Prompting Part XXXIV

[sherlockbbc_fic]

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Comments

John/Sherlock and Magnussen, Non-con

[(Anonymous)]

Spoilers

Magnussen doesn't flick John's face. He doesn't touch either of them. He finds it much more amusing to tell John to flick Sherlock's face. Because then it's John hurting Sherlock to keep Mary safe, and Sherlock letting him. That's real leverage.

The commands start with face flicking. They get worse.

Re: John/Sherlock and Magnussen, Non-con

[(Anonymous)]

*vibrates with poorly contained excitement*

ohdearchrist, I have been waiting for a villain like Magnussen/prompt like this in BBC universe ever since reading a Ritchieverse!fic with a similar premise which absolutely wrecked me. I can't make any promises as to timeliness, but I kind of desperately want to try to write this for you, nnngh...

*EXCITEMENT INTENSIFIES*

Re: John/Sherlock and Magnussen, Non-con

[(Anonymous)]

You just made my day by saying this!

Re: John/Sherlock and Magnussen, Non-con

[(Anonymous)]

If this is the Richieverse fic I think it is... Then... Then I can't wait for this. Please say it's the phobia fic.

Re: John/Sherlock and Magnussen, Non-con

[(Anonymous)]

Friend, it is indeed the phobia fic. ¬‿¬

Re: John/Sherlock and Magnussen, Non-con

[(Anonymous)]

(Anon you replied to here...)
You. Just. Made. My. Year.

Re: John/Sherlock and Magnussen, Non-con

[(Anonymous)]

Yay!

op

Re: John/Sherlock and Magnussen, Non-con

[(Anonymous)]

Want, want, want.

Re: Coming along slowly...

[(Anonymous)]

Just wanted to let you know I haven't forgotten about this, I have definitely been working on it!

FILL TEASER (spoilers for HLV) pt. 1

[(Anonymous)]

(I've got 16k rough draft for this thing, am maybe 2/3 done and hope to finish it in another couple weeks, but I wanted to drop a little something (very rough!) here to keep your interest thank you for your patience with me, OP. (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧)

~ ~ ~

Sherlock comes to a halt just beyond the threshold of the lounge. Magnussen cuts his eyes in Sherlock’s direction with a glimmer of cold, amused knowing, before returning his attention to John.

"I just love your little soldier face. I’d like to punch it."

John stares back, clearly thrown.

"But what I love even more is Sherlock’s arrogant little detective face--watching him swan in here with big brother’s computer, thinking that he will be the hero to single-handedly bring the cruel Mr. Magnussen to justice."

Sherlock flinches at the reminder of Mycroft’s words. "Not a dragon for you to slay."

"Ah, that is the face." Magnussen chuckles. "Bring it over here a minute," he tells Sherlock.

Sherlock steps across the room reluctantly. Whatever indignity Magnussen has planned, it can hardly be worse than anything endured during the two years of his 'death.' The important thing was to remain level-headed, unaffected, and give John no cause at any time to decide drawing his gun was a more acceptable alternative to letting Magnussen play his twisted power games.

A grin tugs at Magnussen’s lips, as if in reaction to a private joke. His eyes bore into Sherlock, though his words are directed at John. "Now this...this is the fun part." He gestures at Sherlock with his glass. "Sherlock Holmes will do anything for John Watson. John Watson will do anything for Mary Watson. So when I tell Sherlock to lean forward a bit...go on, stick your face out. Please?"

Sherlock holds his arms behind his back, his right hand clenched tightly around the other wrist, and does so. He looks straight ahead, his gaze unfocused as he waits for Magnussen to make his heavy-handed point.

"And when I tell you, John, to flick it..."

John scoffs, huffs a humorless laugh. Sherlock can feel John's questioning gaze on him and forces himself to nod, once.

"Flick his face. Come on. For Mary," Magnussen insists. "Just pull back your finger." He demonstrates, lifting his hand with the palm toward himself, tucks the tip of his middle finger beneath his thumb.

John shakes his head, snorts, shakes his head again, but eventually brings his hand to Sherlock's face, flicks his finger sharply against Sherlock's cheek. They've dealt much worse to one another--hell, John's overreaction to Sherlock's 'resurrection' comes quickly to mind--but that was always between the two of them, their business alone. The addition of Magnussen, with an expression of smug anticipation and his scotch in hand, spectating, however, adds an element of voyeurism which makes Sherlock uneasy.

"Again."

John flicks him again; Sherlock struggles not to flinch.

