The Blown Fuse
The lights flickered on.
"Now that's—"
A tiny flare within a fuse. The lights flashed out.
John Watson growled. Actually growled. "God damn fucking fuck, we don't have time for this."
John unscrewed the blown fuse, placed it beside two others similarly and suddenly expired.
"Stay still Sherlock."
At this rate John would have a pretty rainbow of fuses with progressively higher resistance, all now inexplicably incapable of handling the load generated by 221B.
"God we are going to be so late. Why are you moving?"
Standing directly behind John as they crowded into an alcove in the basement, a small torch clenched between his fine teeth, Sherlock did not reply.
"God this is stressing me out." John pulled at the collar of his dress shirt. "I'm sweating. In December."
The good doctor slightly shifted the tiny light Sherlock so gamely held, poked at a pile of fuses cupped in his lover's right hand, angled the light again, repeated the process through the fuses in Sherlock's left, found success. "Good, perfect, 15 amps."
Good and perfect was screwed into the fuse box. Basement lights glowed cheerily. Then merrily flickered out.
"Christ on a fucking Vespa."
John sighed. "That's it, I give up, I—" John cut himself off when the lights flickered on briefly.
Comprehension flickered on in John's head. With a small twist of his wrist a poorly seated fuse finally made full contact. The lights glowed bright. And stayed on.
John grinned, started tightening the rest of the four dozen fuses.
"Lovely, good, fine. Everyone has lights again, we can even make it to the party, and you, you big git, can apologize for frying another bunch of fuses, don't you think?"
Sherlock had an entirely different think, one he could not currently share as his pretty mouth was prettily wrapped around something long and hard.
"I told you turning on all those slow cookers would overload this ancient wiring. I allow you to call me tiny tyrant for a reason, you terrible man. So I can tyrannize," John said, twisting another fuse. After a moment the good doctor giggled to himself. "Ah. I forgot, you can't speak. Right now you have no bloody idea what that's doing for my mood."
It is well known that John Watson is something of a short fuse himself. If you'll pardon the pun. Oh he doesn't always swear of course. The good doctor can easily hold his hyperactive tongue in mixed company. But in the private dignity of his own, um, basement, he is quite comfortable raging. Indulging in wrath that is perhaps out of all proportion to the stimuli. Where the only other person who can hear him swearing frankly doesn't give a flying fuck.
Right now that other person shifted a little. And the high curve of John's bum became aware of a certain…something…pressed against it.
Amended: Perhaps the only other person who could hear the doctor raging did indeed give a certain kind of fuck.
John tugged at his tie and continued to check the rest of the fuses.
Slowly.
Sherlock, fully aware that John was now aware, continued to rub portions of his front against portions of John's back.
Slowly.
This went on for one minute. Then two. It was in the home stretch of three—it does not take three minutes to finger-tighten forty-eight fuses—when John realized that if they were verging on late for their neighbor's ritzy engagement party at the Mandarin Oriental before, they were certainly getting no earlier now.
Again John slid a finger beneath his firmly-tied bow tie, the one Sherlock had had to do up for him a half hour ago, the one Sherlock had tied perfectly—and then undone with his teeth right after.
"Sherlock, what are you—?"
"Good god, your shoulders John, your shoulders."
Though he had grinned lopsidedly at his sweetheart, squaring those tuxedo-clad shoulders, John had also said, "Later my love. If we go now we won't have to rush. I really don't want to get all hot and bothered in this beautiful suit."
Though Sherlock had brought to bear a small suite of enticements—rimming John's ear with his tongue, a good old-fashioned grope through fine linen trousers, indecent suggestions as to what they could do with their cufflinks—John had demurred with a laugh, and so a bow tie was retied and off they went.
Well, almost.
His sexually-aroused-by-his-lover's-broad-shoulders-in -well-cut-tux side soundly rebuffed, Sherlock's start-a-series-of-interesting-experiments-seconds- before-leaving-the-flat side surfaced and he strode into the kitchen, turned on a half dozen slow cookers ("That's five too many, Sherlock"), clapped his hands together, and said, "It's fine," and then, quite prophetically, "We're off!"
Moments later, galloping down 221's steps like impeccably-dressed elephants, John and Sherlock were just passing Mrs. Hudson's door when the lights in the entire building brightened. Then dimmed. Then went off.
And thus it began.
"Shit, double shit, and god damn damn it, Sherlock."
...
And now here they were, crammed into a dusty, damp alcove in a cold basement, both dashing in fancy dress, Sherlock's hands full of fuses, mouth full of torch, and finding it oddly enjoyable to be thus encumbered while gently rutting against John.
And John?
Well, while the good doctor's back enjoyed his lover's sweet indecencies, his front—actually, his brain—warred with itself. Go to the party, it said. Mingle. Show yourselves off for god's sake, because damn.
John's brain had a point. Because double-damn. Though he's too modest to say so, John knew he looked shamelessly good in his midnight-blue tuxedo and that it did rather smashing things for his shoulders. And his eyes, dear lord round up the celestial host for somehow that fine cobalt linen brought out their deep, dark color like so much hell-yes.
