Intimacy

Chapter 4

By: phaedraphelan

Word count: 4, 566

Summary:

Sherlock and Joan are realizing what it means to be a couple in the fullest sense of the word and it's a learning experience. And they learn what "in sickness and health" can mean. Intimacy implies a closeness that involves the most personal aspects of ones life. Sherlock and Joan live together in a house with one bathroom. She is a physician also which implies that she would not be adverse to dealing with Sherlock when he is ill. If that circumstance might offend you, be aware that we are going into that territory.

We are taking these complicated people in the direction that they obviously want and need to go. They are both in uncharted territory.

Disclaimer: This "Elementary" story is not-for-profit and is purely for entertainment purposes. The author and this site do not own the characters and are in no way affiliated with "Elementary," the actors, their agents, the producers, the CBS Television Network or any station or network carrying show or anyone in the industry.

Sherlock and Joan turned in early to bed. That is all they were good for at this stage of matters between them. They found that it was impossible to calm their need for each other and so they did not even try. Coming to terms with their feelings for each other had unleashed a powerful sexual dynamic between them and they were helpless in the face of it.

They walked up the stairs to the bedrooms with their arms around each other, but they could not even make it up the stairs before their passions overwhelmed them and they sank down onto the stairs. Sherlock drew up the long tunic Joan was wearing so that it was above her hips as Joan straddled him on the steps. Then he drew the silk tunic completely off, tossed it aside and gripped her hips tightly, crooning softly to her as he kissed her cheeks and her neck and her soft unfettered breasts as she straddled him there.

"Oh, Joan . . . Joan, I could think of nothing but you today. I was so distracted, luv. Joan . . . I can't make it up the stairs. I'm aching so for you."

Joan ran her fingers through his hair and let her hands drift all over him. She loved to touch him as much as he loved to touch her. His muscular hairy body was a fascination to her and she continued to discover spots that she especially loved—the spot over his left breast where she could put always feel his heart beating when they were involved. Then there was the place just below his navel where the hair from below came upward in a narrow line to eventually join the generous hair that adorned his chest. She also loved to rub her face against the silky hair that covered his forearms and continued down to the backs of his hands, the same silky hair that decorated his muscular hips and legs as well. Joan kissed his hands, inhaling the faint scent of violin rosin and beeswax that persisted on them and then kissing and sucking each of his fingertips.

"Yes, Joan, yes, touch me, luv, the way you do. Oh, God, yes!"

Sherlock, the man who had previously scrupulously avoided physical contact, now craved Joan's touch, begged for it constantly.

"Sherlock, we should go to our bed, please . . . Sherlock . . . Sherlock!" Joan gasped as she realized that her Sherlock had lost all control and was in a fervor trying to let his parts find the congruence with hers that would bring them the pleasure that they craved so.

"Joan . . . Joan, please, luv, please! I need to be with you!"

Then they suddenly came together in a jolting perfection that made them both cry out.

"Oh, God! Joan! Joan!"

"Sherlock . . . umm, yes, Sherlock!"

It was a while before they could speak again and when they did, it was Sherlock telling her into her ear all the words that were in his heart, kissing all over her face, and then picking her up and carrying her the rest of the way to her bedroom where they found the softness of their bed and lay down to make love till they fell asleep again.

It was much later when Sherlock wakened, groaning softly as he reached for Joan in their bed and drew her over onto his chest. Joan loved to sleep with him like this with the solid steady beat of his heart in her ear. Especially when they had made love, Joan often slept on him this way so that she could enjoy the warmth of his body against hers.

Now Sherlock smoothed Joan's hair and kissed her forehead and drew the covers over them so that Joan's back would not get cold. Sherlock loved these early morning moments when Joan lay sleeping on his chest, snoring softly and rhythmically and then whimpering softly ever so often.

"I wonder what she is dreaming about when she moans like that," Sherlock mused."Is she dreaming about . . . us together?"

"Yes . . . yes . . . Sherlock," she murmured in her sleep and Sherlock felt arousal stir in the pit of his belly at the sound of need in her voice and he tried to calm himself.

"I don't want to exhaust her. I just couldn't stop when we got going. And, Lord, we fit together in such a beautiful way. How could I not have known from the start? I guess that I knew, but I couldn't believe that it could happen to me . . . to fall in love the way that I did. When she is with me, nothing else matters. I was so lonely before she came into my life. I never imagined that I would love living with someone this way. When she is not here, I am such a miserable man."