"I just love doing this. I could do it all day." Magnussen smiles at the two of them indulgently. "It works like this, John. I know who Mary hurt and killed; you do not want Mary to come to any harm, naturally, so you will flick Sherlock when I tell you to. Sherlock does not want you to come to any harm, so he will let you." Gesturing pointedly to John's raised hand, Magnussen waits for him to flick Sherlock before continuing.

"As for Mary, I know where to find people who hate her." Another loaded pause, until John flicks him--"Again,"--and again. "I know where they live; I know their phone numbers." Flick, flick. "All in my Mind Palace--all of it."

Sherlock's eyes burn into Magnussen.

"I could phone them right now and tear your whole life down--and I will..."

Sherlock clenches his jaw so hard, his teeth ache.

"...Unless you flick Sherlock’s face." Flick. "This is what I do to people. This is what I do to whole countries..." At Magnussen's look, John scowls, flicks Sherlock once more. "...just because I know."

Magnussen sips his scotch. "Do you understand now, John? I hardly need proof when knowledge of a thing is sufficient to have anyone I wish squirming in the palm of my hand, at the mercy of my will."

FILL TEASER (spoilers for HLV) pt. 2

[(Anonymous)]

"Mercy, right," John responds, nodding, but his gaze is on the floor as if collecting himself for a violent impulse; Sherlock has had opportunity to observe the signs, himself, often enough over the years. "No, yeah, I get it, no need for a t-shirt."

"Are you quite sure?" Magnussen asks, shifting his weight to loom over John. "Because I do worry my example might be too abstract; after all, I hardly make my way around Europe flicking countries, even if I can have their best friends do it for me! Maybe a more practical demonstration is needed to really..." Magnussen's gaze crawls leisurely over Sherlock, head to toe. "...drive the point home?"

Dread settles in Sherlock's gut like a stone. If Magnussen decides to threaten (or order John to threaten) life or limb, John is much more likely to balk and do something idiotic, like remember the gun tucked into the waistband of his trousers.

John shuffles his feet, darts a gaze in Sherlock’s direction which Sherlock studiously ignores. John scratches an eyebrow with the edge of his thumbnail, shifts his weight again. "Really, really not necessary. I get it, you’re a colossal prick who gets off on making people let you do degrading, humiliating things to them."

"Ah, that is good, John! Yes, and speaking of pricks," Magnussen repeats the word carefully, with amusement, "I wonder if you would remove yours from your trousers?"

"What the hell are you on about?" John demands with deadly calm.

"You seemed quite upset when I took a piss on the floor in Sherlock's grotty apartment," Magnussen mentions, seemingly apropos of nothing. Sherlock can see where this is going. Stupid! Whatever Magnussen coerces them into now, purely for his own sick entertainment, Sherlock has brought upon them both.

"That is something else I do, just a little thing--I look for 'tells,' and I use them to my advantage. So Sherlock is going to get on his knees," Magnussen explains, "and you are going to piss on him."

"Like hell I am!"

"Come now, John, think of Mary. What is a little uric acid between good friends?" Magnussen chuckles as he swirls the liquid in his glass.

"Sherlock--"

Slowly, with as much dignity as he can manage, Sherlock lowers himself to his knees on the carpet. "I'm sorry. Just...do it."

"You can't be serious," John protests, glancing uneasily from Sherlock to Magnussen, then back again.

Sherlock responds by sitting back on his heels, bracing his hands on his thighs.

Re: FILL TEASER (spoilers for HLV) pt. 2

[(Anonymous)]

This is your anon friend who had been waiting for this for a long time and...and...I think I love you.

Re: FILL TEASER (spoilers for HLV) pt. 2

[(Anonymous)]

Op here

Yay, my checking back once or twice a day has at last paid off! Don't worry about taking your time though; i can be patient. Especially if something like this is the result.

Brilliant. Exactly what I was hoping for. Creepy and disturbing and dark and well written and you have the character voices down perfectly. I look forward to the rest.

Re: FILL TEASER (spoilers for HLV) pt. 2

[lillkin.livejournal.com]

love it so far - can't wait for the whole thing:)
until then though - what is this 'phobia' ritchieverse fic you have mentioned? does anyone have a linky?
it sounds interesting :P

Re: FILL TEASER (spoilers for HLV) pt. 2

[(Anonymous)]

The Subtle Art of Misdirection by Fourlegged Fish, AO3

Re: FILL TEASER (spoilers for HLV) pt. 2

[(Anonymous)]

Omg. <3

Fill: Take What We're Given (Just because you've forgotten doesn't mean you're forgiven) Part 1a

[(Anonymous)]

WARNINGS: This fill contains spoilers for all of series 3, non-con/sexual coercion, (vague?) internalized self-hate/struggle with one's own ill-defined sexuality.

