NOTE: Can't quite believe I'm writing this, but just to clarify, this is a BDSM AU fic. If you were looking for something where a character is gently patted on the arse and told to run along, this is not it. If this fic is not what you were looking for, I'm sure there's a fic out there somewhere that suits you just fine. And if there isn't, why not send me a prompt?

'I...'

It wasn't often that Sherlock Holmes was lost for words. Glancing up quickly to see if he was still being glared at (which he was), the detective averted his gaze back to the floor, a rather unattractive blotted flush flaring up over his face. His hands were balled into fists at his sides and one foot was crossed over the other. He hadn't felt this little since he was...well since he was little. He felt like a toddler, and seemed to have the vocabulary of one too.

John raised an eyebrow. "You..." he encouraged, moving his hands in a gesture for the detective to continue.

"I w-was... I thought I heard something." Sherlock blushed a deeper red as he heard the rubbish lie come from his own mouth, not daring to look at John's expression.

The doctor was unimpressed. "What kind of noise, Sherlock?"

The detective struggled to sound convincing. It was difficult to draw on his acting skills not only because he had been caught red-handed, but also because he knew John could see right through him.

" Umm... sort of music or something? I thought you might have left your phone in here, so I came in here to check... "

It was possibly the least convincing sentence the doctor had ever heard from his submissive. John took a step forward, revelling in how such a simple movement made Sherlock look up nervously and take a tiny step backwards, frightened to be in such close proximity to the man he'd disobeyed.

"Are you lying to me?" he asked, his voice even and controlled.

The doctor could visibly see the panic on Sherlock's face as he tried to work out what he should do.

"John, please-"

"Address me properly, Sherlock. And answer me." John breathed deeply, trying to control his temper, and also to try and stop the worry that was forming at the back of his mind. It was slightly unnerving to see Sherlock so lost. "Are. You. Lying. To. Me."

What was left of the detective's attempt to navigate his way out of the situation was completely lost at the severity of John's tone. He swallowed thickly, his mouth dry and his palms sweating.

"...Yes, Sir," he whispered to the floorboards. "I'm sorry.."

John nodded, sighing dejectedly. Stepping into his room, the doctor looked about at the small number of objects he owned. He didn't have much. And his lacking in material possessions seemed to, in some ways, equate to a lack of authority. Therefore through the years he had discovered that the best way to maintain his authority was through space. The room he had requested, that Sherlock claimed served no purpose, in fact symbolised the difference between the two men. John could go anywhere in the flat, Sherlock could not. So when John had said it was good to have space, he had not meant physical space, but the notion of space and thereby difference between a Dom and his submissive.

It was difficult for John to accept that Sherlock had disobeyed him, defied him. It was even harder to accept that his submissive had lied to him.

"Take off your clothes, and give them to me."

The hard edge in John's voice meant that as Sherlock obeyed with shaking fingertips, the detective's blush deepened, his vision blurred from tears that were slowly building in his eyes. Carefully holding out a rather uncharacteristically neat pile of clothes for John to take from him, he allowed himself to be led from the room with John's free hand. The doctor first placed the pile of clothes outside of Sherlock's room, before steering him towards the bathroom. Opening the medicine cabinet, he extracted a thick bar of plain white soap. Unwrapping it and ignoring the detective's quiet whines of apprehension, he made Sherlock stand opposite him.

"I don't want to hear apologies, begging, anything. You had your chance to tell me why you were in my room without permission, and you chose to lie to me. I gave you my trust, and you betrayed me."

Tears were spilling freely from Sherlock's eyes as he looked at the man in front of him. John looked worse than angry...he looked hurt. It made him feel sick to know that he'd been the one to put that expression there. He had made everything so much worse than it needed to be, and now John didn't even trust him to speak.

"So, firstly, I'm going to punish you for lying to me. Open your mouth, please."

Crying heavily, Sherlock complied, obeying John's command to hold the dry bar of soap between his teeth. Holding his tongue at the back of his mouth to avoid tasting the soap, he was pretty certain he'd never been more mortified in his life. The fact that he could see his reflection in the medicine cabinet made it even worse, so it was with a small amount of relief that he dropped to his knees at John's request.

"Crawl to the living room, and sit in the corner. Back straight, hands behind your head."

John watched as Sherlock obeyed, his shoulder blades shuddering beneath his skin as he sobbed loudly. It was such a pitiful sight that the doctor was almost embarrassed at being a little aroused. Following behind, he watched the detective take his place in the corner, positioned just as he'd asked. He knew Sherlock wouldn't dare move. As he walked back to his room to set up the next stage of Sherlock's punishment, he wondered how long it would take before his submissive would stop crying.

