I'm with Clara at Columbia Road market when he texts me. My arms full of lilies, I fumble for my phone as Clara buys another three bunches for this display she's doing. Juggling blooms and covered in pollen, I read the screen.
"Come home now. SH" I sigh and am just putting my phone back in my pocket. What does he want now? Someone to reach the newspaper for him? Toast? The phone beeps again.
"I don't want toast, it's urgent. SH" I shake my head. How does he do that? Clara turns to me and I can see she's relieved we found what we came for. It's a big contract and her first foray into dressing rooms for conferences. We walk to her car and she takes half of the armful of flowers from me.
"Thanks for this John; I've got just what I need." She sees the phone somewhere under all the petals. "Is that Sherlock? Do you need to go?" I nod and roll my eyes, she laughs. "John Watson, under the thumb, I never thought I'd see the day." I grin and shake my head.
"It's not so much that Clara. Last week I didn't reply to his text and he burnt the wallpaper off the kitchen wall because he was reading something interesting and I didn't arrive to turn the toaster off." She laughs and I have to smile, despite the damage and the money the decorator cost. She touches my arm.
"It's so good to see you feeling better after..." she doesn't end her sentence. I am glad. It's been two months since that awful Rubber Ring business, I'm still having the nightmares, although they've lessened recently and Clara doesn't even know all the details. The phone beeps again.
"Really. John, I really need you home. Now. SH" I glance apologetically at Clara who smiles and takes the rest of the flowers and arranges them carefully in boxes on the back seat and starts to clip the seat belt over them.
"Is it really important Sherlock? I'll be about half an hour getting to 221b. JW" I text back. In seconds the phone makes another noise.
"I can just about wait that long. COME HOME. I NEED " oh god, what's he done now?
"Is there room for a lift? Are you even going straight back to Baker St?" I ask Clara. She shakes her head.
"Sorry John, I've got some ribbons and oasis foam to get now, or those little crystally things that hold the water, I can't decide." I kiss her cheek and she smiles. "Are we still on for Sherlock's birthday party?"
"Yes, I'll give you a ring. Anyway no problem about the lift, I'll see you later. Give me a call next time you need the European lily surplus lugging home!" she laughs and I make off towards the tube station.
"Are you in trouble? JW" I text.
"Deadly. SH" did he just send a smiley? What?
"Sherlock..." I hope my warning tone comes across in the one word message. There is no answer and I begin to panic. Surely he can't be in real danger? Who texts a smiley face when they're in real danger? Sherlock Holmes is who, I realise with a sigh and jog down the steps to the platform. If I go from here to Mile End station, I'd usually consider this going in the wrong direction, then I can get on the Hammersmith and City line and get directly to Baker St tube station.
The journey takes twenty seven minutes. I look at my watch the whole way. My blood pounds in my ears and I can't help my imagination, fuelled by my recent experiences, running away with me.
He's been kidnapped and the kidnappers have his phone and are texting me. He's been attacked in the house by a group of thugs who've realised that Sydney Doyle, the old geezer they go down the dog track with once a month, is really some public school boy who went to Harrow. It's a bomb, strapped to his chest and he only has his text hand free. Get a grip John, get a fucking grip.
By the time I run up the stairs at Baker St and cross the heavy traffic I have thought through about twenty life and death situations that Sherlock could easily be in. Only three of them include no outside influences and kitchen equipment. What sort of a man do I live with? I sigh and am just dodging another SmartCar when the phone beeps again.
"Bring popcorn if you fancy it. SH" I stop in the road, staring at my phone. A man on a bike shouts angrily at me and swerves around my motionless form. I quickly make my own deductions. This is about that bloody video. Jesus. He's been trying to get me to watch it for weeks now, but I'm too shy.
At the time we made it I was in the zone, high on lust and adrenaline and the new game we were playing and we haven't played since. But now, sober in the bright light of the winter morning, it just feels like I might die of embarrassment to watch it with him, oh god.
Our sex life's been a bit odd to be honest since the business with Freiman. After a few weeks of hardly any sleep, the nightmares back with a vengeance, I just haven't had the energy. And, even though, mentally, the idea of being intimate with him is still an enormous turn on, when it comes to it in real life something goes cold, clams up. Sherlock's been very patient, not pushing it or making me feel bad about it but I do. And it's not like I don't fancy him like mad. The dreams I have which are not about concrete rooms and screaming girls are full of him. Full of his voice, his skin, his need for me. Both sorts of dreams have me waking up sweating.
I stop outside the flat, debating whether to actually buy popcorn, and sneak a look at the picture on my phone. There's one I've not shown him, it occurs to me he's probably seen it because it's almost a law of physics that you can't hide things from Sherlock Holmes, but he's never commented.