Joan wakened for a moment and stirred in his arms.

"I'm cold, Sherlock. Hold me tight, baby."

And he did, changing positions so that they were spooning and so that the heat of his body would warm her to the maximum, but then he became so excited that he instinctively began to move rhythmically against her and groan her name. It was too exciting, too stimulating to him and his hands began to search and feel and touch.

"Joan . . . Joan, help me, luv. . . help me."

"Sherlock? Do you need me, baby?"

"God, I need you! Yes!"

She turned in his embrace and wrapped her arms around him.

"All you have to do is ask."

She took his stubbled cheeks in her hands and kissed him and sent him through the roof as they came together all of a sudden.

"Joan . . . Joan, thank you, lover . . . thank you, woman. Oh, Joan . . . Joan, you are so lovely, so lovely. Hold me . . . Hold me. Your hands . . . Your beautiful hands. Thank you for touching me the way you do."

Sherlock's stream of love words of gratitude at times like this was something Joan had never experienced with any man and it always thrilled her.

As brusque and sometimes even impatient as Sherlock was under normal circumstances, he was always the gentleman when it came to this part of life. He never "took" unless he first "asked." Even at those times when he was so in need that he snorted and growled and claimed her roughly in no uncertain terms, he begged her to forgive him afterward.

Joan gladly took care of him, sensing his need for her almost before it manifested itself and her lithe, but strong body was always there for him, holding and accepting all of him and then surrendering herself to him completely when the spasms of the apogée seized them both.

As difficult as it normally was for Sherlock to give in to sleep, he would sleep then, a deep restorative sleep that he had rarely experienced before he and Joan began to cohabit. Joan was the first woman that Sherlock had literally slept with on a regular basis and the experience of going to sleep in her arms and then waking the next morning entwined with her was the most delightful thing he could have imagined. This coupled with the availability of her body to him when they slept together was something hard for him to describe. There was no barrier then, no boundary left to be surmounted. Her body was soft and pliant and her response wherever he touched her was instantaneous and gracious. Sometimes Joan braided her long hair before sleep, but other times it lay loose on her pillow, or upon him; but even when she chose to braid it, Sherlock often frantically pulled the braids apart when his passion was upon him, because he loved to see her long hair strewn over her pillow and cascading onto him. When he wakened mornings to see her sleeping, her lightly freckled face scrubbed, devoid of makeup, just pure natural beauty in his bed, he would stare at her in awe, unable to believe that this was the place he had come to in his life.

The next two days Sherlock and Joan devoted to each other and the new depth of their attachment. They went out in the afternoons to some of their favorite places in the city, walking hand in hand, stopping to steal a kiss here and there. They felt like they were on a honeymoon of sorts.

When they stopped later one of the afternoons at their favorite Italian dessert restaurant, Veniero's, they found a quiet corner and just sat staring at each other as they shared a slice of chocolate cheesecake and coffee as their knees happily rubbed together under the small table.

"I feel that there is something that I must say to you, my dear Joan," Sherlock said. "I am trying to improve . . . my personality because you asked me to do so. I never cared what people thought about me personally before, but when I saw how you were affected by that vulgar note they posted about us at the precinct, I realized that I can no longer . . . act without thought of persons' feelings. I have such a hard skin that it never mattered to me whether persons liked me or not. But now, because I don't want to see anything that I have done cause you sadness, or anxiety, I am trying to be better."

"Sherlock . . . that is so sweet of you."

"I am not by nature a nice person, and not remotely sweet. It is very hard for me, Joan, but I am trying to think before I speak. If you see me struggling, please just gently tug at my coattails to remind me."

Sherlock looked down for a long moment before speaking again and when he lifted his eyes to meet hers, his expression was so serious that it brought tears to Joan's eyes. She realized what an effort it was for this complicated and brilliant man to admit his need to change and she realized that she was an important part of that motivation.

"Joan, please don't leave me. Just . . . I beg you, please don't ever leave me. I don't think that I could endure without you in my life. I was so lonely, Joan, before you came into my life."

Joan reached across the table and caught his hand in hers and he lifted her hand to his lips and kissed it.

After they finally made their way back to the brownstone, they shared a pot of tea in front of the fireplace and then went straight to bed.

