time Sherlock doubted what he was doing.
John served the tea in silence. It was precisely the way Sherlock liked it. John had made tea often enough to know. He'd poured himself a cup as well, but didn't drink it. Instead he let it slowly cool between the palms of his hands. Sherlock tried to ignore this. He tried to ignore the dead look in John's eye. He tried to ignore the fact that John wasn't turned on the way he'd been all those other times before.
Did thinking it was an act really make that much of a difference? Sherlock wondered. What if John was right and he had just wrecked was between them?
That wasn't a good feeling. It felt like an uncomfortable itch in his chest. A soreness in his throat. Sherlock was shocked at this realization. I don't like John angry with me. It feels… scary.
"Surely," he said, as if they hadn't been sitting in silence for the last ten minutes, "You prefer to know the truth than to labour on under a false impression."
"Can't say as I do."
"But nothing has changed between us!" said Sherlock, feeling slightly desperate.
"Except the little bit where I learn that I have no choice in the matter and never did," John sat back. "I have the worlds smartest man controlling my life, and should he fail, his big bad brother will call the dogs on me."
"I would never call Mycroft to do my dirty work," said Sherlock, insulted.
"Because you don't need to, he'll call himself."
This was true.
"You Holmeses are the most manipulative, self-centered bastards I've ever met. It's terrifying how dependant you've made the world on you."
"The world, you mean yourself."
"Yes, I mean myself!" His frown deepened. "Why, Sherlock? Why would you do this to me?"
"Because I love you," said Sherlock. "Because, damn it, Mycroft is hideously clever and much as I want to spit in his smarmy face, I can't resist his gift. The thought of you leaving me, ever, is unbearable."
John's expression softened. "I don't want to leave you. You don't have to clench me in your fist to keep me."
"No, I do," said Sherlock. That uncomfortable feeling deepened, skirting perilously close to panic. "I can't help it. I can't. This is why I don't let people in, John. If I don't care, I don't care. Those around me are free to do as they wish. But when I start caring - my mind won't stop until I've achieved what I want. I don't let things go."
"Even if I promised I'd stay?"
"You say that now, but what about the future? What if you meet someone more socially adept and physically attractive? What if I irritate you too much?" Sherlock's heart raced and pressed his sweaty palms flat against his pants. He was being absolutely textbook in his tell-tales, but perhaps that was just as well if it helped convince John of his sincerity.
But John, ever more conscious of Sherlock's words than his actions, let his mouth form into an incredulous gape. "Did you just hear yourself? A few minutes ago you argued, beautifully, about how I devastated I would be at losing you, and yet now you accuse me of being fickle? Do you hear the broken logic?"
"My logic is perfectly sound," said Sherlock, defensively. "Short-sighted behavior has to be factored in. You can't help being stupid." John rolled his eyes. "I'm not saying that to be insulting. I'm aware and accept my social flaws, you should be aware of your intellectual ones."
"You'll have to trust me," said John.
"Trust is nothing but an assumption that the status quo will be kept." Sherlock glanced away from John for the first time since the encounter began. "Only a fool relies on it when it comes to the important things."
He heard John put his cooled cup on the tray table and run his fingers through his own hair.
"John, please help me," said Sherlock, looking back. John's hair was ruffled and his face looked dogged and sad. In that moment, Sherlock wanted nothing more than to cross the space between them and smooth the hair down, feel the warmth of his skin benieth his hands. Bury his nose behind John's ear and smell everything he could. He wanted to feel John's body melt under his, conform, mold itself to his chest as if it were an extension of his own flesh. But John's stare was guarded and forbidding and everything about his posture said that he wouldn't melt. He'd go wooden.
"Help you?"
"I don't like the way you are right now. And I find myself at a loss. How can I make you happy without making myself miserable?"
"Well, helping me push this mess back into the realm of consensual would be nice. Maybe what we need is some ground rules."
No, was Sherlock's first urge. He hated rules. Most of them were unnecessary and many of them got in the way. But caution made him curb his tongue. After all, John had all but told him that he preferred a lie to the truth. And besides he wanted his happy, cooperative John back.
Sherlock hedged. "Very well. Within reason." So long as they were something he might do anyway. So long as it wasn't boring. Maybe he could consider it a challenge, though it seemed an awfully artificial one.
