sherlockbbc_fic | Prompting Part XXXIV

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Prompting Part XXXIV

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Magnussen holds up a finger in the universal ‘wait a moment’ gesture and crosses the room to a door just off the hallway. He enters, and there is the click of the light, a metallic clack (metal decoupling—magnet—medicine cabinet—loo, then). The medicine cabinet is closed, the light extinguished. Magnussen reappears to toss something (metallic surface, flatish) to the floor at Sherlock’s knees before continuing across the room to recline leisurely against the white leather “caterpillar style” sofa.

Sherlock glances briefly at the item, against his better judgment, only to find his eyes locked there, his mind stalled in disbelief. Single-use-sized foil packet of personal lubricant, dear Christ.

‘I will spare you the suspense. John, you are going to sodomize Sherlock. You are going to stick your prick up his ass and keep doing it until Sherlock has his “little death,” or I tell you to stop. I am curious, you see, because while my information indicates Sherlock’s taste in pornography falls within perfectly normal limits for a homosexual male, he has never had a sexual partner, and, well, at his age, I wonder if it is because he is simply...incapable.’

Sherlock’s blood runs cold. So this is it, the apogee of Magnussen’s power play. Sherlock wishes he could claim surprise, but he had done his own research, prior to arranging this meeting. Yet he hadn’t wanted to really think...people didn’t actually do things like this in real life, did they? It all seemed like something better suited to the telly screen and one of John’s ridiculous, contrived Bond villains.

John is silent for several moments, a fist clenched near but not touching his rather prominent erection, his body angled away from Magnussen in a futile instinct against exposure.

‘And if I refuse,’ John manages through his teeth, ‘you’ll do it for me, is that right?’

‘Well, of course,’ Magnussen agrees. ‘I would hate for something as trivial as a moral crisis to stand in the way of complete knowledge.’

‘Of course,’ John echoes with deadened voice. ‘Never mind the fact that not all men, not even all gay men, respond favourably to anal penetration.’

‘I suppose you’ll not take my word for it, either?’ Sherlock interjects. ‘If I were to tell you I am. Incapable.’

‘No,’ Magnussen concedes, ‘I would not.’

Well. It had been worth a shot. Dread churns through Sherlock’s intestines, and for a moment he wonders if he will vomit all over Magnussen’s pristine imported marble—almost hopes he will, but then again, better not, and risk worrying John any more than is unavoidable.

And where in the seven hells is Mycroft, he wonders with escalating desperation. Surely he and his goons would be showing up any moment, now?

‘Go on, then. Sooner started, sooner finished.’ Magnussen smirks from his loose-limbed sprawl on the sofa. Sherlock hates the man incandescently.

Reluctance dragging at his every movement, Sherlock inhales deeply through his nose, exhales through his teeth. Slides his hands from where they clutch his knees, white-knuckled, to press them flat to the floor and shifts his weight until he is poised on all fours above his coat. From what he has read, this should be the easiest position for first-time penetration; even if it weren’t, Sherlock can’t stomach the idea of facing John.

Sherlock holds himself steady on one hand while he uses the other to unbutton his suit jacket, to grimly undo his belt, slide down his zip, and then...stops. He is faint with nausea, and he cannot force himself to do more. Please, John, he thinks, hating himself as he does it, but finally, John shakes himself from whatever trance of horror had evidently taken hold of him as he stood there looking down at Sherlock reduced to this. John’s shoes disappear from Sherlock’s field of vision as his friend steps behind him without a word.

John tentatively kneels behind him (comes down a little harder on the left knee than the right, the ‘bad’ leg clearly playing up on him), and his hands hover uncertainly at Sherlock’s hips for a moment before he grasps the waistband of the trousers. John peels them down until they rest around Sherlock’s upper thighs.

The muscles of Sherlock’s shoulders ache with tension, and thankfully John doesn’t draw it out, simply tucks his thumbs beneath the elastic of Sherlock’s boxer-brief style pants and jerks them down, being considerate enough to push his thumbs sufficiently forward to avoid catching uncomfortably on Sherlock’s genitalia.