This fill is written with the underlying premise that Sherlock has been in love with John for years, but didn't realize/deduce it until the wedding reception during TSoT (really well-written meta on it here (http://loudest-subtext-in-television.tumblr.com/post/72857969693/what-is-love-anyway-or-how-sherlock-holmes-deduced)).

Also, thanks to arianedevere for her invaluable transcript of the episode.


~ ~ ~ ~ ~


‘You know about Mind Palaces, don’t you, Sherlock?’ Magnussen asks, the hint of a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth.


Sherlock swallows thickly and his lips part reflexively, but for once there are no words. No words will fix this. Good lord, “enormous mistake” was an understatement. He should have anticipated something like this; why hadn’t he anticipated something like this?


‘How to store information so you never forget it,’ Magnussen continues, ‘by picturing it. I just sit here, I close my eyes...’ He does so, slowly lowering his head. ‘...And down I go to my vaults. I can go anywhere inside my vaults...my memories...’


Magnussen’s head rotates side to side, as if passing through such a vault, surveying a plethora of nasty little keepsakes along the way, collected for his personal amusement. Sherlock tastes a hint of bile at the back of his throat.


‘I’ll look at the files on Mrs. Watson.’


Magnussen lifts his hands, reaches out to touch upon his mental image of Mary’s files. The man mimes flipping through file folders.


Beside him, John clears his throat against a stifled laugh. Likely thinking of the much more dramatic way Sherlock tends to sort through his own information banks (John is banned from the room whenever Sherlock needs to access his Mind Palace for a reason). Sherlock doubts John would find the situation so amusing, were he to understand the full extent of the miscalculation Sherlock has made in bringing them here.


Stupid, stupid, how could he have been so-- There’s nothing for it. ‘Hindsight is 20/20, brother, dear,’ he can practically hear in his head, but that hardly helps him now. There is no physical evidence to destroy, there never was, and Sherlock has foolishly played right into Magnussen’s hands.


‘Mmm. Ah. This is one of my favourites. Oh, it’s so exciting.’ Magnussen’s hands move as if turning pages. ‘All those wet jobs for the CIA. Ooh!’ Magnussen points, as if to a passage of text in his file. ‘She’s gone a bit...freelance now. Bad girl.’


Another page turned, and the man snickers to himself. ‘Oh!’ Another. Magnussen grins.


‘Ah, she is so wicked.’ He is all too clearly enjoying himself, enjoying the idea of gently teasing the entrails from someone like John.


John, who never would have gotten himself into this mess, if not for Sherlock. He never should have brought John, only... He never should have come back, if this was to be the shape of things, now—open season on John Watson in the minds of every two-bit, low-life thug with half a fistful of criminal ambition. (Told all my clients. Last one to Sherlock is a sissy.) Because to Get Sherlock, all one had to do was Get John Watson, and the proof of it had been there in Magnussen’s sitting room, projected larger than life and looped on repeat. (But look how you care about John Watson.)


Magnussen’s hands lift, replacing the file in its mental drawer. ‘I can really see why you like her.’ He pushes closed his imaginary drawer, lifts his palms as if in supplication as he opens his eyes again to peer intently at Sherlock. ‘You see?’


John clears his throat again, but this time there is no trace of amusement, only the indication that John is losing his patience. Oh, John. (You see, but you do not observe.)

FILL: Take What We're Given (Just Because You've Forgotten Doesn't Mean You're Forgiven) Part 1a

[soliandxpyne.livejournal.com]

(Argh, fuck it, fuck everything, I forgot how rage-inducing LJ makes attempting to post to these things anon, FINE, it's not like I've posted anything under this journal in the last five years, ANYWAY.)

WARNINGS: This fill contains spoilers for all of series 3, non-con/coercive sex (aka Bad Guys Made Them Do It), and a character's internalized self-hatred/struggle with his own ill-defined (a)sexuality.

This fill is written with the underlying premise that Sherlock has been in love with John for years, but did not realize/deduce it until the wedding reception in TSoT (very in-depth, well-written meta on the subject here (http://loudest-subtext-in-television.tumblr.com/post/72857969693/what-is-love-anyway-or-how-sherlock-holmes-deduced)).

Also, thanks to arianedevere for her invaluable transcription of the episode.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~


‘You know about Mind Palaces, don’t you, Sherlock?’ Magnussen asks, the hint of a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth.


Sherlock swallows thickly and his lips part reflexively, but for once there are no words. No words will fix this. Good lord, “enormous mistake” was an understatement. He should have anticipated something like this; why hadn’t he anticipated something like this?