"Rule One: You can boss me around as much as you like in the bedroom. I actually like that."
"Done." Sherlock smiled. This didn't sound too bad.
"Rule Two: Outside of the bedroom, you need a reason. And if I don't think the reason is good enough, I reserve the right to tell you to sod the hell off."
"Dull." Sherlock's smile dropped. "What if doing it would make me happy? Is my happiness a good enough reason?"
John's eyes narrowed, sensing a trap. "Getting your way all the time makes you happy, so no. However, I can give you, say, one 'just do this' pass a day. Use it wisely."
Sherlock lips quirked. He was fairly confident he could work around that.
"Rule Three, and I mean this: Don't in any way suggest that I am your pet, slave, possession or any of that in front of others, that includes not pulling the 'do this' card in company. I already have a reputation as your doormat, it doesn't need reinforcing. Besides it sounds creepy."
Lame, thought Sherlock and dismissed it off into the 'ignore' file.
"And Rule Four: If you get one 'do this' card, so do I."
"What do you mean?" asked Sherlock sitting up.
"I can ask you to do one thing, no reason, and you'll do it."
"Oh, but that is stupid!"
"It's fair."
"You'll ask for something horribly daft, I know it. Probably get us both killed." Sherlock crossed his arms over his chest and pouted.
"If it presents a clear danger to life and limb, you are free to tell me piss off. But not if it's just disagreeable." John was firm. "Also I'll point out that implying that I'm a terrific imbecile just because you are mad at me doesn't actually improve my mood. -- Oh, for God's sake," he snapped when Sherlock leveled a look of annoyance. "Can't you, just this once, not be a total prig?"
Sherlock looked away, hurt. He knew he was being insufferably selfish. That was his nature, always had been. And he'd been fine with that. Normally. But now he actually wanted something that selfishness couldn't give him. This sucked!
-- But maybe there was a way out.
"All right, I'll consider it," said Sherlock, slyly. He could do the "cursed wishes" gambit. A bit passive aggressive, perhaps, but likely John would dismiss the rule as too much bother if it was consistently negatively reinforced. Eventually John would have to realize that he was asking too much and let things slide back to the way they'd been before. The way that things worked.
To Sherlock's relief, John relaxed. "Okay."
Then a small, tight smile appeared on his face. "Let's test this. I'm using my 'do this' card. Since you had me cancel what I wanted to do this afternoon, I feel I should at least get something nice in return for the favor. How about you give me a blow job for once."
Even though John's words were reasonable, Sherlock's insides rankled uncomfortably at being ordered. He didn't like the feeling. As the moment stretched the feeling only got worse. It felt like a weight being clamped around his chest while his stomach seemed to scrabble for escape from his body. The urge to say "fuck off" rose and it was all he could do to keep the words pinched off. He jumped to his feet and tried to pace out the feeling.
"Take your time," said John, smile gone. "I'm not going anywhere. Apparently."
"This will make you not mad at me anymore?" asked Sherlock cautiously. There at least would be a temptation.
"It will improve my mood a lot," assured John.
"Very well." Sherlock hesitated as the first problem reared its head. Should he give a stunning blowjob, and reinforce John's idea that it was a good idea to order him about? Or to give a stunningly poor blowjob, and imply that he was incompetent at something simple and basic? Which was worse? Both options seemed bad.
Then an achingly long half second later the answer came to him. Obvious, obvious! Stupidly, obvious. If he hadn't been thrown into such a panic, he'd have seen it right away. John had handed the answer on a plate earlier.
"Off we go, then," said Sherlock, feeling better than he had since this whole altercation had started. Feeling downright glorious, in fact. He couldn't contain a little leap in his step as he walked purposely to his bedroom (his bedroom, it was important) and waited in the door for John to follow.
John got up, shaking his head slightly. Not nearly as suspicious as he should have been given Sherlock's change of attitude. Ah, the wonders of the dull ordinary mind, so easy to manipulate. Still Sherlock couldn't help but try to hurry him up, "Come come, your blowjob awaits."
John narrowed his eyes slightly. "Are you really going to give me a blowjob?"
"Absolutely," said Sherlock, in a low voice, putting all the sincerity he could into the word. He certainly was, and it would be a stunningly good one.