Sherlock is sick with anxiety. Pulse jackrabbit fast, his hands are clammy.

(Don’t be alarmed; it’s to do with sex.)

He hadn’t been lying. Sex doesn’t alarm him, not in the abstract, and not as an objective third-party witness. As long as it has nothing whatsoever to do with his own person, Sherlock can’t really be arsed to care one way or the other about it, except so far as it goes toward criminal motivation. The joke is on Magnussen, if he thinks Sherlock’s habits of pornographic consumption are indicative of anything other than statistic-gathering experiments or case-related research.

However, Sherlock is forced to admit, being compelled to kneel atop his own coat on all fours and resign himself to imminent violation at the hands of the only man about whose opinion of him Sherlock has ever really cared, is not the least bit abstract.

From the beginning of their acquaintance, Sherlock had made certain to shut down any possible avenues of discussion on his sexuality. Information that was immaterial to a flatshare, then irrelevant in a friendship, would now only be deeply uncomfortable within a one-sided romantic attraction. There was no dignified way to explain something like “asexual, with the theoretical possibility of demisexuality, by which I mean ‘John-sexual.’” Whether John believed Sherlock to be aromantic, asexual, celibate, gay...it hardly mattered, as Sherlock had never intended to act on any of it. As far as Sherlock’s own inclinations went, one did not need attempt repeated sowings to determine a field, fallow for all of known memory, was in actuality barren.

(It’s all about knowledge. Everything is.)

But in this one thing, Sherlock does not want to know. The idea of knowing without a doubt, one way or the other, is utterly terrifying. Far better to salt the earth liberally and conspicuously, than to stand amidst that barren field and leave the opportunity for a single second of consideration upon the question of what ugly, stunted, sterile thing might take root there, but for a single cupped palm of water which would never be given. It isn’t John’s fault that he does not love Sherlock in this way.

There is the rustle of clothing, and John places his coat bunched on the floor, opposite side of Sherlock from Magnussen. Magnussen is silent, so Sherlock has no choice but to assume John has either successfully managed to keep him from seeing the firearm, or Magnussen has seen, and is utterly unconcerned.

‘Should probably take off your jacket,’ John tells him, his left arm moving into Sherlock’s line of sight with an awkward gesture toward the packet of lubricant. ‘The shirt too, while you’re at it.’

‘No, thank you, I think not,’ Sherlock replies crisply, relieved beyond telling at the steadiness of his own voice. He snatches up the foil packet and slaps it into John’s hand. The hand retreats.

‘Suit yourself. If you want to faff about soaked in cold urine, far be it from me to stop you.’

‘As long as you stick to statistical findings for ejaculation time of the average adult male, this should all be done and over within three minutes, so it hardly seems worth the effort,’ Sherlock snarks back.

‘You forget—this isn’t about me at all. It’s all on you, Sherlock, and I’d hardly accuse you of something so boring as being average.’

With an explosive sigh of annoyance, theatrics intended to distract from the trembling of his hands, Sherlock practically rips the suit jacket from his body, nearly elbowing John in the eye in the process. He makes a show of hurling his jacket down atop John’s, and it allows him to confirm that John’s weapon is indeed wadded inside it, but this is as far as Sherlock will disrobe. He would rather deal with the discomfort and smell of his likely ruined Dolce shirt than remove it at present time, for present audience. Sherlock is not so blind to social conventions (not anymore) that he does not understand what John is trying to do, and part of him is...grateful. This will not damage them, irreparably.

Sherlock returns to his previous position, hands and knees, and his limp penis hangs awkwardly, brushing against the hem of his shirt. So. The obvious tactic here is to take John’s comment as a challenge. Sherlock sincerely doubts he can manage three minutes, even under ideal conditions, but if he really tries, perhaps he can achieve five. Though that does not take into account the unknown variable of anal penetration.

