John walked through the door of 221B and, without a word at the man on the sofa, headed straight for the kitchen.
"Sherlock!" he barked.
There was no reply from the living room. John stomped over to the sofa and glared down at Sherlock's languid form, one leg draped over the back of the sofa and the other stretched out straight, fingers steepled under his chin, eyes closed meditatively. John bent over to put his face right next to Sherlock's ear and, in his best drill sargeant voice, yelled, "Sher! Lock!"
Sherlock didn't flinch, but his fingers tensed ever so slightly. No one but John would've noticed. No one but John knew those fingers so well.
"John," Sherlock drawled, in a voice dripping with condescension. "How can I help you?"
"You can clean up the bloody kitchen. It's… well, it's bloody! Blood and formaldehyde and ballistics gel and you still haven't explained what that black sticky substance is, no, don't start, I don't care, actually. Do you recall the conversation we had last night before I went to bed?"
Sherlock tipped back his head to regard the ceiling thoughtfully. "Regarding the latest developments in biometric scanning technology?"
"No."
"Hm… Then no, I'm afraid not."
"I'm referring to the conversation where you promised to clean this muck today. And you recall our conversation this morning before I left?"
"When I asked you to pick up the milk?"
"No."
"You didn't pick up the milk. And you're accusing me of irresponsibility?"
"Sherlock…" John gritted his teeth and counted to ten. "This morning you promised that when I came home tonight, I would find the kitchen in a condition suitable for safely preparing and consuming food. That was the exact phrasing. Have you done anything today besides what I'm looking at right now?"
"I have been busy."
"In your mind palace, I suppose?"
"Yes."
"Yes, where else. If you could spend a fraction of the energy on our real home as you do on your mind palace, we'd be living in the bloody Versailles. Sherlock, get off your pampered, spoiled, selfish arse and clean the kitchen."
"Later. I'm busy."
John closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He counted to ten. To twenty-five. He silently recited the Saint Crispen's Day Speech, which he'd been forced to memorize in Year 5; he had despised that exercise and yet somehow, for the rest of his life, found it grounding in particularly irritating moments. Then he saw it. John knew he was only a conductor of light at best, but every now and then he experienced a little flash of lucidity.
He didn't hesitate. With his right hand, he reached into his coat pocket, removed his Sig, and placed it firmly against Sherlock's temple.
The effect was immediately and unbelievably gratifying. Sherlock's hands dropped to his chest, his lips parted, and his eyes flew open, fixing on John with a focus that was almost crushing in its intensity.
John drew on all his inner strength and kept his face completely impassive. In a cold, steady voice, he announced, "Here's what you're going to do, Sherlock. First, when I tell you to, you are going to stand up and strip. Slowly. You will fold your clothes very neatly and place them there, on your armchair. You will not touch yourself, or me, until I tell you to. Second, you will get on your hands and knees and crawl to the kitchen. Third, you will clean the kitchen. I will supervise. Very closely. With the Sig."
John paused to appreciate the picture before him. Sherlock's eyes were jade green and turning to a deeper blue, his pupils wide.
"If I like what I'm seeing," he continued, "I will take the safety off."
Sherlock exhaled, a tiny noise in his breath somewhere between a question and a plea. His cheeks were flushed and his pulse was jumping in his throat.
"When you have cleaned the kitchen to my liking, when it so clean that I would have no qualms about performing surgery in there, you will put away the cleaning supplies and kneel in front of me with your mouth open. Wide. Then I will put the Sig in your mouth."
John slowly moved the gun from Sherlock's temple to his face, brushing it lightly across his lips. He opened his mouth as if to take it and John let it rest, just barely, on his bottom lip.
"All the way in your mouth." Sherlock raised his head to take in more of the gun, but John pulled it away and placed it against his temple again.
"And I will let you touch yourself. Not your cock, only your arse. I'll watch you fucking yourself on your fingers. Two… no, three. Nice and slow. Do you ever fuck yourself like that? No? Oh, that is a waste of three perfect fingers. Maybe it should be four. I'm going to watch you fucking yourself like that with this gun in your mouth until you almost come. Almost. When I'm ready, I will decide how I want to come. Maybe I'll throw you down on the floor and fuck you, pushing the gun under your chin... You'll be gagging for it by then, won't you? Or maybe I'll have you suck me off, or maybe I'll just stand in front of you and come on your face while I fuck your mouth with the gun. I don't know. It depends on how I'm feeling about you at that point. All I know is that it will feel bloody amazing. But I'm not sure I'll let you come at all." That was a lie and they both knew it. But it was a lie worth telling.
Very slowly, the left side of Sherlock's mouth twisted into a sinister smirk. Just as slowly, one hand started to drift down his chest towards his crotch where, John observed, he was already hard. John pushed the gun against his head steadily, until he was pressed at an awkward angle against the back of the sofa.
"Maybe I didn't make myself clear. No touching until I say. You clean, and clean well, and then we shall see what you've earned. Have you got that?"
"Yes… Captain," Sherlock replied in a voice steeped in both sarcasm and affection, and hoarse with arousal. He raised his hands in a gesture of helplessness. "May I get up now? To follow your orders… Captain?"
John nodded curtly and stepped back, still holding the gun before him, and watched as Sherlock stood and began to unbutton his shirt.
I don't need to be luminous, John thought. I just need a good idea now and then. And if I use it well, this could keep us from killing each other for a good long while.