John rocked backwards, "You can pin a person with that stare," he said. "Okay, I believe you. I'm just a bit surprised. You've never given one before."
"You've demonstrated often enough, I'm sure I can manage."
"It's just that you seem to not like the idea," John was wavering. The idea of making Sherlock do something he didn't want to do was already starting to weigh on his conscious. That was good, but in this case Sherlock actually wanted to give the damn blowjob.
"There is a first time for everything. I didn't see the purpose before, being that it wasn't my own genitals being stimulated. But now I see the point. Besides it expends your one daily wish on something that won't hurt anything and sounds pleasingly challenging. Now please, into the room. I'm hard."
He was, wonderfully hard. Rock hard. The thrill of the chase was on him and his quarry was mere inches away from the trap. And John really needed to move those last little bit, get his feet over the threshold before Sherlock wrecked everything by pushing him.
Move, move, move, please, God, John just move already.
Finally, John took the last step in, both feet across the threshold (important!) and Sherlock closed the door behind them for emphasis. There is no possible way to deny where they were.
Rule One stated that Sherlock was free to boss John around as he liked in the bedroom. Rule One said that John liked that.
With a single yank, Sherlock pulled the coat off John's back and send it, and the mobile within, into a corner. John jumped, surprised and raised his arms defensively, Sherlock's second move was to grasp the jumper by the waist and pull upwards, using his extra inches and longer reach to full advantage. Sherlock stopped tugging when the jumper was half off, John's face hidden under the fabric, his arms, bent at the elbows, now awkwardly trapped in the material.
"Careful!" said John, his voice muffled by the wool.
Sherlock spun him and gave a solid push, sending him face forward into the mattress. Two more yanks and the Jumper was now free of John's face, but still trapped around his forearms. Sherlock considered, then rejected a notion. The wool was far too stretchy for the purposes he had in mind. The shirt beneath, however, was perfect. A moment later the jumper made a soft landing near the coat.
John was breathless. "I'm pretty sure this is not a blow job."
"Only pretty sure?" asked Sherlock amused and delighted at the connotations. "Do I truly have that latitude? Can I redefine the dictionary to suit my needs? Fascinating."
He let John roll over. Needed him to, really, for this next bit.
"What?" asked John, distracted again by Sherlock's teasing. "No! No, you don't get to redefine the dictionary! You can't turn my 'do this' into something completely different because you decided that 'this' means whatever the hell you've made up!"
John was concentrating far too much on his words and not nearly enough on what Sherlock was doing to his shirt. So it was that it caught him by surprised when the buttons of his starched white oxford went flying in every direction as Sherlock simply grabbed both sides and yanked apart.
"Hey! That cost 20 quid!"
Sherlock grinned fiercely. "The shirt is not permanently damaged. You can sew the buttons back on later."
Taking advantage of the disconcertion, Sherlock rolled John back onto his belly and pulled the shirt off his shoulders. The cuffs, still buttoned, caught on John's hands and would come off no further. But then that was the intent. He looped the inside-out sleeves thrice around John's wrists and then tightened the bonds using the shirt tails. When he was done the work shirt had wadded into a large, unwieldy knot, with John's hands tightly balled in the fabric, unable to flex, much less pick apart Sherlock's work.
"What are you doing?" John asked when Sherlock finished the last knot. He tested the bonds carefully. "Are you tying me up? After what we just discussed?"
Sherlock raised an eyebrow that John couldn't see, given his belly down position. "You seem surprised."
"Wait a second, I thought we agreed this was my turn! I used my 'do this' card. I get to say what we do!"
"You used your 'do this' for a blow job. If you wanted to play the dominant partner you should have specified that."
"Okay, I'm specifying it now! Untie me."
"Too late, the card is used up."
"Well then I'm just disagreeing to this."
"But we are already in the bedroom. You gave me specific permission to do what I like to you here. 'Boss you around,' I believe were the words." Sherlock put a gentle hand on John's clothed thigh, then suddenly pushed between the mattress and his body, seeking, then finding the erection he knew would be there. "Oh yes, I can feel how much you disagree with this," he purred.
