John took his time looking over the selection in the chest. Sherlock obviously had both wide interests and a large budget - most of the restraints looked like real leather, good quality, and that kind of gear could usually set you back a few hundred pounds a pop. He eventually selected some plain hemp rope, dyed a vibrant royal purple. All the better to stand out against Tall Posh Git's pale skin. Sherlock was making vague annoyed noises, little huffs and grumbles, but he stayed face-down on the bed with his arse in the air just as John had requested.
"For someone who was all too eager to get naked, you sure are complaining a lot," John observed as he knelt to loop one end of the rope around the foot of the headboard. "Comfortable?"
"Mnot gdat aytng," Sherlock mumbled into the sheet.
"Didn't quite catch that." John ran his palm over Sherlock's bare calf to steady him, then looped the rope expertly around his left ankle several times to distribute the tension before pulling it tight in a French Bowline. He pulled out the slack, shifting Sherlock's foot closer to the head of the bed, then ran the rope all the way to the support at the foot of the bed and repeated the process with Sherlock's right foot. Easy enough to cut with the safety scissors which were pointedly taped to the inside lid of the toy trunk, but tight enough Sherlock had to keep his legs spread and his arse in the air if he wanted to keep his balance.
"I'm not good at waiting," Sherlock said more distinctly, turning his head to the side.
"Why am I not surprised?" John gave the rope one last tug in the middle - pulling both Sherlock's legs wider simultaneously and causing an immediate hitch in his breathing - and stood. "You want me to leave you a safety release when I tie your hands so you can get out if you want, or would that ruin the mood?"
"Mmmm." Sherlock wriggled his bum in the air, which coincidentally shifted his noticeably erect cock against the sheets at the edge of the bed. "Not going to lecture me on how putting myself totally at your mercy would be unsafe?"
"Should I? I know I'm not a psycho. You don't." John brought Sherlock's wrists together, palms in, and lashed them all the way down to Sherlock's elbows. He definitely didn't miss Sherlock's dark groan at that. "Fine, but I'm trusting you to tell me if this pulls wrong." He looped the opposite end of the rope to the midpoint of the bed's frame, then pulled until Sherlock was not quite flat on his stomach. The position was blatantly sexual, Sherlock's arse in the air like an offering, the weight of his torso barely balanced on the narrow triangle of forearms and elbows. He was open and helpless and fuck yes, this was going to be glorious. John knelt back down at the foot of the bed and pulled a small selection of toys out of the chest. "Comfortable?"
Sherlock moaned again, long and dirty and low. A purely manipulative moan, clearly meant to hurry him up, so John ignored it. This Tall Posh Git could just wait his turn, thankyouverymuch-
"Oi!" John looked up just in time to see Sherlock thrust his hips again, rubbing himself off against the edge of the bed. It couldn't have been comfortable, but bloody hell, can't the man wait for two bloody minutes?
"You're not touching me yet," Sherlock grumbled, bending his knees further to get a better angle. "I'm just getting a head start."
"No you're bloody well not." John brought his palm down on that delectable arse, just one stinging slap, but it was enough to shock Sherlock into falling suddenly still. "And just for that, I'm making you wait a bit longer. Stay here."
"Like I could do much else," Sherlock grumbled, but John was already retreating out of the bedroom and backtracking to the cluttered kitchen. Surely there was something in the freezer-
What. The. Fuck. Not a single item of food in the freezer. There was, however, a clear plastic tub full of what appeared to be human feet. And next to that, a whole frozen raccoon. And next to that, two bags of what appeared to be blood bank blood, computer-generated labels and everything. Expired, John hoped, and realized he didn't even want to think about why someone like Sherlock would have human body parts in his freezer. Was he a serial killer? It didn't seem to fit anything else John had seen about him, and surely the mission brief would have mentioned if he'd shown a previous inclination to, say, murder and freeze his casual-take-home-for-sex-and-bondage partners. Not that John couldn't hold his own, if he had to, but if he'd been the submissive he'd have been getting the fuck out of that flat before Sherlock could lay a hand on him.