For Sherlock, every second of his corner time felt like an age. The soap had dried up his lips and mouth, and so eventually his tongue had automatically lapped at the object in an attempt to hydrate him. The taste was so strangely awful, so obviously wrong that it made him gag. He never stopped shaking as he knelt there, his head bent forward a little as he cried continuously out of shame and guilt. Sadly, crying only made him dehydrate more, so his tongue would keep refreshing the lather of soap that was circulating around his mouth. His arms ached and his back felt stiff, but he didn't move. He knew that John wasn't even in the room, and it hurt him more to be in the knowledge that in his current state, he wasn't even worth the doctor's attention. He was being ignored, the worst punishment John could give him. And he deserved every second of it.

After what seemed like days, the detective slowly began to calm down. There was only so much embarrassment and crying that his body could take before he just accepted the situation, and allowed himself to relax a little. He still felt disgustingly embarrassed, but it was more of an acknowledgement that he done something wrong, and he was getting what he deserved. There was a strange calmness about being punished that made him realise that he needed John to do this to him, in order not to be wracked with guilt, bombarded by information.

Eventually, John returned, told him to turn around and crawl to the kitchen, where the doctor took the soap from his mouth and placed it on the sideboard. It took a second for his mouth to close properly, his jaw aching from where he'd been clenching the soap between his teeth. John looked down at Sherlock for a moment, as if trying to decide how he should treat him. He wasn't particularly angry anymore; the hour that he'd left Sherlock for was more than enough time for him to calm down and decide how he should ensure that the situation never occurred again. And although he knew the detective deserved to be ignored, it had been difficult to hear Sherlock's muffled crying from his room.

Pouring a glass of water, he motioned for Sherlock to kneel up. One hand grasping him firmly under the chin, the doctor gently tipped the glass against his submissive's lips, watching as Sherlock swallowed the clear liquid gratefully, despite being obviously embarrassed that it was being done for him. John replaced the empty glass on the counter.

"Better?"

Sherlock nodded quickly, "Thank you Sir."

"Don't ever lie to me again."

John stooped down so they were at eye level with each other. The doctor could tell that Sherlock was finding it very difficult to look at him. "If you can't tell me the truth, it implies that I'm doing something wrong. That either you're too scared of me, or too confident that you think can get away with it. Does that apply to you?"

The detective looked horrified. "No, Sir, you're not doing anything wrong." He said it hurriedly, his brow furrowed as if he couldn't quite believe that something he'd done to John could be misconstrued as a failure on the Dom's party.

The doctor nodded. "Alright then. Oh and one more thing, Sherlock-". He pushed two fingers underneath Sherlock's collar, his voice deeper and quieter than before. "If you ever lie to me again, I'll take this away from you. If I can't trust you, you don't deserve to wear it."

Those words were frightening to hear. Sherlock shook his head violently, tears spilling down his cheeks as he imagined how horrible that moment would be. Everything he had proven himself to be, taken away from him so quickly and so easily...it made him feel sick.

John was mildly surprised by such a sudden reaction, but quickly removed his fingers from underneath the leather and stood up. He couldn't allow himself to be comforting, as much as he desperately wanted to.

"Stop crying, Sherlock. It won't happen unless you allow it to. "

The detective always knew he'd really upset John when he heard that tone; brusque, attempted detachment. It was so rare that it came as a shock to him, so contrasting to the doctor's usual caring and concerned demeanour. He did as he was told, and followed John out of the kitchen on all fours. They reached the door of John's room, which had been left open.

There were two square copper plates, attached to the floor with temporary tape and spread about a shoulder width apart. The two plates lay just on the inside of John's room, and were attached to a number of wires which led to a power box, which blinked a red light – standby mode. Sherlock could see that the dial had been switched to 'PRE-SET 01'. Clearly John had recorded a pattern of electric impulses which ran straight to the copper plates on the floor, so he wouldn't have to keep changing the intensity setting on the dial manually.

John stepped inside his room, and took a seat on a chair a clear distance away, facing the open doorway. Commanding Sherlock to stand up, he pulled the power box towards himself so that it sat by one the front legs of his chair.

"This should help you to realise that it's really not worth coming in here, unless I've given you my permission. Place the balls of your feet on the plates, please."

Sherlock complied quickly, thankful that they were currently set to off. The plates weren't big, and so the rest of his foot was planted on the floorboards.

"Don't rest your heels on the ground, Sherlock."

The detective rose up on the tips of his toes, wavering slightly as he tried to find his balance. He felt nervous, worried about what he might be expected to do, how much pain he might be in. The metal felt cold underneath his feet.

"Put your hands on the top of this doorframe, this isn't a test of balance."

Sherlock did so, and for a moment John just looked at him. The doctor couldn't help but pause for a moment to admire Sherlock's body; taut and stretched out, shivering with nerves and blushing slightly. He looked gorgeously concerned, beautifully worried about what was to come.

"I'm sure you know that the plates will be sending electric impulses into your feet. I've already set a specific circuit of impulses that it will run through. If you move your feet, you break the circuit. If you break the circuit, I'll switch it back off, and we'll start again."

Sherlock made a little noise of discomfort, but said nothing else. He watched John's hand move towards the switch on the side of the power box, and prayed he could keep his feet still.

John watched the little light the power box switch from red to green, and sat back to watch.