Sex with Sherlock Holmes is a very unusual affair.
The first time was after we'd left Baskerville, once we'd gotten back to the flat and found it impossible to settle back into our old familiar roles. I had seen something of him, something real and uncomfortable and naked, and he'd seen the same in me. We tried, at first, to pretend we hadn't seen those things. It's funny how quickly our façade dropped, though; he was in my arms that first night back, his lean body warming my sheets. Funny. Part of me wondered if he'd wanted that all along, if I had.
The best thing about sex with Sherlock is that he doesn't know how to have an awkward morning-after. Awkwardness requires awareness, requires an understanding of both societal norms and the vast and typical gambit of human emotion. Like so many other topics which are of little use to him, Sherlock has no real understanding of those things. I woke up after that first night together alone in my bed, the smell of him on my skin, and wandered downstairs to find him inspecting his collection of tobacco ash, jotting down notes for his analysis. I'd have thought I dreamed it all up if I hadn't seen him wincing- just a little, a touch of color gracing his cheeks- four times that day.
"Sherlock," I said, that evening.
He looked up at me with a touch of agitation, his notebook in his lap and his pen twiddling between his slender fingers.
"Do you want to talk about it?" I asked, because that seemed like the right thing to say. I wasn't sure how I wanted him to answer, wasn't sure whether I wanted or needed to talk about it.
"The analysis?" My oblivious flatmate, colleague, friend, lover (? -it seemed too soon for such a title as that). "If you'd like to mock my interest in the various types of ash, John, your online audience awaits."
I groaned and dropped down on to the couch beside him. "Not the analysis, Sherlock. That's not what I meant. I meant…"
"Sex," Sherlock sighed, bored. He scratched something down in his notebook and looked up at me, clearly annoyed. I couldn't help but think: What a delicate face for such an abrasive man. "Fine. Let's talk. You've quite obviously never taken a male lover before, but it doesn't bother you. Possibly because of your gay sister, possibly because I let you take me. Does that matter?" He inspected my face and smiled, the light of it avoiding his eyes. "Yes. It does. Interesting."
"I know how I feel about it, Sherlock," I gritted out, my jaw clenched. "I was hoping you'd delve into your own personal perspective for a moment."
"Mm." Sherlock plucked his bow from the side-table and ran his fingers down the length of it, apparently thoughtful. "It was initially painful. Surprisingly so. Yet I didn't consider asking you to stop. Later, it was pleasant. Again, surprisingly so. I have achieved orgasm before, of course, but never by such…frantic means. The experience was reminiscent of the high achieved by consuming certain types of drugs; I did a write-up on my blog-"
Horrified, I choked: "What, of us? Of…of sex?"
Sherlock blinked at me. "No. Of drugs. Would it extend my readership, were I to write about us having had sex?"
I ignored this, my blood pressure falling back to normal. "Okay. So physically, everything seems on the up-and-up. Are you…" I trailed off, cleared my throat. Unlike Sherlock, I'm perfectly capable of feeling awkward. "Are you all right, then, emotionally?"
Leaning his head back (and exposing that long, pale neck of his that I'd kissed so thoroughly the night before), Sherlock laughed. He sat back up and looked at me levelly, his eyes twinkling. "Are you quite done? You've ruined my concentration."
I took that as a 'yes' and went away with only a touch of heat on my face.
The second time was under very different circumstances. I'd come home, some weeks later, from another failed date (it seemed, during those days, that I was always being sacked) and found Sherlock hanging from the ceiling, his face red.
"I've been yelling for you!" he cried. "Cut me down!"
Right-side-up and with his bottom planted firmly on the carpet, he explained with more patience than I'd expected that he'd been testing the effect of "blood oversaturation on a brain of extraordinary prowess" and that he'd discovered, mostly, that it gave him a headache and an awful pounding in his ears but also, to a lesser extent, that it left his toes quite cold. He relayed this story to me as I puttered around the kitchen, fixing us each a coffee (neither of us much felt like tea, though it was late) and scouring for some biscuits. (Bless you, Mrs. Hudson, I thought as I discovered a tin of them hidden behind something pickled and terrifying lurking in a jar in the pantry.) I carried the mugs and tin out on a little tray and set it down on the side-table, pushing Sherlock's various bits of scrap metal and hastily-scrawled notations to the floor.
"Ack," Sherlock huffed as he tried to stand, his legs wobbly beneath him. I helped him up, pulling him to his feet, and as he stood his hand went to my chest. For just a second our eyes were level, and then he was looming over me as always, his eyes focused downwards, locked on mine.