‘Just get on with it,’ he orders, because Magnussen is right of course, sooner started, sooner finished, and as the starting is unavoidable, Sherlock would rather any finishing happen well before his late, late brother arrives.

John lays a palm on Sherlock’s lower back and leaves it there. The warmth of his skin bleeds through the thin fabric of Sherlock’s shirt, and he wants to be comforted, but finds it impossible, knowing what is coming next.

‘Sherlock,’ John sighs, sounding exasperated, and Sherlock cannot imagine what John Watson possibly has to be exasperated at him about. When he speaks again, his voice is pitched low enough for Sherlock’s ears, only.

‘If you really have never done this before, I’m sure as hell not going to just—‘

‘For god’s sake,’ Sherlock snarls under his breath. The apprehension is threatening to bring up his meager lunch. ‘It doesn’t matter, I’m giving you permission, I’m not made of bone china! If you have any regard for me whatsoever, you’ll stop coddling me and do it, because I can’t bear—‘ His jaw snaps shut audibly as he stops himself from completing that sentence. Sherlock struggles to master his brittle voice, to force the words through the irrational lump in his throat and make John understand. ‘The anticipation is worse than the act, John.’

John is quiet for a long moment, so long that Sherlock begins to worry John will fight him on this, or Magnussen will say something horrible but finally, finally, John exhales a tense and audibly unhappy breath from his nose.

‘Fine. Yes, all right, you’re right,’ he says, and the next thing Sherlock hears is the crinkle and rip of the foil packet. There is a brief pause, then John’s fingertip, cool with slick, skims the tightly clenched muscle of his anus.

‘Try to relax,’ John advises, a retreat to doctor-mode as he grasps for some pseudo-professional distance between himself and Sherlock.

Sherlock snorts, nostrils flaring, and makes a conscious effort, despite the creeping, queasy sensation of self-loathing which begins squeeze around his ribs like a vice. And that is familiar, from previous explorations involving his own sexuality and the addition of a second party. Being stone cold sober for the experience is something new, though only serves to confirm Sherlock’s long-held suspicion that sobriety just makes him feel his inadequacy, his freakishness, all the more keenly.

John’s finger carefully pushes in to the first knuckle. Then, when Sherlock says nothing, the second. Sherlock attempts not to vibrate out of his own skin.

‘Okay?’ John asks.

Sherlock lifts his head from between his shoulders enough to give a terse nod. He is not lying, exactly, because by any explanation John would be able to understand, Sherlock is “okay.” He is not in any pain, not in any strictly physical discomfort beyond the mechanics of it.

John slides his finger out until just the tip remains inserted, but Sherlock’s relief is short-lived. The finger returns to lightly palpate his prostate, causing the muscles of his pelvic floor to jump. Sherlock jolts, not having expected that quite so soon in the proceedings.

‘Shh, it’s alright, perfectly normal,’ John assures him, attempting to soothe Sherlock’s skittishness, but the words just serve to drive home to Sherlock how very Not Normal he feels.

Is it? he wants to ask, but won’t, of course, not with Magnussen hovering just out of sight like some great vulture, waiting for the scent of blood. Wouldn’t a normal male be at least the slightest bit stimulated by now? Sherlock wouldn’t know. After his own disappointing experiments, any continued study of others’ apparent ease of success had only felt like salt in the wound.

John takes his silence as permission to continue. Rubs his finger cautiously around the walls of Sherlock’s rectum before returning to his prostate with gentle, indirect pressure. Sherlock takes his lower lip between his teeth, brow furrowed, and stares fixedly at the floor. The sensation is not entirely pleasant, yet still vaguely so, all the same, and Sherlock can’t even begin to determine how he would conceptualize such a thing. John continues to probe at him with that single finger and eventually, Sherlock is able to acclimatize, as long as he considers it part of a mildly distasteful yet regretfully necessary medical procedure. As long as he keeps his mind firmly on his own body without making the mistake of visualizing the unflattering tableau he must present.

Finally, John’s finger slips free of Sherlock’s body and Sherlock inhales slowly, congratulating himself on retaining his equanimity. He’ll never make it to orgasm in five minutes, at this rate, but he will get through this.