John gave up verbalizing in favor of struggle. He thrashed and pulled in vain, trying to push his fingers through the fabric, trying to use his shoulders and elbows to force one of the other hand past the knot. The movements became more frantic as time went on. Rolling over one way, then the other, then sliding off the bed entirely to kneel on the floor. The room smelled deliciously of adrenaline, sweat, and arousal.
Sherlock merely stood back and watched in deep satisfaction. He could keep John like this. Half naked, his skin in goosepimples. Nipples hard from evaporation and chill. Blood and effort had turned John's cheeks rosy and his lips dark. He gasped and grunted, his efforts coming in little fruitless spurts, now. Repeating the same twisting and rubbing that had gained him nothing all the times before. He could keep John like this for hours. For days. Years.
"Sherlock," John said, surrender making his voice soft and pleading. "Can't you let me have this once? Just once? This…."
He couldn't even articulate what he wanted. But Sherlock knew. He could see the torment of need and the conflict of John's pride warring it out with each other. Good sense was in there too, weakly throwing in its part in a three way battle towards a terribly unsatisfying goal. What John thought he wanted - thought he should want -- was to take control and demand that they be equals. He thought that was the manly thing to want. The sane thing to want.
But it wasn't what John wanted.
Sherlock shushed him with his finger against John's lips. He could feel the throb of blood in them. John's breath caressed his hand.
"If I let you take over, John, you would demand that blow job because you feel that it would put you on equal footing with me. Therefore it seems the proper thing to do. But you already feel guilty about it. You almost backed down before we even started. You worry that you'd be forcing me to do something against my will and you can't stand anything but the fullest, most enthusiastic consent on my part. You couldn't even bear to tell me how attracted you were to me when you thought I didn't want you. You'd rather run than fight. Run away from your feelings. Your needs. So ironic for a soldier to be this… scared. Conflicted."
"No," said John. Just that. Denial of everything that was obvious to both of them.
"Your trousers are damp, and not with sweat. Do you need more proof?"
"This once. All I'm asking. Once."
"No. You wouldn't be able to keep it up," said Sherlock, certain. "If you suspected that I might be in any way reluctant or forced, you'd go limp. You'd feel humiliated. The sex would be highly unsatisfying for both of us, though I suppose a small piece of your pride would be appeased."
"I won't," said John, he glanced up, his eyes defiant with anger. "This should be a partnership, not a fight. There's got to be something between you raping me and me raping you. There's got to be some sane ground!"
"I won't let you fail," said Sherlock, ignoring the stupid, pointless words and speaking directly to John's heart. "I won't let you sabotage yourself."
He grabbed the pillow and pulled the cover off of it. Knotting it twice in the middle, leaving the ends loose and long. It's purpose was obvious. Inevitable.
"Please," begged John, then twisted his face away as if in pain. Sherlock could see the lust coiling up in him, tying itself around John's middle as tightly as the gag Sherlock now pressed into his mouth.
"This is how I show my love to you." Sherlock finished tying the knot behind John's neck. "I've taken the responsibility away from you. I'm taking away your guilt. You don't need to protest anymore or insistently ask for things you don't really want. You don't need to worry about my consent because it's obvious that I am doing of my free will. And I really don't care if I do things against your will - I feel no guilt at all for it. So you don't even have that worry to bear."
John snuffed in a breath, his head rocking back. His muscles seemed to vibrate under his skin. He'd backed himself against the bed, too wound up to realize that kneeling like this, his legs were going slowly numb.
"It's delicious to watch you suffer," murmured Sherlock. It was. Gorgeous. "Suffer for me, John. Suffer with absolutely no guilt."
He couldn't bear the wait any longer. Dropping to his knees on the hard wood floor, he ran his long hands over John's bare flesh, feeling the silky texture of it. The roughness of the occasional patch of hair. Tacky here from dried sweat, soft as powder here. And here, the bullet wound, like a raised and angry lump of red. Not enough time had passed for it to fade into the white pit it would eventually become. Sherlock knelt forward and mouthed it, running his tongue over it's texture. It wasn't a new experience, but somehow it always felt like discovery every time he did this.
John moaned behind the gag. Not with pleasure. The wound itched and hurt when heated or touched too firmly. Nerves were still too sensitive. Sherlock sucked the oval scar into his mouth and gently bit on it, getting a satisfying yelp. He backed off, with a kiss, to move farther down.