Right. John grabbed the first ice pack he saw which wasn't touching any biological contaminants and slammed the freezer door shut. Sherlock didn't say anything when John came back into the bedroom, but the look on his face shouted very clearly that he'd been listening to the sounds of what John was doing in the kitchen and was expecting John to throw a fit.
Which meant, of course, that John had to be suavely casual about the whole thing. He couldn't mention the blood or the raccoon or the feet. He couldn't yell and call Sherlock a freak and slam the door on his way out. He could, however, smile blandly at Sherlock and start unbuttoning his own dress shirt, so that's what he did.
Sherlock's mouth opened and closed several times before he finally managed to say something. "They're for an experiment," he said finally.
"Okay." John managed to unbutton his cuffs on the first try and shrugged the shirt off.
"I'm a consulting detective. The only one in the world. Science is an integral part of my job."
"I see." John shucked his shoes and socks.
"I'm brilliant at it, actually. I solve crimes when no one else can."
"What you are is naked." John stepped out of his pants and smacked Sherlock's other arse cheek, the one not yet pinkened from his first slap. "If you're really so brilliant, you'll have realized that I don't give a damn what you do in your day job. Right now I'm mostly concerned with how well you respond to a flogger."
Sherlock's eyes grew dark, and he swallowed hard. "You can find out if you like," he said in a hushed voice, and thrust his hips again. His arse bobbed temptingly and his cock slid against the sheets again. His whole body stiffened at the sensation-
"Yeah, none of that." John lifted the sheet right next to Sherlock's hips and slid the ice pack underneath, so it lay directly under his groin. The insulation of the single sheet would keep him from actually injuring himself if he accidentally ended up lying on it, but any more humping the mattress would only result in an unpleasantly frozen dick. Sherlock arched back as far as he could, pulling away from the already-cooler sheets, and literally growled.
"How the hell am I supposed to come with this in the way?"
"I should think the answer to that would be obvious - you're not." John smiled blandly and picked up the smallest of the half-dozen floggers he'd found in the chest. Nice quality leather, good rounded tips, the perfect weight in his hand, just the right length to play without having to worry too much about overdoing it. He brought it up to dangle over Sherlock's arse, the soft strands trailing gently over the small of Sherlock's back and the crease between his cheeks. "You're going to want to twitch away from me," he continued, "but I highly recommend resisting the impulse. Because if you freeze your prick off, you'll lose your erection and this will hurt a lot more." He hesitated one more moment, to let Sherlock object if he wanted to, then brought the flogger down in a soft swat.
"Hnf." Sherlock grunted and sucked in a sharp breath, but he kept his hips perfectly steady. John brought the flogger down again, where the curve of Sherlock's arse met his thigh, and this time Sherlock gave a minute twitch.
"You like this, don't you?" John teased as he worked. Flick flick flick - three rapid hits all in a line up the back of Sherlock's other thigh. Sherlock closed his eyes and dropped his head down to rest on his bound forearms. "Bet you've been dreaming of this for ages," John added. Flick flick flick flick. "How's that, you little pain slut?"
"God, yes," Sherlock murmured. "Harder."
John worked him only slightly harder, covering his arse and thighs and lower back with a fine cross-hatch of red lines. The flogger was a light one, not meant to break the skin, and the individual strips of leather were wide enough to thud instead of slice when they made impact. Still, Sherlock was twitching and groaning when John finally pulled back to give his arm a rest. He flattened both palms over Sherlock's arse cheeks, rubbing gently and just letting his hands absorb some of the heat radiating off the pinkened skin. Sherlock moaned and pushed his arse up further, practically an entreaty.
"Ooh, that's nice," John said quietly as he massaged the bruised skin. "You're so open for me, aren't you? Your arse feel empty right now?"