‘How to store information so you never forget it,’ Magnussen continues, ‘by picturing it. I just sit here, I close my eyes...’ He does so, slowly lowering his head. ‘...And down I go to my vaults. I can go anywhere inside my vaults...my memories...’


Magnussen’s head rotates side to side, as if passing through such a vault, surveying a plethora of nasty little keepsakes along the way, collected for his personal amusement. Sherlock tastes a hint of bile at the back of his throat.


‘I’ll look at the files on Mrs. Watson.’


Magnussen lifts his hands, reaches out to touch upon his mental image of Mary’s files. The man mimes flipping through file folders.


Beside him, John clears his throat against a stifled laugh. Likely thinking of the much more dramatic way Sherlock tends to sort through his own information banks (John is banned from the room whenever Sherlock needs to access his Mind Palace for a reason). Sherlock doubts John would find the situation so amusing, were he to understand the full extent of the miscalculation Sherlock has made in bringing them here.


Stupid, stupid, how could he have been so-- There’s nothing for it. ‘Hindsight is 20/20, brother, dear,’ he can practically hear in his head, but that hardly helps him now. There is no physical evidence to destroy, there never was, and Sherlock has foolishly played right into Magnussen’s hands.


‘Mmm. Ah. This is one of my favourites. Oh, it’s so exciting.’ Magnussen’s hands move as if turning pages. ‘All those wet jobs for the CIA. Ooh!’ Magnussen points, as if to a passage of text in his file. ‘She’s gone a bit...freelance now. Bad girl.’


Another page turned, and the man snickers to himself. ‘Oh!’ Another. Magnussen grins.


‘Ah, she is so wicked.’ He is all too clearly enjoying himself, enjoying the idea of gently teasing the entrails from someone like John.


John, who never would have gotten himself into this mess, if not for Sherlock. He never should have brought John, only... He never should have come back, if this was to be the shape of things, now—open season on John Watson in the minds of every two-bit, low-life thug with half a fistful of criminal ambition. (Told all my clients. Last one to Sherlock is a sissy.) Because to Get Sherlock, all one had to do was Get John Watson, and the proof of it had been there in Magnussen’s sitting room, projected larger than life and looped on repeat. (But look how you care about John Watson.)


Magnussen’s hands lift, replacing the file in its mental drawer. ‘I can really see why you like her.’ He pushes closed his imaginary drawer, lifts his palms as if in supplication as he opens his eyes again to peer intently at Sherlock. ‘You see?’


John clears his throat again, but this time there is no trace of amusement, only the indication that John is losing his patience. Oh, John. (You see, but you do not observe.)

FILL: Take What We're Given (Just Because You've Forgotten Doesn't Mean You're Forgiven) Part 1b

[soliandxpyne.livejournal.com]

‘So there are no documents,’ John concludes, terribly unimpressed by the whole production. ‘You don’t actually have anything here.’


‘Oh, sometimes I send out for something...if I really need it...’ Magnussen glances at his watch, thoughtfully.


Averting his gaze, Sherlock swallows against the swell of curiously genuine despair beneath his ribs. An impulsive, poorly-considered decision, to have Billy alter the concentration of his sedative compound, and now it would cost them.


‘...but mostly I just remember it all.’


John shakes his head. ‘I don’t understand.’


‘You should have that on a t-shirt,’ Magnussen suggests.


‘You just remember it all,’ John repeats, as if stating the obvious will somehow impart greater clarity.


Sherlock feels Magnussen’s gaze settle on him with sly, tangible weight.


‘It’s all about knowledge. Everything is. Knowing is owning.’


Is that what he, himself, has been trying to do all this time, Sherlock wonders? As if by knowing John Watson, he could own some small, privileged part of him? But even as he think this, Sherlock knows better, knows himself. Knows he wouldn’t be fully satisfied until he owned the whole of John (until John owned the whole of him, in return, except John demonstrably did not want that).


Perhaps it only worked when one used that knowledge for ill-gain; perhaps Sherlock could have dedicated his life to the study of John, and never owned any more of the man than he did now. Yet Mary certainly knew all about the lengths to which Sherlock would go to ensure John’s happiness, didn’t she? And in so knowing, owned Sherlock as much as Moriarty had, in those last moments atop St Bart’s. (You don’t tell him. Sherlock... You don’t tell John.)


John’s protests, John’s incredulity wash over Sherlock, but run off the surface, unabsorbed.


(Off you pop. Go on. I told you how this ends.)


Magnussen stands, the movement pulling Sherlock from his frantic calculations, his increasingly desperate mental scrabbling on how he can possibly fix this for John. It never should have come this far, fix it, fix it.