After a moment, John’s fingers return. Two this time, cool with added lubricant, and Sherlock hopes John is being economical with it; Magnussen only granted them the one packet.

John circles the rugose skin of his anus, massaging, coaxing, and while not arousing in the least, Sherlock appreciates the clarity of intent behind the touch. Gradually, John insinuates the tips of his fingers and proceeds to work at the outer sphincter, without going deeper quite yet. Sherlock hisses in through his teeth, his hands fisting in the tweed of his Belstaff beneath him. John freezes.

‘It’s fine,’ Sherlock insists. ‘I’m fine, keep going.’ He makes a conscious effort to relax his shoulders from where they’ve begun creeping up around his ears.

After a brief hesitation, John continues. The touch is...tolerable, the combination of the tips of John’s two fingers just inside the rim of his anus, his thumb pressed to the external edge of the muscle, the incidental brush of ring-finger knuckle against Sherlock’s perineum. While Sherlock would have assumed the combination to be stomach-churningly invasive, instead he finds it...grounding, and it helps keep the worst of the panic at bay. Because it is John, doing what needs be done, even if he doesn’t entirely agree with it, but doing it all the same because Sherlock told him to. That, at least, is a comfortably familiar dynamic between them.

John braces his left hand on Sherlock’s hip, and it’s more stimulating than any touch has been until this point. From extremely scattered, not particularly reliable past experiences, Sherlock has ascertained he can enjoy and is exceptionally sensitive to non-sexually-explicit, affectionate touch, as long as it is from an acceptable individual, with acceptable (non-sexual) motives. John’s hand curled around his hip is a sensation which Sherlock is able to quantify as definitively Good, and as such, it has the skin all along Sherlock’s left side tingling, from knee to ribcage.

Distracted by the hand on his flank, Sherlock doesn’t tense up as quickly as he might have done when John slides the fingers of his right into him completely, all the way to the third knuckle. A strangled noise is driven from deep within Sherlock’s chest, incompletely smothered, and John’s left thumb caresses the blade of Sherlock’s ilium, rubs soothing circles along the edge of the bone with firm pressure and it’s perfect, John is perfect, and Sherlock can almost forget about the invasive fingers, can almost pretend, with his eyes squeezed shut, that they’re knelt on the floor of the sitting room at Baker Street, fresh off a fantastic case and John couldn’t wait, wanted this, wanted him, and John understood it wouldn’t be a regular thing, and was fine with it, (It’s all fine), Sherlock had given it to him because he’d wanted to, because he—

The clink of glass on glass (tumbler on table) slams Sherlock back into the reality of the situation. He gasps sharply through his nose, clamping down on John’s fingers reflexively, and the implacableness of them being there, embedded, threatens to send Sherlock into a panic attack. His vision greys worryingly, struck as he is by a feeling of disconnect from his own body. With delayed humiliation he realizes he is nearly half-hard.

‘Sherlock?’ John murmurs over his shoulder, concern evident in his voice. ‘Sherlock,’ he repeats, more firmly, ‘answer me.’

‘What?’ Sherlock bites out, his voice higher and tighter than normal and he hates it, he hates the way his transport always chooses the worst moment to betray him. John may be an idiot when it comes to most things, but not the workings of the body, and while that about him usually fascinates Sherlock, right now he hates that, too, because it just gives his execrable transport one more co-conspirator against him. Sherlock is trembling, his arms barely managing to keep him upright, his heart racing. John is hardly incompetent enough to miss all this, yet Sherlock wishes futilely that he will ignore it, will just...let it be.

‘Right.’ John huffs with exasperation. ‘That’s definitely enough of that, then,’ he says, and before Sherlock can demand what that’s supposed to mean, demand he just get back to it already, does he want to be all day about it, John carefully withdraws his fingers from Sherlock’s anus with a wet squelching noise that makes Sherlock’s stomach lurch ominously.

