Keeping it Loki
Look, it was a dream god damn it. It was just a sexy, toe-curling, kinky, cock-hardening, wet dream.
Yet it didn't matter how many times John told Sherlock that, Sherlock got all red-faced and silent and stalked out of the sitting room, and then stalked back with his mouth open but stalked off again without actually saying anything, and to make things worse he hadn't laid one finger on that hard thing he was carting around between his legs and wouldn't let John touch it either and frankly this had to stop before someone came to harm, either from blood loss to the brain or getting tackled to the carpet or both.
"Sherlock this has got to stop before someone comes to harm. It was a dream. Everyone has them. All the time. They can no more be prevented than one can survive without breathing."
Oh god. Fine. Right. Good. That was a stupid analogy and John knew better.
Because Sherlock? He admitted once that as a child he'd experimented to see how long he could survive without breathing. Because, you know, it was dull. To breathe.
(Mycroft enjoys telling the tale of how little brother got so woozy from mild carbon dioxide poisoning that he spoke in pig Latin for two entire minutes—a 'language' he claimed then and insists now he doesn't know.)
Anyway, it was nearly thirty years on and about some things Sherlock is still childish. He still gripes about breathing, and when he dreams about humping men other than John? Well that just sends a certain consulting sweetheart right on round the guilty, grousing bend.
Silently.
"I won't stop asking you know." John said it softly, though he knew Sherlock heard. He also knew that Sherlock knew that Sherlock had no chance of keeping the dream to himself. As with breathing, there are some things a consulting detective must do, whether he wished to or not. The short list included eating, sleeping, breathing, and not resisting John Watson-Holmes.
That didn't mean he wouldn't try.
Sherlock stalked over to where John was sitting on the sofa. He opened his pretty mouth, the interior of which John could see was absolutely stuffed with invective. Alas, none of it passed tongue or teeth, instead Sherlock spun round on bare heels again and this time stomped off into the kitchen.
Look, John knows that the best way to manage a tantrum is to ignore it. However, he's as likely to ignore Sherlock as he is to remember the chemical formula for ytterbium(III) chloride hexahydrate ("That's not real." "I assure you John, it is." "Ytterbium? It sounds like something Flash Gordon needs for his rocket ship." "Flash what?" "Never mind.") It's one reason why they work so well. Sherlock wants attention, John wants to attend.
So John slouched lower on the sofa and raised his paper. In order to pay attention to Sherlock, protocol demanded he give a few signs of paying no attention whatsoever.
Seconds later a dish clattered noisily in the kitchen. Seconds after that came another clatter. Then a third and fourth. From the sound of it, Sherlock was simply picking things up and putting them down again. Hard.
Also protocol.
John rattled his paper noisily, as custom required. I hear you, that rattling said to the kitchen clatter. And I'm going to pretend to ignore you because I've got important John shit to do and am in no mood to cater to you.
*Clatter* Clattered the man in the kitchen. Fine. I don't want your attention anyway.
*Rattle* Good, because you're not getting it.
*Clatter* Fine, fine, fine. Because I really, really don't want it.
*Rattle* Oh for god's sake!
John folded his paper as noisily as he'd unfolded it. Then he unfolded it so he could refold it louder. Then he stood up and clamorously straightened his shoulders (it can be done) and then John went into the kitchen.
He looked at Sherlock. As expected the silly git was standing at the counter, his hands clenched round a dirty cup and saucer. John nodded approvingly. Last time he'd clattered with wedding-gift wine glasses and had chipped the rim of one. They'd had a row.
"Sherlock."
The man so named stared at the cracked handle on an eye-height cupboard (Sherlock may or may not have slammed this self-same cupboard door open during a previous *clatter*). He pretended to be deaf.
Proforma.
John thought about what next to say. He paged through a sheaf of possibilities and then selected the one that seemed to fit the rainy day, the cold flat, and come to think of it, his own achy joints.
"I don't feel well," John Watson-Holmes said to Sherlock Holmes-Watson. "I'm going back to bed. Maybe you…if you wanted…to keep me company…" John stutter-sighed pitifully. "Unless you're busy. It's fine."
John tugged his ratty dressing gown closed and breathed in the general vicinity of Sherlock's peripheral vision. Sherlock's got remarkable peripheral vision. He can see a heavy sigh with it. He can probably detect a slight fever with it, too. He most certainly can discern the absence of a one hundred seventy centimetre man.
Sherlock counted to forty-two, then followed his husband into the bedroom.
…
"It's your fault you know."
John tugged the duvet to his chin and looked up at his looming love. The more he thought about it, the worse John felt. He did have a fever, he was sure of it. He waited to learn about his transgression.
Sherlock pinched up a corner of the duvet. Underneath it John was naked. Good.
Sherlock stripped off everything but his own dressing gown. He slid under the duvet, propped his back against the bed head, and looked down at his husband.
"You made such a, a, a…a big deal about that DVD."
It took John a moment to figure out what Sherlock was referring to. And then all came clear.
"Avengers?" (John had mentioned to Mr. Chatterjee in passing that he was going to pick up the long-desired DVD, having missed the actual movie.)
"And then you ran off to buy it like, like, like some sort of frenetic tweener thing."
"Right." (John had picked it up on a trip to Sainsbury's later that week.)