The picture is of him sitting at the window of 221b, the window just above my head as I stand outside the front door. The light is on his face, contrasting those high cheekbones and his chiselled mouth, almost like he's in black and white. His dark purple shirt is open three buttons at the neck and one long hand rests against his chin. It's hard to catch him sitting still and I had to pretend to be making tea to sneak the shot but I must have looked at it ten times a day since.
I look at it now and it's as though I can trace the lines of his face and his neck without any help from the picture. I know how his skin will smell, how it will feel. I know how he will arch and moan under my touch. If he feels anything like I do after these last few weeks of enforced almost - chastity he'll be craving my body as much as I have realised, with a start standing on Baker St looking at my phone, I am craving, yearning for his. I unlock the door and rush up the stairs. Mrs Hudson's door flashes open.
"Here," she passes me a plastic bucket of popcorn with a roll of her eyes. "He sent me to buy this Said you wouldn't bother." She shakes her head and I mumble my thanks but she's not listening. She goes back into her flat.
I unlock the door realising this means he hasn't been outside since I locked him in this morning. Sometimes I feel like I have a teenage son. The flat is dark; the long heavy curtains pulled across the windows in a way we rarely bother. One slant of the pale sunshine cuts the room into an uncomfortable third and sitting in that ray of light is Sherlock.
He is on the sofa, head back, long legs on the coffee table. The surface of this table's littered with magazine which I don't think were there when I ate my toast this morning and his big feet indent the shiny covers. His skin looks so pale that it's almost translucent. His dark hair frames his face; curling on his brow and making him look like some kind of fallen angel. You've got to say it, my boyfriend's a looker. I smile to myself. One of his eyes opens and swivels towards me and I am caught in what I like to refer to now as 'the laser'. He smiles slowly.
"You brought popcorn." His voice is dark and even from across the room I know on what level his mind is working. About the level of his trouser buttons I'd guess. He pats the sofa next to him with a long hand and points with the other at the TV. "It's cued up." I swallow. Oh god.
Faced with the physicality of him, the realness of what he wants and what I secretly want I suddenly start to doubt myself.
"Mrs. Hudson bought the popcorn Sherlock. You made her do it." I stall for time, taking off my jacket, realising how much I smell of pollen. He arches an eyebrow at me. He is not falling for it. He pats the sofa more firmly.
"Do I have to come over there and make you sit still with me? Because you know I can John." it's that tone, that tone he uses when he's in control of the situation, of me. I feel myself getting hard and I mentally tell myself off for being so fucking easy for him. He grins again, that shark smile that, even though I'm used to it, still flips my stomach over.
"No. No, you don't. I'm er...coming. Just taking off the jacket, you know." I make a show of draping it over a chair. He grins wider. I sit next to him and look at the screen. In the grainy shot is a man, fully dressed and spread eagled against a fireplace. The fireplace looks very similar to the one I am sitting opposite. The man looks very similar to me. Oh dear. We're really going to watch this aren't we? Two sides of me, the two sides who have been competing for the last two months are at it again inside my head and body. There's the scared John Watson who doesn't want any contact from anyone because he can't get those pictures of that girl out of his head and once those pictures come back then they bring the other pictures, of Afghan, friends I've lost. Then I want to cry, run away from my own brain which houses these images.
And there's the other John Watson and he's the man on the screen waiting for Sherlock Holmes to tell him to take his clothes off. Because yes, I have memorised what's on this tape and yes, I do want to watch it with him.
He hands the remote control to me and licks his top lip slowly. I can feel the heat of his skin through his shirt and my jumper. It's not even physically possible. I shake my head a little and push out a long breath. I press play.
"Take off your clothes." The picture is clear now the tape is playing. Idly I realise that Laura's camera equipment was bound to be high quality, expensive. I also realise I am trying to distract myself. It's like watching snogging on the TV with your parents in the room. I nearly giggle. But then John on the screen is shaking slightly and I watch him, interested in his reaction to Sherlock's voice.
There's something sulky, almost petulant in the way this John removes his jumper and his t shirt. He drops them on the floor with an attitude which I've seen new squaddies use the first time they take orders. It's a pose which says 'I'm not doing this because you're telling me; I still have a choice here." A friend of mine, an old soldier, told me that the sulkiness is the first thing to break if you want a good soldier. Sherlock breaks me easily I think as I watch myself, leaning on one leg and looking insolently at Sherlock who is just off camera.
"Take them off John." his voice; his command are having the usual effect on my body. I feel myself harden and shift on the sofa to get more comfortable. Beside me Sherlock slides his eyes to my face, then my crotch. His hand rests on my knee and I feel like I've been tazered. "Of course if you're saying you don't want me to fuck you, hard, with the bar and the camera on then..." Sherlock on the screen steps forward with an insouciant shrug, elegant and careful. God he's sexy like this. His voice, almost a growl and that upper class accent saying those awful things has me unravelled here on the sofa. Watching him now, without being in the game on the screen, makes me realise just how much I want him. It's like watching your favourite bits of TV over and over because you've got a crush on the actress. Or the actor, my brain amends by itself.