And then there was Sherlock. As in Sherlock. His entire acreage dressed for the first time (though very much not the last) in slim-cut, perfectly tailored black velvet. As in: Black. Velvet. His tie was midnight-blue (matching John's suit), his cufflinks the same stormy hue as his eyes.
So yes, John's brain was operating at super-genius level right now, insisting that the glory of them be waltzed right now through a fancy ballroom.
An entirely different part of John's brain was waving metaphorical arms, shouting: No, seriously, did you see? Black. Velvet. As in…no, I can't say it again without a frisson of goosebumps so come closer and I'll whisper. Very soft, very black, very velvet, black velvet John.
The part of John's brain that was not warring with itself waited for another incursion from either side but it appeared that all salvos had been made and it was left to an outside party—John's hammering heart perhaps?—to decide the outcome of the skirmish.
John was just about to waltz over to that ballroom when the silence was broken by a small, almost demure sound: A fifteen amp fuse giving its last. It was the sound of one tiny piece of electrical equipment being blown. Thus ensuring that something else entirely was about to be blown.
So to speak.
"Sherlock," the good doctor said softly, still, for some odd reason, tightening fuses that were long since tight enough.
John's lover, of course, did not answer, for John's lover still had a slim red torch held tight between his teeth.
In the hush John couldn't even hear Sherlock's breathing, though lean hips continued to thrust against him softly.
John closed his eyes; took a shaky breath. No. No, this was absurd. Ridiculous. There was no sensible reason on earth for him to get this turned on by his lover's quiet.
Because the entire idea of Sherlock is noise. He's six feet of sassy retort. He's seventy-two and one half inches of verbal brimstone, one hundred and eighty plus centimeters of fire and fuss, purr and moan, clearly-stated need and follow-through intent.
In short, most of the man is mouth and John loves it, has always loved it, both in the literal sense—he will cuddle close some nights and kiss that mouth for hours, nip at it with his teeth, paint it in the results of his pleasure—and in the figurative sense, admiring the never-ending cascade of deductions and ideas that pour from it.
So why, why, why was Sherlock's silence filling the cold room with heat?
John wanted to ask that out loud. Over the years he's taken on this signature trait of the consulting detective, this talking-it-out thing. It works, too, of course it does. That's why Sherlock's the genius and John's not shy about stealing useful mannerisms from him.
Anyway, the point is, John would like to say a few things, things like, "Every time I speak and that torch—that little torch in your Jesus-kill-me-now mouth?—makes it so you can't reply, I, um, well I leak a little. Yeah, I am so going to need a change of pants before this is all over and the thing I'm trying to say—don't rush me, I'm getting there—is why? Why am I getting so flustered over the extremely loud sound of your silence?"
That's what John would like to say right now but he's not going to because Sherlock can't answer—he better not—and frankly John's pretty sure there is no answer. None that comes from words.
About then Sherlock decided to say a few things. And he didn't need words to do it.
A soft patter of fuses rained down over the packed-dirt floor. Nothing happened then for a moment, maybe two. And then one of Sherlock's now-free hands settled gentle as a kiss on John's right bicep, another on his left.
Nothing happened then for a moment, maybe two. And then one of Sherlock's hands slid slowly up along John's arm, lingered over his shoulder, brushed hot and soft against his neck, and then slid gentle and firm over John's mouth.
John grunted, the only sound.
Sherlock's right hand? That coasted down, carefully down, long fingers brushing over shorter fingers on their way to a waist, then a hip. Then, slower still, that hand brushed against John's lower back, and down, and then a little further until the lean length of one finger pressed against the crease of John's arse. And through the fine cloth of midnight-blue linen trousers Sherlock sort of…fingered John.
Every muscle in the good doctor's body went hard. And at least one thing that wasn't exactly muscle.
And still all John could hear was his own breathing and if Sherlock had not been touching him, hadn't had a hot hand over John's even hotter mouth, the good doctor would have—
John never did figure out what he would have done because what he did do was brace himself against the wall and, as Sherlock curled his finger just enough to create a very good, very firm pressure against his hole, John arched his back, pushing into something that was in no way going to be able to push into him.
And the silence? The silence? It stayed bigger than the room they stood in, louder than the blood rushing in John's ears, and it pressed against their skin like the blackest black velvet.
Sherlock bowed his head, pressed his cheek against John's—the dimming torch light haphazardly lighting one of the hands John had fisted against the wall—and he used the push of his own hips to push and push and push harder between the cheeks of John's arse.
The good doctor grunted, shook his head—Sherlock's big hand tightened instinctively over John's mouth, pressed hard into his cheek and jaw—and spread his legs.
John felt, but did not hear, Sherlock's breath catch in his chest.
Sherlock pressed harder against John everywhere their bodies touched and he must have bared his teeth because the torch light shifted and John heard the click of tooth against metal.
In the heavy silence that small sound was huge. That next-to-nothing noise shouted for Sherlock, it whispered his need in John's ear, it told him more than a thousand words could possibly say.