The next morning Sherlock got up from their bed and made his way to the bathroom to begin to get ready for the day. In spite of the fact that he never followed a regular sleeping pattern, he was generally quite healthy and his body functioned quite well. Normally he sat on the toilet to empty his colon at that time and that started the day for him. Joan always planned to sleep through this part of his day, sensing that he needed to have some private time to ease his body to function without interruption. After he showered and finished in the bathroom, he left it for her to attend to the needs of her own body schedule and prepare for her day. But on this morning he was uncomfortable, his stomach rumbling ominously and tight and bloated, cramping. And he just didn't have the normal morning evacuation that he expected.

"Watson, do we have any sort of laxative here in the house? My stomach seems to be tied up in knots this morning." Sherlock looked pale and sick.

Joan rolled over in her bed and took a hard look at him and then got up and sat on the side of the bed.

"You ate a frank from that street cart yesterday. That can't have been good for you. You haven't been able to evacuate your colon this morning?"

Sherlock shook his head. "I sat there for a while but nothing happened but this infernal rumbling, and I am nauseous."

"You probably need an enema to clean that stuff out of your system."

"Did you say 'enema', Watson? I've never taken an enema in my life and I'm not going to start now. Just give me one of your mother's teas to stop my stomach from cramping."

"We will do that, but you have to get that bad food out of your system. I'll take care of you."

Sherlock backed up, shaking his head.

"I know what I'm doing, Sherlock. I know you can't be shy about exposing your body to me at this point. And besides I'm a doctor. We all work the same down there. This is really quite routine. You are not throwing up that bad food so we need to get rid of it. Come on, Sherlock. I have what we need out here in the closet near the bathroom. I'll call you when it's ready."

Joan spread a towel on the floor of the bathroom and set up the enema apparatus as Sherlock stood watching her.

"Come on now. You just have to lie down here on the floor on this towel and I will administer the enema."

"It's good that I have implicit trust in you, Joan."

Sherlock reluctantly got down on the floor. He was still wearing his boxers.

"Sorry, baby, you need to take everything off. When your colon is ready to empty, you won't have time to pull off those shorts. They will just get in the way. You will have the try to hold everything in as long as you can, and then jump up and get on the toilet and evacuate. It will feel like Vesuvius erupting, but that is good. Just try not to crap all over me in the process."

Sherlock let her pull his shorts down and off and Joan patted him on his bottom gently.

Sherlock smiled, "I like this part at least."

"Now lie on your side and let me do this for you."

Joan expertly lubricated the nozzle as well as Sherlock's bottom with Vaseline and then inserted it deep inside him and released the clip on the tube to the container of warm water and herbs so that it could run into him.

"See it's not that bad. Just lie still and let the enema do its work."

She rubbed his distended lower belly expertly.

"Relax, Sherlock. This will make you feel better."

Joan took note of his member lying uncharacteristically flaccid and realized that he really was quite sick. She had become very familiar over time with Sherlock's body and now that they had become sexual partners she knew so much more, but it did not reduce the effect on her of seeing the startling proportions of his external genitalia, the shape and beauty of his parts, even at rest. She had to deliberately focus her eyes away from his private parts and Sherlock noticed it.

"Joan, please concentrate on the matter at hand. You may conduct your examination of my genitalia in detail at another time."

Joan blushed and gently smacked his bottom.

"Sherlock, please concentrate on what is happening. When peristalsis accelerates, you will have to hold on till you can sit on the toilet. This is very important."

Suddenly Sherlock gripped his belly.

"I need to defecate!" Then, more loudly, "God, Joan, I've got to crap!"

"Hold it, Sherlock, I'm taking out the tube, but you have to hold it till you can get up on the toilet."

"I can't hold it, Joan! Merde!"

Sherlock jumped up, slightly spraying and soiling Joan as his bowels exploded mostly into the toilet.

"Damn . . . damn, I'm sorry." His colon emptied for the next several minutes as Joan carefully observed him. He was left weak and exhausted, but thankful to be relieved of the cause of his distress.

"Make sure you're done, Sherlock, before you leave this bathroom. I'm going to clean you and me up and then go down and make you some tea to calm your upper GI."

"Thank you, Joan. Thank you. I feel better already. I guess I had to get that dodgy stuff out of me. I'm sorry I got crap on you, luv. I'm so sorry."

