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“Ground rules.”
“Ground rules for—”
“I’m speaking. You’re listening.”
…
“I’m going to prepare myself. You’re going to wear nothing but your cologne and fuck me. You’re not going to breathe a word or make a sound and you’ll keep your hands and your lips to yourself. You’re not to touch me anywhere but my hips, only if you must. Try to avoid it. When I come you’re going to pull out and leave. I don’t care if you come.”
“Wha—”
“No.” John keeps his gaze averted, unable to spare so much as a glance in Sherlock’s direction. “I need to know if I was close.”
Sherlock shuffles from one foot to the other, unsure of what to do. Clearly, he’s not to speak, but he’s at a loss as to what to do. Are they going to do this now? Is this a one-time thing? What does John mean when he says, “I need to know if I was close.”
He'd assumed that he’d be the penetrated party the few times he’d deigned to imagine a sexual rendezvous with John. John was the dominating type, a staunchly heterosexual man with the instinct to rut and penetrate, not open himself to another man’s pleasure.
But it’s evident that John’s just intending to use him. It sounds like an experiment. Whether Sherlock derives any pleasure isn’t of any concern. It’s bloody lucky that Sherlock’s already hard in his trousers, even if John doesn’t know it. Though he must know Sherlock’s aroused by him, if he’s so keen on demanding this.
Before him, John takes a deep breath and turns on his heel to retreat into the house. He makes no indication that Sherlock should follow, nor that he should leave, so Sherlock chooses to follow. It’s quiet, but for John’s steady tread and the click of Sherlock’s shoes. John’s left hand is trembling.
John pauses momentarily at his bedroom door—the bedroom he shares with Mary—before crossing the threshold. Sherlock doesn’t follow him inside, opting to linger in the doorway. John ignores him still.
Slowly, methodically, John removes a box from his wardrobe and a smaller box from his sock drawer. He hides them separately, so they appear unconnected to anyone dumb enough to snoop. But the wear patterns on the edges indicate they receive the same amount of use for the same amount of time. Neither box comes out without the other.
John lays out the first box, settling himself cross-legged on the bed where he silently peruses the contents. From the doorway, Sherlock can only make out so much, but he’s able to spot a crystal ashtray, a dirty pink phone case, and a series of photographs, the details of which aren’t clear. But the purpose is clear as day, it’s a memory box.
After several minutes of this, John reaches for the second box and removes the contents. A bottle of personal lubricant and a moderately sized silicone dildo lay next to John as he begins to shuck his clothes, eyes trained on the contents of box number one. He wriggles himself out of his shoes, socks, trousers, jumper, and pants and settles down against the bedding, staunchly ignoring where Sherlock lingers in the doorway.
John reaches for something else in box number one, removing a well-sealed bottle of Sherlock’s cologne. Carefully, as though handling glass, he unscrews the lid enough to swipe a finger around the edge and trace the faintest bit of the cologne down his chest. Sherlock can’t smell it from here, but he knows it’s what he used to wear before he Fell. Scent is a powerful sense, and John’s cleverly managed to include it in his ritual, placing the sealed bottle next to his hip.
Sherlock didn’t think this is how he’d see John nude for the first time. He’d imagined it fiery, passionate, intense after an adrenaline-fuelled chase. Or even tender, after confessed feelings and perhaps a bit of alcohol. Never so bleak.
Instead, Sherlock is left to linger like the ghost he once was, quietly watching John carrying out a routine far too practised to be a new phenomenon. And as a ghost, he watches as John’s fingers collect a bit of lubricant before drifting down and disappearing between his legs. From this angle, Sherlock can’t see where exactly John’s intended his fingers to go, but he’s a reasonably good enough detective to deduce what John’s doing. In a kind of reverie, Sherlock hardly registers how John’s cock has plumped up and how he’s taken it in hand and begun stroking lightly.
Moments later, John grasps the dildo and replaces his fingers with the blunt end of the sex toy. And with a deep breath, he tenses and Sherlock can vividly imagine the solid slide into John’s tight heat. John’s eyes fall closed and something overtakes his expression, something broken but peaceful.
And, while this scene plays out, somewhere, in the back of Sherlock’s addled brain, John’s voice appears.
“I’m going to prepare myself.”
And prepare himself he certainly did, the slightest wrist movement indicating how well he’s prepared himself for the dildo.
“You’re going to wear nothing but your cologne and fuck me.”
So Sherlock does just that. As quiet as can be, he slips out of his shoes and his clothing, leaving it all in a puddle in the corridor for easy retrieval. Daring not to breathe, he creeps to the side of the bed where John has left the cologne lying, and just as John did, Sherlock anoints himself with the barest hint of cologne, all but thrown back in time to before he Fell. Before he left.
“You’re not going to breathe a word or make a sound and you’ll keep your hands and your lips to yourself.”
John’s eyes are still closed as Sherlock rounds the bed to where John’s legs have fallen open, his right hand manipulating the dildo just barely, the silicone prick hardly moving at all. Sherlock climbs up onto the bed, looming over John’s splayed figure, mesmerised by the naked body before him.
Though his eyes remain tightly shut, John relinquishes his grip on the dildo and allows the toy to slip from his body. Sherlock moves it to the side, careful not to brush against any part of John. He uses the lubricant coating the dildo to slick himself up and wastes no time lining himself up and slipping inside.
It takes every ounce of control for Sherlock to remain silent. He keeps his breathing even and bites back the cry that threatens to fall from his lips. He’s inside John, for the first time, for the last time?