Next to me I hear Sherlock's breathing become more pronounced. The John on the screen sighs and unfastens his jeans, his eyes carefully avoid the camera but I can tell from his posture how turned on he is. He kicks them off, submission in the flick of his leg. This man is me, I remind myself, me before the night with Freiman, before the new nightmares. That man, desperation and desire screaming from his every gesture, is me. I invoke him, I will myself back to that state of being where I could give myself up, surrender to my body and its needs.
The hand on my leg strokes a small circle across the bone of my kneecap. The circle is warm and tingles like electricity is threading from his fingertips and down the nerve endings. I try to swallow the mounting panic which is filling me as my body responds to his touch and my brain tries to shut it down, to protect itself.
"Nice." Sherlock on the screen smirks the word and bites his lip. The expression is arrogant and erotic. I see John's chest rising and falling rapidly, I can clearly see how hard I am, how hard Sherlock makes me. "Touch yourself." Ah god. I hadn't forgotten, but hearing it now those words thrill through me. I shift again in my seat as I watch myself shake my head, I can't remember now if I was refusing or giving up.
The circle on my leg widens as we both watch the other John begin to touch himself. His fingers slide over his hard cock and I hear the moan which issues from his lips. Sherlock's hand brushes up my thigh, rests there with his long fingers wrapped inside my leg, inches from my erection, trapped in my jeans. The struggle between head and body rages inside me. I want to run away but I also want him to touch me.
"Open your eyes, look at me John." For a second I think he has spoken and I look at him beside me. Sherlock is not watching the screen, he is watching me. His lip is held between his teeth and he is breathing heavily. Dropping my eyes from this intense gaze I can't help but see his arousal. My eyes flick back to the screen but there's no solace there. "Look at me John." says Sherlock on the tape.
I watch my own fingers with a dreadful fascination; I can almost feel them touching me now. I slow my hand and he shakes his head. That careful, almost invisible gesture has me panting, I squirm on the sofa. Sherlock's hand on my leg grips tighter. A throb begins to build in my groin. On the screen my hands move faster, harder.
"Stop. Stop John." on the screen I take my hands away and I watch the torment chase itself over my face as my body thrusts without my volition. Sherlock steps more into the frame now. He runs his hand down me and trails his long fingers through the hair between my legs. I hear a moan and recognise my own voice but it takes me a moment to realise that it is not John on the screen who made that noise, it was me.
My legs have inched apart and I am slumped down, Sherlock's hand has slid nearer and nearer to my erection. The blood pounds in my head but I don't know what to do. The invisible, gelatinous skin which has developed between us in the last few weeks feels hard to break and I can't find the words to conjure it away. He is still looking at me, I can feel his gaze.
"Turn around." I watch the other John obey and god I wish it was me. Sherlock fastens the cuffs and pushes himself against my body. I sneak a glance to where he is sitting next to me on the sofa. He lets out a long, shuddering breath. His knuckles are white on my leg and his pupils are huge and black.
He watches himself on the screen as he attaches the bar. I see my own body bent forward as though I am offered to him. I watch that pale hand caress my buttocks.
"Oh John, I'm going to enjoy this." Beside me Sherlock moans and his hand creeps nearer. He still hasn't dared to touch me. I appreciate his concern but I need to break this cold, clinging barrier between us. I want him to throw me down on the sofa, ravish me, take me like some Victorian damsel because then I would have no choice. But of course he won't.
I can't take my eyes from the screen as I watch us fucking. Because that's what it is Watson, I tell myself cruelly. Sort yourself out. You want this man. Look at you, listen to yourself. This is what you want. That voice is right. I watch us come. I hear him growling, my own voice hoarsely crying his name. I watch him turn my face to the camera and I watch that tension, that ecstasy of sensation play itself out on my face. I see him shudder, coming inside me and I don't know what to do. Desire and panic in equal measure make me shake next to him on the sofa. He is panting and I know he must be feeling this dreadful tension. He lifts his hand and, before he can take it away, I grab those fingers and put them on my crotch, squeezing him against me. He sighs and needs no other invitation.
He unfastens my jeans, I vaguely hear the tape hiss and turn itself off but it's peripheral, irrelevant because he is sliding to the floor, on his knees between my legs. All the pressure, the frustration of two months without him are killing me. His mouth hovers over the obvious bulge of my erection and he unwraps me from my shorts like he's unbandaging a patient. I suppose he is. He looks at me and his eyes are pleading and huge. He licks his lips and my hips jump forward.