The nipples were like small rocks, warm, almost firey hot to the touch, fighting the pressure of his fingers as he pinched, first firmly, then with all his strength. Behind the gag John let out a small scream. He released the pressure, and felt John relax, then pinched again. And again. When John stopped jolting, Sherlock gave up the game. Moved on. Always something new.
Sherlock let his hands gently slide down John's sides. The skin here was cooler. John's belly shuddered irregularly, then he twisted and struggled once more as Sherlock's touches grew so soft they could be nothing but ticklish, falling to his side and attempting to squirm away, his legs left floppy and weak from lack of circulation. Kneeling was still strange to him. Sherlock simply shuffled forward to keep with him, tormenting him with feather light touches. At last John was reduced to simply thrashing, growing ever more exhausted. Pain had been more bearable. John's cock had at last detumesced a bit, his trousers growing slack.
"Ah, ah, just so," said Sherlock, more to himself than to John. "I will give you that blow job now. It will take very little to make you come. But that won't end the session." John stared at him, not understanding what Sherlock meant.
John's curled posture was more than a little defensive. It took a careful elbow in just the right spot to get him to straighten up so that Sherlock had access to his belt and the zip of his trousers. The kick was entirely expected and countered with a thumbnail to the large muscle of the thigh.
"Stop fighting me," said Sherlock. "You can't win. Let it go. Let it all go. Accept surrender."
John was too tired to struggle actively. Instead he went entirely stiff. It really didn't make it any more difficult to remove his shoes and shimmy the trousers and pants off of him. It only served to make John look a bit comical, like a store mannequin. A resentful, surly one.
Despite this, John was hard again by the time Sherlock had thrown the rest of his clothes into the pile with his coat. His cock bobbed and a single drop of precum slid down it's side. Sherlock leaned forward on hands and knees and tentatively licked it.
Salty. Smooth texture. A bit of savor. Not unpleasant at all.
John moaned and Sherlock looked up to see him twist his face to one side again. Still fighting himself tenaciously. He wanted so desperately not to be turned on by this. Let it go! Sherlock willed. I've become happy and content with my quirks and needs, you can too!
"I'm following your rules," said Sherlock, soothingly. "Not bending the instructions. Not redefining the dictionary. I'm giving you what you want. Just under my terms. Which, in a very real way, are your terms, too." He then licked up and down the shaft of John's cock. So soft, the veins an interesting diversion. He explored meticulously, working one side, then the other.
At last John bucked. He couldn't help it. His body knew what it needed even if his mind didn't.
Sherlock spoke again, to give John time to back down from the brink. "We are completely compatible, even in this. You need this as much as I do. Just admit it to yourself already. Admit that you don't need to follow some outside convention. Who wins when you deny yourself what clearly feels right? You don't want to be equal to me, John. You really don't. You want me to possess you. To use you. To bully you about mercilessly because that is what makes you feel good. Yes, that. It makes you feel wanted. Needed. Loved.
"And to hell with what society thinks of it. To hell with Anderson and Donovan and all the other sniggering dolts. Who cares about their judgment. Let them make their own lives miserable. I won't let them make mine so. I want to own you, and you want to be owned. We complete each other."
John breathed slowly in with his nose. Relaxing at last. Giving in. At last.
Sherlock leaned back down and took him in his mouth, sucking for the first time and John was just as wound up as before but in a good way this time. Sherlock remembered everything that John had done to him that had felt good, and played it back, slowly, with breaks to prevent John from coming too quickly. Sherlock's technique was only compromised by his need to give himself an occasional relieving squeeze. But he didn't give in to masturbation. The last thing he wanted was to come himself. Not yet.
This was discovery for him, too. Who knew that the brush of a cock against his lips would be so sensual? Who knew that the taste would go straight from his tongue to that part of his brain that controlled his libido? It wasn't rational, or obvious, but it was real. It wasn't just John's need that drove him to suck hard and long, to push as much of that cock into his mouth as he could before it gagged him. This was new territory, very interesting. Fascinating.
Sherlock knew that John was going to come, but he'd reached the point where he couldn't stop himself from continuing. A moment later his mouth was filled with a bitter-salty fluid whose texture, unlike the precum, was gummy and oddly gritty. He spat it out immediately onto John's hip and gagged. That part of this experiment didn't need to be repeated.