"It's just crap, Sherlock. And it's your crap. We're human. If our bodies don't eliminate, we can't live. It was you who said 'everybody has one.' I love you. It's not even like it's your crap. It's like it's mine. It's ours really."

Joan urged him up and into the shower to get cleaned up. Then she flushed the toilet and carefully cleaned the toilet and the floor around it with sanitizer as Sherlock stood under the warm water of the shower. Then she got into the shower with him and helped him clean himself as she showered along with him.

When they were in the shower, he got the urge to go again and had to get out and sit on the toilet to let the enema finish doing its work. He sat with his head bowed, embarrassed for Joan to have to see him with his bowels rumbling uncontrollably from him, but he could not move till it was over. He was left relieved, but so weak, so enervated, that Joan had to help him clean himself.

When Sherlock was finally able to pull himself together, he put on his robe and crawled back into bed. Joan pulled the covers over him and sat by the bed ruffling his hair the way she loved to do.

"I love you, Joan . . . so much," he said softly, his eyes full. "Thank you for taking care of me, luv."

"I hope your hiney isn't too sore, baby."

Sherlock shook his head and took Joan's hand and kissed it. His eyes brimmed for a moment as he reflected on how his woman had taken care of him so lovingly.

"You just rest for the next couple hours and let's see if your stomach calms down completely. We've made some space in there. You will have to just have tea and toast today, baby. I know you think you have an iron stomach, but there's a limit to everything."

Joan went downstairs and left Sherlock to recover. She rarely saw him ill beyond a case of the flu or the occasional work-related injury. She decided to work on one of the cold cases that she had been studying. And then she reflected on the case of Marc Albu, the man in the park from a couple days earlier.

She had been very impressed with the depth of feeling of Madeline McIntyre for the man that she had loved and it made her think of her own relationship with Sherlock. She put her hand on her belly as a surge of intense feeling surged through the pit of her stomach. She was overwhelmed at the passion she felt for him.

Joan got up and went upstairs to Sherlock and climbed into his bed with him and snuggled up under him. He had been sleeping off the effects of the enema she had given him earlier in the morning and when she got into his bed he immediately reacted to her presence.

"Umm, is that my Joan?" he murmured.

"Yes, it's your Joan, Sherlock. How do you feel now, baby?"

Joan was running her hands through his hair, touching his stubbly cheeks and his lips.

"I think I'm better. My stomach has calmed down. I feel hungry. You know I must trust you, luv, to let you do that to me. That was an altogether humiliating experience. I am so sorry. I almost crapped right on you!"

"Well, that would not be the first time I was exposed to feces. I am a physician, Sherlock. You are my man and I just took care of you. If the day comes when you cannot clean yourself because you're too sick or too weak, you can be sure that I will take care of you. I will gladly wipe your behind for you."

"You did wipe my arse. That was the first time since I was a little tyke with nanny that someone did that."

"I'm here for you, Sherlock."

Sherlock looked at Joan's expression as she spoke and he knew that she was serious.

"That sounds somewhat like 'in sickness and in health' or some such words."

"They are not just words, Sherlock. I think we both understand what those words mean when you care for someone."

"Yes, I know now what that means."

"I'll go down and make you tea and toast and bring it up to you."

Joan moved to slide out of his bed, but Sherlock caught her hand and drew her back into the bed and into his arms.

"You are quite serious today, milady," he said smiling at her, smoothing her jet black hair and then stroking both her cheeks with his thumbs.

Joan's eyes filled with tears and spilled over. And then the words that she had held in her heart for so long just tumbled out.

"I am so in love with you, Sherlock. I am. Please . . . don't take advantage of my feelings for you. Please don't hurt me, Sherlock. I have never felt as vulnerable to a man as I do to you at this very moment. I've never before been in a relationship like this. What have you done to me, Sherlock? I don't want to be with anyone but you. My heart skips when I hear you call me and I know that we are . . . together or when you look at me and I know that you desire me. When that evil woman called me your 'mascot,' she had it right because I will follow you to the ends of the earth if you ask me to. I will be whatever you need me to be. I will follow you, Sherlock. Just please don't hurt me."

Sherlock drew Joan back into his arms and kissed her over and over on her cheeks.