"Mmgph." Sherlock pressed his forehead into the mattress and widened his stance. John immediately caught the slackened rope with his heel and tugged it outwards, tightening it and trapping Sherlock's feet in their new position for as long as John felt like keeping his weight on that leg. Sherlock's breath caught, but he didn't complain. "Want you in me," he mumbled into the sheets.
"Oi, I didn't promise that." John didn't bother to hide his I'm just getting started expression - Sherlock was in no position to see it, anyway. He did allow one hand to drift inwards, until his forefinger was trailing up and down the crack of Sherlock's arse and Sherlock was all but shivering underneath him. It took a bit of maneuvering to reach the chest without moving either his finger or his foot, but John managed to reach both the lube and the slender string of anal beads.
Sherlock practically collapsed when John's slick fingertip breached him. Only the cold pack hidden under the sheet kept his legs from giving out completely. John stepped in closer, pressing his own erection into the back of Sherlock's quivering thigh, and spread the lube around with short, expert strokes which left Sherlock pressing up into his touch. The dark purple ropes stood out against the skin of his forearms like some sort of royal mantle, and only the lines from the flogger marked his body as anything less than perfect.
"Please," Sherlock groaned. "John, more."
"Yeah, all right." John slicked some lube onto the beads and slid the first one easily into Sherlock's fluttering hole. The second one followed nearly as quickly, barely any resistance at all until it, too, was nestled snugly inside him and Sherlock was whimpering wordlessly. "How's that feel?" he asked.
"More."
The third bead took a bit more finesse, and the fourth nearly a full minute of careful maneuvering. By the time John got the fifth and final bead seated nicely inside that gorgeous arse, Sherlock was panting and squirming and it took a firm swat to his reddened skin to get him to settle.
"Ah!" Sherlock jumped as the slap shifted the beads inside him. His cock jumped noticeably too - it was already almost as purple as the rope, fully thick and desperate for even the slightest touch. John couldn't resist reaching down and palming the twitching skin, so sensitive, so delicate . . . beautiful. A fat drop of precome oozed out of the slit. John smeared it down the underside of Sherlock's cock, just one fingertip making contact, but Sherlock bucked and shivered anyway.
"Still feel empty?" John encircled his fingers around Sherlock's girth and squeezed the base, not too tightly, and let fly another stinging slap on that formerly pale arse. Sherlock bit out something which could have been a curse, and another dribble of precome escaped. "I think I like you like this, you know - all but incoherent. How long do you think I can keep you like this, do you think?"
Sherlock groaned something completely unintelligible.
"I bet we could drag this out a long, long time." John transferred the drop of precome to his fingertip and wiped it away on the sheet. "I could spank all the come out of you - one droplet after another. Squeeze it all out like toothpaste from a tube." He ran his free hand over Sherlock's thighs, arse, back - he kept his touch as gentle as possible, but the skin was so sensitive now that Sherlock couldn't stop squirming. And of course each movement just made the beads shift inside him. "This is what you were looking for, isn't it? Someone to take you apart?"
Sherlock's dark curls bobbed as he nodded frantically. "I want to come, John, please."
"You just think you do." John kept up his gentle assault, one hand circling Sherlock's cock and one trailing gently over his body, until the inevitable happened. It was like watching an impending accident in slow motion - Sherlock's legs wavered, his thighs starting to give out under the unnatural strain the wide-spread position held him in, and his body started to lower. He didn't seem to realize it was happening, either, until one particularly violent shudder brought the entire underside of his cock in contact with the ice pack.
"Argh!" Sherlock yelped and nearly jackknifed, practically yanking his shoulders out of their sockets in an effort to pull his hips farther from the shocking cold.
"Ooh, there we go." John ran his hand down to Sherlock's bollocks and squeezed, none-too-gently. "Ready for a change in position, then? Because I think I fancy helping myself to a piece of this magnificent arse. Unless you object."
Sherlock blinked his eyes wide several times, fighting to keep his breath. "No objection," he said in between desperate pants. "Fuck, John. Please. Just - fuck me. Now."