‘Speaking of news, you’ll both be heavily featured tomorrow. Trying to sell state secrets to me.’ Magnussen tuts with disapproval, peers at his watch once more. ‘Let’s go outside. They’ll be here shortly.’


Magnussen turns to step from his “vault,” then pauses, his eyes scanning Sherlock’s face intently.


And Sherlock is overwhelmed, made too fragile by this unexpected blow, wrong, wrong, how can he have been this wrong, he can’t, he can’t think (‘Solve this!’ John’s voice snaps impatiently), and surely he has become utterly transparent, because the corner of Magnussen’s mouth twitches into a smirk.


‘Or, not so shortly?’


The worst bit of it, Sherlock supposes, is that pure hubris has brought him here. He’d thought Magnussen might take a little more convincing, might draw things out before agreeing to Sherlock’s terms, before revealing his precious vaults. Had thought he might even arrange time enough to have a glimpse for himself, whilst he was at it. (It’s all about knowledge. Everything is.)


But Magnussen isn’t like Moriarty, is he? For Magnussen, it isn’t about the game, isn’t about the challenge, or even winning. For Magnussen, it is about stacking the odds against every possible move in advance, and owning the board completely. It’s about ensuring that any game is lost, well before it’s even begun. Moriarty’s sense of fair play has made Sherlock complacent, and now look where they all are.

FILL: Take What We're Given (Just Because You've Forgotten Doesn't Mean You're Forgiven) Part 1c

[soliandxpyne.livejournal.com]

Adjusting his cuffs, Magnussen heads in the direction of the lounge. ‘Can’t wait to see you arrested,’ he tosses over his shoulder.


Sherlock ignores the barb, rooted to the spot by indecision. If everything he had fought to accomplish during the two hellish years he was gone, all the running and hiding and the sleepless nights spent in temporary bolt holes where the solitude cold penetrated so sharply it made his bones ache, had been for nothing...


The heat of John at his side is balm to the ugly bruise of futility located somewhere deep and secret behind Sherlock’s sternum, but a comfort Sherlock cannot allow himself to accept.


‘Sherlock, do we have a plan?’ John demands, his voice tight.


Sherlock doesn’t respond, his gaze remaining fixed on the floor. Only one plan, maybe, but it excluded John by necessity, and Sherlock took a moment to be thankful John had never extracted a definitive promise from him, upon his return, against continually keeping John in the dark about things he was better off not knowing. (It’s him I worry about—that wife! John Watson is definitely in danger...) One less promise to break, in the end, and it hardly mattered, as long as Sherlock kept the most important one.


‘Sherlock.’


It’s you, John Watson, he doesn’t say. It’s always you. You keep me right, and I—and I—


John turns and walks away.


Sherlock screws his eyes shut. Pathetic. He is utterly, ludicrously pathetic.


By the time Sherlock collects himself enough to force his feet in the direction of the lounge, Magnussen stands beside the minimalist glass end table and its decanter, another scotch in hand (Chivas Regal from the smell of it, most likely Royal Salute, Sherlock’s mind supplies, uselessly), and John is badgering Magnussen (equally useless).


‘You just know things. How does that work?’


Sherlock comes to a halt just beyond the threshold. Magnussen cuts his eyes in Sherlock’s direction with a glimmer of cold, amused knowing, before returning his attention to John.


‘I just love your little soldier face. I’d like to punch it.’


John stares back, clearly thrown.


‘But what I love even more is Sherlock’s arrogant little detective face—watching him swan in here with big brother’s computer, thinking he will be the hero to single-handedly bring the cruel Mr. Magnussen to justice.’


Sherlock flinches at the reminder of Mycroft’s words. (A necessary evil--not a dragon for you to slay.)


‘Ah, that is the face.’ Magnussen chuckles. ‘Bring it over here a minute.’


Sherlock steps across the room, reluctantly. Mycroft and the others will be drugged another twenty, maybe thirty minutes longer than ideal, but Sherlock can easily stall for that much time. The important thing is to remain level-headed, unaffected, and give John no cause at any time to decide drawing his gun is a more acceptable alternative to letting Magnussen play his twisted power games.


A grin tugs at Magnussen’s lips, as if in reaction to a private joke. His eyes bore into Sherlock, though his words are directed at John.


‘Now this...this is the fun part.’ He gestures at Sherlock with his glass. ‘Sherlock Holmes will do anything for John Watson. John Watson will do anything for Mary Watson. So when I tell Sherlock to lean forward a bit...go on, stick your face out. Please?’


Arms held behind his back, his right hand clenched tightly around the opposite wrist, Sherlock does so. He looks straight ahead, his gaze unfocused as he waits for Magnussen to make his heavy-handed point.