John was panting through his nose. His eyes had almost rolled up into his head.
Sherlock smiled. He was still hard, achingly now. Blue-balled. Despite this, he had the patience to strip himself slowly. "Look at me," he ordered John.
John blinked rocked a little to relieve the pressure on his shoulder. Now that the endorphins of sex were waning, the huge knot must be digging uncomfortably in his back. Eventually he'd moved enough to relieve the worst of the discomfort and was able to give Sherlock the attention he demanded. Sherlock watched with satisfaction as his eyes moved from his face, to his hard cock, then back up to his face and he realized what Sherlock meant to do.
John's mouth was occupied, his hands were helpless. There was really only part of him left to accommodate. But Sherlock had never fucked him when he was anything less that fully turned on and now he was satiated. His body longed for sleep not sex. Sherlock could see the questioning look, the fear of pain.
Sherlock took John's sticky cock in his hands and gave it a pump. It remained limp. John twisted and drew his legs up. The refractory period should almost be over, but he wasn't ready for round two.
Good.
Because the first round had been for John's body. This time was for John's soul. This time was about the enjoyment of simply submitting. Of being a part of Sherlock's enjoyment. In a way, this was the most difficult thing for Sherlock to parse because he couldn't fully put himself in John's shoes. Academically he understood the problem, but viscerally he'd never been in a place where he found deferring to someone else a pleasure.
But John did. And even if John didn't, he needed to. Because this had to work.
Sherlock's breath shuddered out, in part due to fear, in part with excitement. He licked his lips and felt and anticipatory crawl of pleasure across his skin at the mere notion of taking John purely, solely for his own pleasure. It wasn't rape, but it was as close to it as one could possibly get. And even if it were rape, it would be okay, since that was what he craved. Every fiber of his being told him that this was the right way to go.
John needed to sacrifice this to know that he could. He needed to sacrifice so Sherlock knew it was okay.
It took willpower not to simply grab John's legs and shove them apart. Take him, unprepared, hard, on the floor. But that would hurt John far more than was necessary and Sherlock truly wasn't that much of a sadist.
Instead he lifted John, helped him to his unsteady feet, then positioned him on the bed in the way that he'd been many times before. The differences occupied Sherlock's mind more than the similarities. Instead of gripping the sheets, John's arms were tight across the small of his back, instead of eyes closed, John's head turned to one side to stare blindly at the wall. John was exposed, open, ready. Sherlock stretched and lubed him with efficiency. He lined up, hands lightly gripping each hip, then slowly, savoring every inch, he sank in.
Stillness. Total quiet. Even John's breath was slow and soft. Sherlock would have liked to have been able to see John's face, but the muscles of his back more than sufficed to tell him that John had reached a moment of true surrender.
It had been like peeling an onion getting to this, but finally there were there: on the same page. This wasn't the angry resignation of their tea, nor the calculating truce afterwards. This wasn't the exhausted surrender to his bonds, nor the sensuous one to Sherlock's mouth. No this one was simple, and pure, and complete. The tension had gone out of his body, and John was simply going to do whatever Sherlock wanted without question or expectation because that was the way things were.
Sherlock groaned and thrust, slowly, drawing it out, letting the friction build with aching slowness. Once, twice, building more speed now. The incompleteness of each thrust added pressure to continue. It was a positive feedback loop, every movement amplifying the need to move more, quicker, harder.
John grunted softly in time. Then he squeezed him gently, intimately, making the friction even more exquisite.
Not just surrender - participation.
Sherlock felt something deep inside fall into place. Relief, as powerful as his lust, rose up to overwhelm him. His hands held on tight to John's hips and he reveled in that little squeeze, that little acknowledgment that this was okay and oh-so-right. Sherlocked thrust, a little more passionately now. A little rougher. And the pleasure that kept ratcheting with clockwork efficiency towards a crisis. Faster now. Faster. And then he'd reached the top and all there was left were the jags of pleasure that blotted everything, even reason, out.
Sherlock pulled out only after he'd softened. Without a sound, John collapsed, lying on his stomach on the bed. His arms relaxed against his bonds. His eyes were closed. Sherlock reached over and smoothed the tousled hair because he could and it appeased his sense of aesthetics.