He kissed me (not like the first time, when I'd done everything, everything, and he'd only lain under me and breathed and winced and sighed) carefully, his eyes not quite closed. I relished it for a moment, enjoying the unique taste of his mouth, the slip of his tongue, the nip of his teeth against my lower lip. Then I took a step back, not daring to meet his eyes. "I don't think-"
"Don't," he said, closing the distance between us again and taking my chin in his warm hand, his fingertips sending something like fire and electricity crackling along my jaw and into my veins. "Don't think." He dipped his head again, not waiting for my permission, consuming me with a vigor I had thought him incapable of mustering. I slid my hand up the line of his shirt, my thumb tracing along the buttons, and groaned when he grasped my hips, pulling us infinitesimally closer. His mouth moved to my neck, his quick tongue darting along the heat of my skin, and I buried my face in his hair, losing myself in the smell of him, the feel of his lithe fingers under my shirt, playing in the trail of hair that meandered down into my jeans. I slipped my hand back down his chest, popping the buttons away as I went and noting the trembling of my fingers with a distant sort of curiosity. I couldn't understand the trepidation at first, not until Sherlock's fingers worked open the clasp of my trousers and tugged gently at my zipper. As I gasped out: "God, Sherlock!" I realized why I was so nervous, my breath ragged and my cheeks flushed. I had never in my life been dominated during sex. And here was Sherlock Holmes, his eyes shining and his lips red from the eagerness of my hasty mouth, tugging my trousers down around my hips and taking control of me, his quick and steady hand dragging me ever closer to oblivion. Too soon- all of me twitching, every inch- he took that thin impertinent hand away and used it to grasp my jumper, tugging it up over my head. I threw it aside, acutely aware of my every cell and the way they all buzzed at his proximity. He trailed his mouth up my chest and back to my lips, his hands back on my hips, and my eyes fell closed. I felt drunk, drugged, stupid. I didn't care.
Hungrily, clumsily, I yanked his shirt down his shoulders and tore it away, letting it fall away without another thought. His pale neck begged for my lips and I acquiesced greedily, tasting the salt of his sweat with a shudder of need. "Sherlock," I panted into his ear, kissing the curve of it shakily, "can I…"
He nodded, slowly, as seemingly drunk with lust as I was. We shifted slightly, his hands falling gently away from me, as I took on the role of the aggressor. With practiced ease, I managed to get us both safely to the floor, his impossibly long legs wrapped around my waist. I couldn't stop my fingers shaking; they were damp with sweat and nerves, twitching with desire and the rush of chemicals that was slamming tumultuously through my every artery, vein, capillary. More roughly than I'd planned, I unbuttoned his trousers and slid them down, away, taking the pants with them. With a bit less grace than was his norm, Sherlock kicked them off and brought his legs back up around me, both of us groaning as our bare skin touched. The mingling of his pre-cum with mine left my stomach sticky, damp. I very nearly took him then and there, with no consideration for the logistics of our situation, but thankfully his nervous face brought me back, somewhat, to my senses.
Of course. The last time we'd been in my bed, with a bottle of lubricant in the drawer of the little bedside table. This time… I reached back to my back pocket and fished around, withdrawing my wallet.
"Thank God," I whispered, discovering a condom in the folds of the worn leather. Pre-lubricated. Bless my failed date.
I slipped it on with limited finesse and kissed Sherlock roughly, bringing us back into the moment. A tiny hiss escaped me as he dragged his nails along the edges of my spine, and I pulled his hips up, getting the position just right. I looked into his eyes; he nodded almost imperceptibly.
"Ah!"
God, the tightness of him! I moved out slowly, my breath coming in great gulps now. Sherlock's eyes were squeezed closed, his fingers now caught up in my cropped hair, desperately seeking purchase. Back in, all the way, feeling him clench all around me. "Relax, relax," I murmured against his lips, holding my position until I felt his muscles loosen, heard and felt the breath ease out of his body. "Good," I gasped, slipping my tongue into his mouth as I pulled my cock away from him, almost leaving him.
"Oh John, John," he groaned, lifting his hips up to meet me as I moved back into him so carefully, so cautiously. He was enjoying it, now, the color rushing back to his face, his eyes hazy with it, with me, with what I was doing to him. I pressed my face into his neck and fucked him slowly, listening to the sounds he made underneath me, enjoying the feel of his arms as I pulled them up and over his head. Lacing my fingers through his, I quickened my pace, noting with a flush of heat and hunger the way his hips rocked into me, adding to each thrust.
Sherlock made a garbled, drawn-out sound as he came, hips bucking wildly. I couldn't hold on any longer; the writhing, shuddering, gasping force of his orgasm drew out my own. Retracting, expanding. I felt both empty and full for the first time in a long time. My face still buried against his throat, I collapsed into him, drained, spent. For a moment I couldn't think or speak; I was consumed, awash with the unique and particular glow of an extremely satisfying fuck, my skin cooling as beads of sweat ran down my back, wriggled down my temples. I could barely breathe, the rasping gasps in my throat smothered by the slick length of Sherlock's neck, but I didn't want to roll away, didn't want to give him the chance to get up and leave me, breathless and used, on the floor alone. Eventually, biology got the best of me. I compromised, half-leaving him, my arm still strewn protectively across his chest like a seatbelt. Cool air. I gulped greedily, my eyes drooping closed.
Lightly, almost as though he didn't wish for me to feel his touch, Sherlock eased his fingers between mine. He didn't say anything, nor did he try to leave. I kept my head over his heart, listening to the drumming under my ear slow and finally even out, and- despite being on the filthiest rug in all of London, with sweat and spit and cum drying on my skin- I feel into an easy, comfortable sleep, Sherlock's heart patting out a lullaby in my dreams.
Sex with Sherlock is an unusual affair. But then, with Sherlock, everything is. I've been thinking lately about the way he dominated me through the first several moments of our last little tryst and the way it felt, the way I'd been transplanted back through time to an era when sex was confusing and scary and thrilling and wild. I've been thinking about the next time. I've been thinking about his heartbeat.
I'm tired of thinking.