‘And when I tell you, John, to flick it...’


John huffs a humorless laugh. Sherlock can feel John’s questioning stare and forces himself to nod, once.


‘Flick his face. Come on. For Mary,’ Magnussen insists. ‘Just pull back your finger.’ He demonstrates, lifting his hand with the palm toward himself, tucks the tip of his middle finger beneath his thumb.

FILL: Take What We're Given (Just Because You've Forgotten Doesn't Mean You're Forgiven) Part 1d

[soliandxpyne.livejournal.com]

John shakes his head, snorts, shakes his head again, but eventually brings his hand to Sherlock’s face, flicks his finger sharply against Sherlock’s cheek. They’ve dealt much worse to one another—hell, John’s overreaction to Sherlock’s resurrection comes quickly to mind—but that was always between the two of them, their business alone. The addition of Magnussen, with an expression of smug anticipation and his scotch in hand, spectating, adds an element of voyeurism which makes Sherlock uneasy.


‘Again.’


John flicks him again; Sherlock struggles to remain absolutely still.


‘I just love doing this. I could do it all day.’ Magnussen smiles at the two of them indulgently. ‘It works like this, John. I know who Mary hurt and killed. You do not want Mary to come to any harm, naturally, so you will flick Sherlock when I tell you to. Sherlock does not want you to come to any harm, so he will let you.’ Gesturing pointedly to John’s raised hand, Magnussen waits for him to flick Sherlock before continuing.


‘As for Mary, I know where to find people who hate her.’ Another loaded pause, until John flicks him—‘Again,’—and again. ‘I know where they live; I know their phone numbers.’ Flick, flick. ‘All in my Mind Palace—all of it.’


Sherlock’s eyes burn into Magnussen.


‘I could phone them right now and tear your whole life down—and I will...’


Sherlock clenches his jaw so hard, his teeth ache.


‘...unless you flick Sherlock’s face.’ Flick. ‘This is what I do to people. This is what I do to whole countries...’ At Magnussen’s look, John scowls, flicks Sherlock once more. ‘...just because I know.’


Magnussen sips his scotch.


‘Do you understand now, John? I hardly need proof when knowledge of a thing is sufficient to have anyone I wish squirming in the palm of my hand, at the mercy of a whim.’


‘Mercy, right,’ John responds, nodding, but his gaze is on the floor as if collecting himself for a violent impulse; Sherlock has had opportunity to observe the signs, himself, often enough over the years. ‘No, yeah, I get it, no need for a t-shirt.’


‘Are you quite sure?’ Magnussen inquires, shifting his weight to loom over John. ‘Because I do worry my example might be too abstract. After all, I hardly make my way around Europe flicking countries, even if I can have their best friends do it for me! Maybe a more practical demonstration is needed to really...’ Magnussen’s gaze crawls deliberately over Sherlock, head to toe. ‘...Drive the point home?’


Dread settles in Sherlock’s gut like a stone. If Magnussen decides to threaten (or order John to threaten) life or limb, John is much more likely to balk and do something idiotic.


John shuffles his feet, darts a glance in Sherlock’s direction which Sherlock studiously ignores. John scratches an eyebrow with the edge of his thumbnail, shifts his weight again. ‘Really, really not necessary. I get it, you’re a massive prick who gets off on making people let you do degrading, humiliating things to them.’


‘Ah, that is good, John! Yes, and speaking of pricks.’ Magnussen enunciates the word carefully, clearly amused. ‘I wonder if you would remove yours from your trousers?’

FILL: Take What We're Given (Just Because You've Forgotten Doesn't Mean You're Forgiven) Part 3a

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John clears his throat. ‘Right, then,’ he says, awkward and not without misgivings, but nods briefly (avoids eye contact) before wasting no more time in undoing his zip, again, and reaching inside.


(‘Just get it over with!’ John had growled at him, shirtless and hunched miserably over the washbasin, the two of them crammed into the loo because the lighting was better, and Sherlock had dithered over where best to get a grip on the medical tape without peeling the skin from John’s back in the process. ‘You do realize the antici—


Sherlock’s mind slams back into the present as the head of John’s prick touches his lower lip—warm, skin slightly humid, smells faintly of musk and John—and Sherlock nearly bites his own tongue in the struggle against his instinctive reaction to taste, which he is aware is a bit Not Good. John’s hand, wrapped around himself just below the head (foreskin not retracted, lack of arousal obvious), jerks his penis back, clearly alarmed.