‘Turn around,’ John says, applying gentle but insistent pressure to Sherlock’s hip.

‘No,’ he grits through his teeth. Unthinkable. He would rather submit to this indignity a dozen times, than have to face John while he does it.

‘Turn around and lie down, before you fall down.’

‘If you would stop all this needless prattling and molly-coddling, we could have been done with this by now!’ Sherlock clamps down hard on the rising hysteria. He will not become hysterical over this.

‘Oh yeah?’ John retorts. ‘And you could have yourself a rectal tear, while you’re at it, would you like that? So you and your bloody pride could leave here and have to go to hospital right after, where you’d have to explain what happened to everyone, explain that your best friend r—!’ John’s voice cracks on the word, and it’s a moment before he can continue, sounding like he’s swallowed broken glass. ‘Raped you? Is that what you want, Sherlock?’

‘No!’ Sherlock groans, hunching over his knees to fist his hands in his hair. No, he didn’t want that! But couldn’t John understand that all he had left at this point was his ‘bloody pride’?! He couldn’t submit to this when there was the possibility of John seeing everything on his face, every small, hideous, lonely, pathetic, unrequited vulnerability within Sherlock which made him love John despite the countless—countless!—reasons it was impossible: sexual incompatibility, Sherlock’s personality, John’s trust issues, Sherlock’s lack of any worthwhile contribution to bring to a romantic relationship, John’s desire for children, John’s desire for a life partner of whom he wouldn’t have to be ashamed, John’s desire for—stop, End Routine, stop it, just stop it.

Even if John didn’t see it, by some sheer pig-headedness remained ignorantly or willfully blind to Sherlock’s own ‘human error,’ there was still Magnussen, and Magnussen would see it, Magnussen would know, and by someone else knowing, it was somehow made real, and Sherlock would never escape his own knowledge of it. It would fester like gangrene, and Sherlock would have no option but to amputate, or let it kill him, and he already knew which choice he would make.

He could not.

Loving this!

This is rapidly heading to the top of my favorite 'bad guys made them do it' fics of all time. Absolutely LOVE IT.

Remember the anon who was sooo excited to see this because they were madly in love with Four Legged Fish's story in Richieverse? That's me by the way,...hello! Well I am so thrilled this completely exceeds my expectations, taking it in new directions with a beautifully fleshed out backstory of a ( be still my heart, it's my headcanon!) demi/Johnsexual/whatthefuckamianywayohitdoesntmatterhedoesntwantmeanyway Sherlock. Bless you. And keep it coming.

Haha, yesss, so glad to hear it (and yes, that is definitely my preferred headcanon sexuality for Sherlock, poor baby...). My internet access is spotty, and keep finding more things I end up re-writing as I go through what I have finished in order to add in the html tags, but I will get through it (eventually)!

Well, this was a nice surprise after leaving home for a week! Brilliant, everything I hoped for and more. I particularly loved your indication that the reason Sherlock doesn't just shoot him right then is that he needs witnesses to protect John...since that's my personal head canon too. In fact, I almost included that bit in the prompt but decided it was too much detail and unneeded...and then you included it all on your own! :) I love everything about this. You really bring out Magnussen's potential as a complete creep and horrible bully of the worst kind (the sort that makes me feel a bit ill in a way Moriarty never quite managed), and Sherlock and John feel so in character. Trying so hard to get through this, and being inside Sherlock's head is just perfect.

I can't wait to see what happens next.
OP

Thank you, I'm so glad you're enjoying this! Like I mentioned in my original claim, the idea for a fic like this had been sort of percolating for years, and I can't stand it when characters seem to get lamely and rather loosely 'threatened' into doing things they would normally never do, so you'd better believe I intend to be quite thorough in weaving John and Sherlock inescapably into my web, as realistically as possible, lol. >:D

What a beautiful description of Sherlock's sexuality. I know it shouldn't make it more painful, but for me it does.

^^-- exactly this. Thank you for summing it up so succinctly, I'd have written a whole paragraph and still not gotten my point across. Great work, author-anon.

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