"I will never hurt you, Joan. I promise that I will never hurt you. I have found true beauty in you, luv. Can you imagine being with such an obnoxious bloke as me for the rest of your life, Joan? Can you love me forever, Joan? Can you love me the way I love you? Can you imagine that?"might

"Oh, yes, Sherlock! Yes!"

Joan crawled up onto Sherlock and buried her head in his chest. She was trembling all over as she kissed his chest, nipping and biting him gently, her nimble fingers caressing him all over as he gasped repeatedly in response, finally taking her hand where he wanted her to touch him and crying out his joy when she did to him exactly what he craved at that very moment.

"Oh, God! Joan!" he cried, slipping into incoherent babbling, his eyes rolling back into his head as he gripped the bedclothes with his hands when ecstasy seized him, when she addressed his need directly and left him speechless, panting and gasping as the fireworks exploded in his brain.

He finally drew her up into his arms and lay conquered by his woman, so weakened by the intensity of the climax that he was hardly able to lift his arms and put them around Joan. And when she kissed him then upon his mouth and he tasted himself upon the lips that he loved, the conquest was total and unequivocal.

The next thing they knew they were drifting into sleep, wrapped in each others arms.

When Joan wakened, she let him rest. She knew that he needed that time to recover from the digestive upset he had endured as well as the emotional and sensual excitement that had seized him. He needed nourishment now so Joan eased from bed, took his shirt that he had worn the day before and put it on and went to downstairs to prepare a light chicken broth and dry toast for him.

As Joan prepared Sherlock's tray, she became overwhelmed with her feelings for Sherlock and she realized that she was crying silently. She wrapped his shirt even tighter around her, inhaling his scent that she loved so and tried to focus on what she was doing, but she could only think about the man upstairs in that bed who she loved more than she had ever thought she could love anyone.

I am such a mess, so completely carried away with this man. When he touches me or speaks to me the way he does when he makes loves to me, I just go all to pieces. I have no defenses left. I should be afraid to feel this way, but I don't fear him. I have never feared him . . . even when he was at his worst. But I did not imagine that he would be the consummate lover that he is and at the same time so needy and passionate. Somehow I think that he has never talked to a lover the way he talks to me when we are together . . . not even to 'her.' It is as if his heart is wide open now and everything in his heart is just overflowing and spilling out and he can't hold the words back. And I love those words so much when he says where he wants to touch me and describes all my parts the way he does with the pet names he's given them. No man has ever said those words this way to me till Sherlock. And I just melt all to pieces when he whispers those words in my ear. Darling, Sherlock . . . Darling Sherlock. . ."

Joan carried his tray up and put it on his lap and then she sat bedside him on his bed and shared his toast and even sipped from his bowl of soup to check the temperature till Sherlock sighed and set the tray on the bedside table and then turned to Joan with his nostrils flaring and that unmistakable look in his blue eyes.

Hours later it was Joan who wakened to Sherlock's touching her face, stroking her lips with his thumb.

"Joan, I need to ask you something very important."

Joan was instantly wide awake, sitting up in bed looking directly into his eyes.

"Will you marry me, Joan Watson? Will you marry me, and share my bed for the rest of my life? I know that I have my deficits, but I beg you to consider me, because I love you, woman, more than anyone on the face of this earth. I commit myself to you and promise to be faithful to you alone."

"Sherlock, you have said that you don't believe in marriage, that you are forever post love. What are you saying now? You don't feel that way any more?"

"No, I don't feel that way anymore. I was speaking as an utter fool, a man without knowledge when I said those things, because I am in love with you and I want to marry you. I have experienced with you things I have never experienced with anyone. I . . . I feel you loving me, Joan. And I am nearly out of my mind with loving you. Do you understand me? I imagine you pregnant with our child, us making a life because we made love. Will you say yes to that, Joan Watson?"

"Yes, Sherlock. I say 'yes' to you and I mean it with all my heart."

Joan reached out to him and they kissed and kissed and kissed again and Sherlock stroked and smoothed her hair as his eyes filled and spilled over with silent tears that ran down his cheeks and mingled with Joan's own tears of joy.

"Oh, God knows I love you! Joanie . . . Joanie, I need you . . . need you so. Please say you need me too."

"Yes . . . yes, Sherlock. I need you. I say 'yes' to you. Oh, Sherlock, baby, let me hold you. I need to hold you tight!"

End of chapter 4