‘Sorry,’ Sherlock mutters weakly, ‘I’m sorry.’ No retreating to his own Mind Palace, then; he can’t trust himself not to be startled by novel stimuli and to avoid seriously injuring John. ‘I just wasn’t expect—sorry.’


‘Jesus,’ John pants. ‘A bloody menace, you are,’ and then he is frowning with determination, ah, no more dithering for either of them. John catches Sherlock under the jaw with his right hand, wedges his thumb between Sherlock’s back molars and oh, that’s clever, is that clever? Better that Sherlock bites John’s thumb, if he’s startled again, than risk biting anything less...resilient. John exerts a little more pressure with his thumb, forcing Sherlock’s mouth wider, and pushes the first few centimeters of his soft prick inside.


Sherlock’s fingers spasm where he clutches his own knees, but he otherwise remains perfectly still. Keeps his tongue flattened as much as possible, tucked behind his bottom incisors, politely out of the way. Rethinks this, based on anecdotal evidence, and as John grimaces (no longer entirely flaccid; well, pure physiology will surely be enough to get John through this, if he simply closes his eyes and thinks of England, or Mary, shouldn’t take much, John’s become accustomed to regular intercourse since meeting Mary, then gone cold turkey after discovering her more unsavoury hobbies), Sherlock repositions his tongue over the sharp edge of his lower teeth.


John inhales sharply, his hips jerking forward another several centimeters, and Sherlock definitely would have bitten him that time, probably, if not for John’s thumb. As it is, Sherlock discovers a critical flaw with this position: namely, the inability to swallow his own saliva.


John compensates by withdrawing completely from Sherlock’s mouth, then, seemingly frustrated with himself (for being as jumpy as Sherlock? for dragging it out?) he plunges back inside, carefully but firmly. His foreskin has begun to retract, and the texture of the slick glans on Sherlock’s tongue is...interesting. John tastes the way he smells, warm and musky.


It is bearable. It’s fine, it’s all fine, and when John...finished, or Magnussen grew bored, or Mycroft finally (finally) got his fat arse here and Sherlock had his witnesses, Magnussen would no longer have leverage over anyone ever again, and he and John would leave this place and not ever speak of it. Assuming Sherlock would be allowed, or even able, to talk to John again, from wherever Mycroft had him detained, after he eliminated Magnussen. “Justifiable homicide,” Sherlock’s mind offers, but Sherlock knows there will be no justification for him, despite the fact he will be doing the whole of England a favour, and several other countries, beside.

FILL: Take What We're Given (Just Because You've Forgotten Doesn't Mean You're Forgiven) Part 3b

[soliandxpyne.livejournal.com]

John is still struggling with his conscience, evidently. There is a deep furrow creasing the skin of his forehead (consternation, morally-motivated aversion). He pushes approximately half way into Sherlock’s mouth and holds himself there, uneasily, before edging in a bit more.


Magnussen sighs with something that sounds to Sherlock like dissatisfaction, or impatience, and Sherlock belatedly supposes he is being ‘less than helpful,’ as John likes to put it. He should help speed things along, shouldn’t he? How should he...?


Magnussen shifts his weight, as if in preparation to step nearer (if you do no fuck Sherlock’s mouth, I will do it for you).


With a frisson of panic, Sherlock resolves to apply whatever theoretical knowledge of fellatio he can call to mind, and as John moves forward another reluctant inch, Sherlock leans in suddenly to meet him. Overcomes his gag reflex to take John’s prick as deeply as the position of John’s fist around himself will allow. He attempts to keep his lips tucked safely over his teeth, pressing his tongue firmly to the underside where he can feel the throb of John’s pulse in the bulbourethral artery. Tries for as much suction as he can manage, but John’s thumb in place makes it difficult. Saliva drools steadily from the corners of Sherlock’s mouth; disgusting, but hardly worse than the bodily fluids with which he is already saturated.


Above Sherlock’s bent head, John’s breath punches from his lungs. The sound of it is identical to past instances when cornered criminals have made the unwise choice to fight them, rather than flee, and John has received a blow to the solar plexus for his troubles. Sherlock’s heart rate kicks up in some sort of Pavlovian response, and he grips his own thighs viciously to avoid reaching for John. But just as good (better, infinitely better), John lashes out with his left hand (no longer needed to support or guide himself into Sherlock’s mouth, not when his prick is hard as iron against Sherlock’s soft pallet) and fists his fingers in Sherlock’s hair.


Whether intended as a gesture to stay himself or to stay Sherlock, Sherlock doesn’t care, the follicles are so ridiculously sensitive and no one knows this, there is no possible way John can know, but he certainly knows now, as Sherlock’s eyelids flutter closed and the guttural, entirely involuntary whine works its way up his throat, surprising even himself. He isn’t...he doesn’t respond to sexual stimulation, not really, but it feels as if a live current runs from the clench of John’s hand to Sherlock’s coccyx.