"John... can I? I mean... I want to..." he licks his lips again. I firmly push my words through the cold porridge skin which keeps us apart.
"Yes Sherlock. Please." Relief washes over him but he doesn't waste time registering it. He puts his lips over the tip of me and swallows me into his mouth. The heat of his tongue, the wetness and the tightness of him overwhelms me. He holds still but my body is bucking and I can't stop myself. He swirls his tongue, the muscle playing along my fraenulum. My hands cone up from where I have been holding the sofa cushions and I grab his hair. I pull him down onto me. Pushing up so that his nose is pressed against me. He moans and two months of cold distance is bridged in an instant. How could I ever deny this feeling, this man?
I moan, I shudder and I come for him. He holds my hips and I see his throat working as he swallows.
"Sherlock, Sherlock. Oh god. That's so... so... god, I'm sorry." He pulls away from me and looks up as he wipes his mouth. There's something unconscious, erotic about the gesture. Even though my legs are weak I sit forward and push him down onto the floor. He is lying prone, looking at me warily. I wriggle out of my jeans and kneel between his legs. I run my hand over his obvious arousal. He bucks up against me.
"John, John," he pants. I watch his eyes roll up and his mouth slacken. I unfasten his trousers and pull them down. He opens his eyes. "You don't have to... you don't, not just because..." I lean over him and I feel his hard flesh burning my lower stomach as our bodies touch. I kiss him and I taste myself on his lips. It's intimate, terrifying, but I am going to surf this wave of fear if it kills me. I will not let him down.
"I'm doing this because I want to Sherlock. Because I want you. I want to feel you in my mouth, your hands in my hair. I want to hear it when you come for me, I want to taste you." I say it all. The words spill out of me like a second orgasm. His eyes drink it all in, his breath hitches and he moans and writhes beneath me.
I slither down his body and kiss the tip of him. I lick him slowly and then swallow him even more carefully. He is growling, pushing against me. All too soon his long fingers grip my hair. He is in my throat and I suck him hard and he is thrusting like he's forgotten everything else exists. He shouts my name. He tells me he loves me and I taste him salty, spilling over my tongue.
When I pull away he drags me up along him, wraps his arms around me. After a moment I realise one of us is shaking, I think it's me. My face feels wet and I realise I am crying. Sherlock's eyes are closed but there is a look on his face which is so obviously relief that I needn't ask if he is alright. He kisses my brow.
"Thank god for that." He sighs. I don't know if he means the orgasm or the fact we've had sex. I chuckle and he looks down at me, an eyebrow raised. "What?"
"I was just thinking the very same thing." He smiles and kisses me again. I have the curious taste of both of us as out tongues meet. We lie there still for a long time. I am just starting to feel cold, feel the uncomfortable hardness of the floor when there is a loud knocking on the door.
"Ignore it." I whisper as Sherlock makes to get up but I know he can't. I sigh as he pulls on his trousers and I sit up and put on my jeans. I sit back on the sofa and rearrange the cushions. Sherlock goes to the door.
"Erm, does John Watson live here?" It's a voice I know but it's from a long time ago. I stand up and go to look at the man on the threshold. He is older now and his black hair is streaked with some silver even though it's still cropped close to his head. His handsome face is more lined but I bet it doesn't detract from his appeal with the ladies. His skin is pale and he looks worried, ill even. When he sees me he smiles a small smile, relief writ large upon him. Then he starts to cry.
"Jamie?" I can't believe it. "Jamie McMurray? Fucking hell man, come in!" Sherlock steps back and Jamie wanders through the door, on his shoulder is his kit bag and it looks like all he has.
Ok so starting a new story is almost as exciting and yet nerve-wracking as finishing an old one. How did I do? How the was the tape, I felt the pressure of you guys wanting to watch it! If only we could get someone to magic that tape up. (Although Jazzysatindoll does a bloody good job of the stills from Rubber Ring on her deviantart page) So please, let me know what you think... I'll be in suspense until you do...
I am honoured to have kept my The Baker St Irregulars! I hope you enjoy this one as much as you enjoyed the rest. : PrincessNala and Peachsilk have been so much support and help to me, Darmed – hope you're feeling better, Clubba Bear – thanks for all the help and for Gus Freiman's name, Tasty- Kate – let's plan those babies, 2cajuman2 – she talks to Moff on twitter, Tanya Zsa Zsa – always so nice about my panics, Munchiees!, Aelfric's cat – there will be some romantic violin, Nellyington – did you get a laptop? , mrs winny – always a speedy and pithy review, Despairandcupcakechild, Mouserjb4 ,Tillif and Harpyquin – you're so kind and Jazzysatindoll – making my words into pictures so cleverly! I'm lucky to know you all.
As always love to the OHOB and the wife. Cxx