He mimics the subtle movements John had been using on the dildo, pulsing in and out with the faintest rhythm, penetrating deep but keeping his hips to the barest flutter.
Sherlock can’t close his eyes, the tight squeeze of John’s body surrounding his prick capturing his attention somehow less than the vision before him.
“You’re not to touch me anywhere but my hips, only if you must. Try to avoid it.”
John’s thinner than before the fall, perhaps a bit more toned, but he’s lost any semblance of the tan he once had. A smattering of golden hairs spill over his chest, creeping down his torso to end in a coarse nest of pubic hair surrounding his engorged, pink cock. Sherlock wants to touch, wants to taste, but takes heed of John’s warnings and keeps his hands to himself, palms planted firmly on either side while he thrusts in and out by millimetres.
Sherlock never thought they’d be here. Never imagined he’d be leaning over John, nestled deep inside his body while John’s hand pulls and twists over his cock.
It’s too much, it’s not enough. Sherlock wants to pound into the body beneath him, let his hips grow erratic as he thrusts harder into John’s tight, wet hole. He wants to capture the parted lips in a proper kiss, trace down the collarbones, taste the sunburst scar on his left shoulder.
And yet, with no more than a hint of movement, he’s able to stay still, breathing silently through his nose while John’s respiration increases, the rhythmic clenching picking up speed and grasping Sherlock’s cock where he’s pressed inside John.
“When I come you’re going to pull out and leave.”
John comes with a smothered cry, his arse clamping down around Sherlock’s cock, pulsing around his throbbing erection, while his prick erupts over his belly and up to his chest.
Sherlock tenses as John comes, feeling the release as both buoyant elation and the weight of the world threatening to crush him.
But, instead of revelling in any sense of fulfilment, he dutifully pulls out of John’s limp figure. Backing off the bed and away from John, Sherlock analyses the scene before him.
John’s thrown one arm over his face, obscuring his eyes, but the tear tracks glistening in the afternoon sunlight cannot hide completely. His torso is decorated with his own ejaculate, and his legs remain open, displaying the slick hole Sherlock had just been buried in.
Sherlock wants to run his tongue over John’s torso, lap up the proof of his pleasure, wants desperately to tongue the salty brine from John’s tear-streaked face and throat, to nestle himself back inside John where he bloody belongs. He wants to absorb John’s sorrow and beg for forgiveness against his shoulder.
He can’t. He can’t disobey John’s ground rules. So, Sherlock continues out of the room, hastily dressing himself in the corridor where he’s left his clothing. With a final peek into the bedroom, John’s not changed position, not uncovered his eyes, but the trembling of his chest, and the faint huffs indicate that he’s sobbing now, the tears flowing once more.
Sherlock takes his leave.
“I don’t care if you come.”
It hadn’t taken much for Sherlock to come. He’d been able to stifle his climax, hoping desperately that John’s orgasm would last long enough to milk every drop from his twitching cock. He’d held his breath, nearly shaking from the effort of resisting the urge to thrust, to grind. He’s not sure if John noticed, not in the throes of his own climax.
He lets himself out the front door where he’d come in. Where John had laid out his ground rules. Where John had insisted he be used as a human dildo, flesh to replace silicone. Where John had told him he didn’t want to hear Sherlock, he didn’t want Sherlock to touch him. Where he’d established that this was merely for his own pleasure, completely disregarding any potential pleasure Sherlock could glean from their coupling.
John didn’t care if Sherlock came, but explicitly stated that he expected him to leave.
The London afternoon is characteristically gloomy, a damp wind biting at Sherlock’s overheated neck and flushed cheeks.
He felt dirty, like he’d taken advantage of a broken man, while perhaps that man had taken advantage of him. He’d felt every moment of John’s sorrow, finally catching a glimpse into what he’d done to the good doctor when he Fell. John had used him as a means of orgasm, yet the act surely had to be worse for John than for Sherlock.
His phone’s vibration jerks him back to the chilled London streets.
Next Tuesday. Same ground rules apply.
Sherlock doesn’t hesitate to reply, his stomach roiling with sickening self-hatred.
Of course. I’ll be there. – SH
•••
John doesn’t know why he texts Sherlock, why he sets up the expectation that this will be a regular thing.
He doesn’t clean up immediately, like he would when it was just him. No, he lies there sobbing quietly, decorated with his own ejaculate while the evidence of Sherlock’s release leaks from his arsehole. He’s left feeling empty, bereft, hollowed out. Sherlock hollowed him out when he Fell two years ago, when he selfishly flung himself off a building. Perhaps filling himself with the idea of Sherlock was John’s way of coping. Perhaps letting Sherlock fill him is yet another way to cope.
Next week he won’t fully prepare himself. He wants to feel the burning stretch of Sherlock pressing inside. Sherlock himself offers the greatest pleasure and the worst pain imaginable. John needs to experience the juxtaposition, needs to remind himself how much Sherlock hurts him while his own traitorous heart leaps at the mere thought of the detective.
Finally, John picks himself up off the bed, the tears subsiding enough to allow him to focus on cleaning up. He scrubs the sex toy clean, returning it and his collected memories to their respective boxes, stowing it all away for another week. Then he goes to shower, to rinse off the evidence of his activities under an unforgiving torrent of scalding water, to let the mingled scent of Sherlock’s cologne and raw sex disappear down the drain.
And afterwards he dresses himself once more, changes the bedsheets, and makes a cup of tea, settling in to wait for his fiancée to return home from work.
And he doesn’t think about Sherlock, doesn’t think about next Tuesday.