"And then you got all giggly and turned out the lights and made popcorn and told me to go away so you could watch the movie in peace."
"Uh, yeah." (That's pretty much exactly what John did).
So with all of that provocation, of course Sherlock had had to watch the idiotic thing just to know what idiotic thing John was so very, very enamoured with.
And the idiotic thing was i.d.i.o.t.i.c.
Norse gods who used entirely too much product in their hair; a smart alecky, eye patch-wearing guy no one seemed to obey ("I'll explain later, Sherlock, just shut it for now."); unbearably self-righteous everyone; and that one with the horns and the hair, the pale skin and the cheekbones and he wasn't even supposed to be a hero John said, but at least he made some sort of sense, and had a flowy coat and some fun and never mind, never mind.
John wriggled closer to his husband and whispered in delight, "Sherlock Holmes-Watson, did you dream about having sex with a—" wheezy giggle "—big-horned Norse god?"
(Because yes, John knows precisely which character Sherlock's subconscious would fixate on because John knows that Sherlock's subconscious would only choose someone as strong-willed, domineering, and fucking fantastic-looking as himself to, you know, transgress with.)
Instead of answering, Sherlock looked around his immediate vicinity for something to clatter. The only thing close to hand was a box of tissues on the nightstand, so he picked that box up and he slammed that box onto his lap and he made a big huffing sound and glared at the wall.
"I keep telling you it's okay. I know you know it's okay. You can look at other men. You can dream about other men."
Sherlock tugged a tissue out of the box and crumpled it into a ball. This felt fairly good but it didn't actually clatter. Maybe if he tried harder.
He tried harder.
"It's what people do."
Sherlock tugged out another tissue, crumpled it harderer, opened his mouth—
"Even consulting geniuses."
Sherlock closed his mouth, yanked out another tissue and squished it so densely it may have collapsed in on itself—a little, paper product black hole.
"Probably especially consulting geniuses."
Sherlock loves surprises. He relishes not knowing what a criminal's going to do next, what John'll say, where a case will lead them. But Sherlock Holmes does not like surprises from his own body. He wants complete control of all six feet of consulting self, so when he instinctively glances at a pretty man or, or, or god forbid, dreams about one so vividly he comes twice, well it makes him cranky, almost silent, and—
Sherlock mashed the tissue box down again, which did nothing to relieve the turgid thing he was still carting between those pretty thighs, so he yanked out a fifth tissue, then a sixth and he'd have likely gone through the entire box in this manner, yanking, and balling, balling and yanking, but finally John placed a hand on Sherlock's wrist. Sherlock's wrist could tell that John's hand was warmer than usual.
Sherlock frowned down at his husband. John really was a bit sick.
John Watson-Holmes picked up a few tissue balls and dabbed lightly at his slightly glistening nose. He curled tight against Sherlock's hip, blinked up at him, and said sweetly, "Tell me a story."
Sherlock frowned down at John. Idly he wondered if he'd ever actually want to resist the man. He was pretty sure he knew the answer.
Fine. Fine. Sherlock would tell John his dream if John wanted to know so badly. He'd give him every little sordid detail and then maybe, just maybe, he'd never have another dream like this one ever again in all of ever. Because if this was the sort of dream other people regularly had…
Sherlock mashed the tissue box down some more, took a deep breath and said, "He asked me how hard I wanted it."
Suddenly nervous, Sherlock fell silent. He waited for outrage or petulance or at the very least big harumph noises. What he got for a long and golden moment was silence.
And then John Watson-Holmes began giggling like a helium-addled loon. "Hard as in how hard?"
Sherlock frowned down at his husband.
"As in penis hard? That sort of hard?" John wheezed. "I mean, I didn't expect it to just, you know, start. I thought there'd be foreplay. Maybe some banter. At least a bit of wine."
Sherlock frowned harder. John looked off into the distance. "My sexy dreams never go that way. They take forever. I nearly grow grey just waiting to—"
John cut himself off when he realised Sherlock was no longer looking at him. Sherlock was looking west. Far west. Very far west. Probably all the way to West Acton west.
John slowly tugged Sherlock's dressing gown aside a bit. He murmured against the now-exposed skin there, his warm lips warm, his feverish cheek feverish, and he said, "I'm sorry. Maybe you should just explain. I'll be quiet. Can I have a tissue?"
Sherlock looked at John in peripheral vision.
John blinked rheumy eyes up at Sherlock. He shudder-sighed. Dabbed delicately when a tight little tissue ball was slowly passed to him. "Thank you," he whispered against succulent husbandly flesh.
Sherlock stopped looking at John peripherally. He looked at him full on. John glistened back at him. Sherlock blinked his contrition. And then Sherlock continued.
"We were at a restaurant. It was dark and moody. The table was low. He wore green leather and golden horns. And he wanted to seduce me."
First I want to get this up front: My Loki's still a petulant, powerful, spoiled Norse immortal, but he's not a mass murderer—I'll cover how that's so in a later chapter. Second: Verity Burns is the reason this story exists. She took me to see "Avengers," and told me I needed to write a Sherlock/Loki fic. I told her ha ha ha like fun, then she said 'visible panty lines,' 'pants party,' and 'pterodactyl' and an okay-if-it'll-make-you-happy single-chapter fic turned into more than fifteen thousand words (so far) and here we are.