It’s terrifying.


John’s cock noticeably enlarges, throbs in his mouth, the spurt of pre-seminal fluid bitter on the back of Sherlock’s tongue, and Sherlock flushes with humiliation. Chokes back the reflexive whimper, which sounds distressed, even to his own ears.


‘Oh,’ Magnussen exclaims softly. ‘That is very interesting information, indeed.’


Sherlock’s eyes snap open, appalled at having forgotten himself (stupid, stupid), and whatever John sees on his face has the other man opening his hand and pulling himself from Sherlock’s mouth so quickly, Sherlock nearly gags.


Shaken, coughing, Sherlock immediately lowers his gaze to the floor. Swallows thickly once, twice, works his jaw at the corners where stiffness has begun to set in and wipes his chin with the back of a hand. The taste of John lingers on his tongue, not particularly pleasant, but not as terrible as it might be.


‘You needn’t have stopped on my account,’ Magnussen insists. ‘Though I suppose the two of you are eager to see this exercise to its conclusion.’

FILL: Take What We're Given (Just Because You've Forgotten Doesn't Mean You're Forgiven) Part 3c

[soliandxpyne.livejournal.com]

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.

FILL: Take What We're Given (Just Because You've Forgotten Doesn't Mean You're Forgiven) Part 4a

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‘John, please,’ he murmurs sotto voce. ‘If you would spare me at all...’


‘No. No, Sherlock, stop right there. We’ve tried it your way, and look where it’s gotten us.’ His hand comes down on Sherlock’s shoulder and it takes everything Sherlock has, not to go rigid beneath it and prove John right.


John leans forward slightly, his voice low in Sherlock’s ear, and threaded through with frustration, as if Sherlock should already know what he’s about to say, or at the very least, care. ‘If I can’t see you, I’m going to have a hell of a time telling if I’m hurting you, or going too fast, or, Jesus, if you’re getting at all close to...’ John trails off, and in his peripheral, Sherlock sees him lift his eyebrows significantly and nod in the direction of Sherlock’s lap.


‘John. Is there a problem?’ Magnussen asks. His tone pretends at solicitousness, but it’s hardly convincing, seeing as there is also something rather pointed about it. ‘Do I need to step in to test Sherlock’s limits, myself, after all?’


Sherlock is filled with revulsion for the man with every fiber of his being. (Because he attacks people who are different and preys on their secrets.) Of course he would do anything for John’s sake. Anything. He had just foolishly hoped to get to the end of this Sword of Damocles bit without being expected to do the one thing he had both simultaneously wished and feared John would never, ever ask of him.


‘No,’ John barks, his hand tightening for a fraction of a second on Sherlock’s shoulder before sliding away. ‘No, just...negotiating.’


‘Ah, well, in that case.’ Magnussen stretches out to spread his arms over the back of the sofa. ‘You had better hurry. While I can be an extraordinarily patient man under the right circumstances, I assure you, this is not one of them.’


Sherlock slowly removes his hands from his hair. He often has difficulty maintaining physical arousal, even at the best of times, and there is nothing arousing in the least about the thought of being splayed on his back, Lepidoptera Glossata pinned to a card. John’s well-meaning scruples aside, this is one concession Sherlock will not make.


‘I can’t. In that position,’ he tells John firmly, because John responds more favourably to him saying he can’t do something than he does to Sherlock saying he won’t (deludes himself into thinking it indicates tractability on Sherlock’s part), and if John takes it to mean a mechanical defect of the transport itself, all the better.


‘However...’ Here is where he pauses. He needs a compromise acceptable to both parties, one which will assuage John’s care-taker tendencies, while still allowing Sherlock to maintain the fiction that he is not being forced to submit himself to the one thing he has spent his entire adult life actively avoiding. ‘If I promise to inform you, verbally...’


John snorts indelicately. ‘Chance would be a fine thing. No, I’ll only agree if you swear you will answer me, in words, every time I ask you if you’re all right—every time, Sherlock—and if you’re not honest with me, so help me, I will put you on your back and I will keep you there, do you understand?’


‘Yes,’ Sherlock blurts without thought, pulse skittering, unable to decide if this is the most frightening thing he has ever heard come out of John Watson’s mouth, or the most titillating.


‘Good, okay. Let’s, ah, try this again, then.’


Sherlock nods once, tersely, and returns to his hands and knees, knelt in the center of his greatcoat. He is completely soft once more, unsurprisingly.