Slowly John took one hand away from the wall, and carefully so as to make not a single sound, he undid the belt at his waist—
—and there it was again, the catch of breath in Sherlock's chest, it felt like a small shock jolting John's back—
—then unbuttoned and unzipped his trousers. A little shifting, a little wriggling, another toss of his head because—yes, god yes—he wanted Sherlock's hand to tighten over his mouth, and John dropped trousers and pants to the dusty floor.
OneTwoOneTwoOneTwo
John counted the thrumming beats of Sherlock's heart—pounding high against his back—and then he felt Sherlock's hand between them, undoing his own trousers, tugging at his own pants.
When John felt the soft whoosh of velvet brush low at his ankles he dragged his mouth open behind Sherlock's hand and he licked it.
And licked it and licked it, again and again and again.
Sherlock pressed his temple against John's so hard the good doctor could feel him shake.
Then Sherlock dropped his spit-slicked palm and stroked it over his own cock.
And then they did it again.
Then again.
Then again, until finally John said enough in the most expedient way he knew, he shoved his arse against Sherlock, who slid one hand over John's mouth again and used the other to help slide his cock inside John.
Neither of them so much as groaned.
Incandescent. Later that's the word John would use when trying to explain what that absolute silence felt like as Sherlock pushed into him. It covers so much, that word, it sounds like it blazes and if that didn't describe what the blood in his body did right then, then sorry, John has no better, more appropriate term except oh dear fucking god.
As Sherlock thrust deep John geared up for a long wait. Because if Sherlock is given the sexual reigns Sherlock almost always makes them wait, both of them, dragging out the pleasure until it's almost (but not quite) pain, waiting until one or the other or maybe both quiet nearly can't take it any more.
Well, that's not what happened this time.
Quite possibly Sherlock's voice functions something like Samson's hair. Sherlock can last in bed as long as he does because he vents his need in words or gibberish or moans. Shorn of this strength in that nearly-pitch dark basement, Sherlock almost immediately began thrusting hard and erratically inside John, who encouraged it by meeting silent thrust with silent shove, while dropping a hand to his own cock and wanking away with merry abandon.
And yet.
There's just something perverse about the boys at 221B. Because it was John this time who made them wait. He knew that Sherlock held back for him, he knew Sherlock wanted to feel John coming, his arse clenching around his cock as the orgasm shook through him and so John let him want, slowing his hand on his dick so he just barely teased, at the same time he tightened himself around Sherlock as hard as he could, pulled away from his lover so that the head of Sherlock's cock was the only thing inside him.
And, with exquisite slowness he did these things silently and he did them over and over until the long body quite nearly propped up against his was trembling so hard John felt Sherlock's knees quivering against the back of his thighs.
That was good, that was fine, John now, apparently, had all night.
Yes, well.
John quite frankly hoped to god that Sherlock didn't. Because oh dear fucking god if he did not fucking come within the next god damn five minutes he was probably going to have a—
Sherlock would later apologize repeatedly. He didn't mean to, wouldn't have ever, and is sorry he did—but when the orgasm shook through him his hand tightened reflexively and he left four tracks of faintly broken flesh along the good doctor's cheek and jaw.
At the time John didn't even notice. Instead he started jerking himself harder as Sherlock came, concentrating on the pulsing of his lover's cock, letting that and nothing else fill mind and body.
Maybe swearing functions something like Samson's hair for John, because now that the good doctor was ready so god damned ready his teeth ached, John's body was just a teensy bit reluctant, not quite willing just yet to tip him over into release.
And then Sherlock pulled out of him and slid to his knees.
Pushing himself between the wall and his lover, Sherlock slid his mouth over John's cock and, with one very small, very tiny keening noise, he started blowing his beautiful short fuse.
Long seconds later John came with a knee-shaking shudder and in absolute silence, pressing his forehead so hard against a brace of fuses he had three pretty bruises at his hairline for the next week.
Neither of them noticed until later that somewhere along the way the torch had gone out.
...
You will not be at all surprised to learn that John and Sherlock went to that engagement party. As all good parties do, this one started late and went even later, so they were quite fashionable in their tardiness.
And the boys were, indeed, quite resplendent, too. Sherlock preened each time someone praised the velvet of his suit, and quite possibly preened even more when John was complimented on the cut and color of his tux.
And though no one precisely said so, Sherlock knew part of John's considerable allure that night, why he look so fucking gorgeous, and so god damn BAMF, were those bruises and scratches. Half the party goers guessed wrong as to what had caused those rough-and-ready wounds, and the other half, well let's just say they knew John and Sherlock a little bit better.
The next day Mrs. Hudson ended up getting an electrician in to update the fuse box. 221B's own short fuse insisted that they pay for at least some of it.
She let them.
This story is for Bosie—who wanted sweary!John, for ComfortComfort who wanted that teeth-clenched torch and a blow job, and for baka-yu who wanted something with our pretty boys in pretty suits and ties. All three responded when I wanted an image, just one, of beautiful Ben with a perfectly knotted tie and a fully-buttoned collar. Thank you, you three, I hope this was a wee bit of payback.
And thank you Verity Burns for the delicious double entendre of the title, it is so beyond perfect for this story I frighten the children I don't have with my flailing. Also, I hope this a tiny bit satisfies that 'having to be quiet' thing we were talkin' about.