"So you see," he murmured. "It's not so bad is it? Together, like this? Forever?"
John sighed.
Fresh and damp from the shower, Sherlock reached for his mobile to turn the damn insistent ringing off.
Mycroft. Maybe he should have been surprised Mycroft knew something was up but he was far more surprised that his brother actually waited until he'd showered and dressed. Nosy parker. In any case he was more resigned than resentful for the call.
"Shall I come up?" Mycroft asked, his voice dripping with concern. "Or would you rather come to me?"
Sherlock lifted the drapes long enough to see the car. Typical.
"Been waiting long?"
"I allowed what I thought was a reasonable amount of time. Then doubled it. I'm not sure whether to be envious or appalled."
Sherlock's lips tweaked. "I'll come down."
Less than a minute later he sat in the car next to his brother. Who was, as expected, leveling that look of patented "what have you gotten yourself into this time" disapproval.
"So is this purely a social call or merely coincidentally?" asked Sherlock, not bothering to suppress yawn. His eye grew keener, no dossier, no particular hurry as the car peeled out into the sparse traffic. "Social then. I assume you noticed the domestic? I shall have to go looking for bugs again. Clearly."
"Thermal imaging camera from the opposite building, Sherlock," said Mycroft with a little tut. "If you didn't want me spying, you should have let John go to his coffee, or at least have the foresight to give him a more plausible cover story. What happened between you?"
"I told him the truth about his situation." Sherlock smiled.
Mycroft rolled his eyes. "Why on Earth would you do such a thing! Sometimes I think you sabotage yourself deliberately. Show a little delicacy with him, Sherlock. He's a good man."
"I assure you I haven't wrecked your present."
"If you do, I won't give you another." It was clear warning.
"Ah, but you do have others, don't you."
"Would you truly want one?" It was chiding. And the answer obvious.
"Very well then," Mycroft prattled on. "I think you'll agree, this is my arena more than yours -"
Sherlock glowered. Mycroft hesitated just a tick then continued.
"-- As such I have a number of solutions. Persuasion, by me, I think is the most ideal, but should you insist I keep my face out of the picture, we can move on to more intrusive methods. There are drugs of course. Hypnotics. A tasteless powder can easily be introduced to his nightcap. Record and replay a simple message, and in a week we'll see quite satisfactory responses. Or if you need something more immediate, I can arrange a kidnapping. Let you play hero. All done with the utmost care--"
Sherlock laughed. "Whenever I think I've done something bad, you always come along to show me how much worse I could be."
Mycroft pursed his lips and looked mawkishly wounded. "I only do this because I care."
"If you, or any of your minions touch him, I shall personally break your arm," said Sherlock in a low growl. He had half an urge to do so now.
Mycroft pulled his arms back around his bulk and switched his look to offended. "No need to be snippy. I am on your side."
"It's handled, thank you," said Sherlock. "Your mitts will not be needed."
"Ah, by leaving poor John tied and gagged on your bed? Hardly a permanent solution. Not to mention a bit rough on the poor chaps shoulder. Remember he's been shot."
"Yes, what an interesting thing for you to show concern about. Considering."
Mycroft smiled. "I won't dignify that accusation with a response."
"It's done," said Sherlock. "I handled it. And even though you all but gift wrapped the man, he's still mine, not yours. Never. Ever. Yours. Go drug one of your minions--"
"They are employees," corrected Mycroft.
"Piss off."
And as if on cue, the car stopped in front of 221B Baker. Sherlock swept out of the car and up the stairs, running to his room.
Let it not be too late. Please. Let it not be too late.
John still lay on the bed as he'd been left, but no longer asleep. He turned his head when Sherlock came in. With practiced hands Sherlock pulled apart his own knots and released him. John lay a minute, rubbing his wrists and jaw.
"I was afraid that you'd gone off on one of your missions and forgotten me."
Sherlock grabbed him into a bear hug. He breathed in John's smell, rank with sperm and sweat and lubricant, and that uniqueness that was him. Revolting, yet impossibly desirable.
"Don't leave me, John. I know I have so many failings. Please, don't leave me. Don't let this have driven you away. Please."
John's arms came up and returned the embrace. "I'm not going anywhere."