Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“John?” asked Sherlock.  He was lying across the sofa in the sitting room of their Baker Street flat, clad in his pyjamas and blue silk dressing gown, eyes closed and palms together beneath his chin in what John referred to as his ‘thinking pose.’

“Yes?” said the John in his chair next to the fireplace.

“What?” said the John standing in front of the window.

Sherlock opened his eyes.  “Why are there two of you?”

The Johns blinked, noticing each other for the first time.  The John at the window wore a red button down, and the John in the chair wore a striped rugby jersey, but other than that, they were identical.

“Oh, don’t ask them, they don’t know,” snapped another Sherlock, lounging in the Le Corbusier chair.  This Sherlock was wearing obscenely tight black leather trousers, slung so low on his hips that the inguinal crease beneath his chiseled abdominal muscles was visible below the hem of his black fishnet shirt.  His hair was slicked back, though a few curls remained at his nape.

“Wait, there are two of me?” said the pyjama-clad Sherlock, rolling over.

“Three,” said a third Sherlock, hunched over his computer at the table in the middle of the sitting room.  “Obviously.”

“Right,” said the first Sherlock, looking at the third Sherlock, who was wearing a black Spencer Hart suit.  “So why are we …”

“We’re clearly in some kind of Mind Palace,” said the Sherlock in a suit.

“Or else we’ve gone mad again,” said the leather clad Sherlock.

“Again?” asked the Sherlock on the sofa.

“We?” said the John at the window.  He pointed his finger at each of the three Sherlocks in turn.  “You’re the mad wankers.”

“Please, John,” snapped the Sherlock at the laptop.  “You’re an adrenaline junkie who antagonizes criminals for fun and had a psychosomatic limp when I met you.  Pot, meet kettle.”

“I beg your pardon!” interrupted the John in the chair.  “I’m the most rational, patient, caring friend and flatmate anyone has ever had, and you should count yourself lucky that I put up with you.”

“Gentlemen,” snapped Irene, who was wrapped in Sherlock’s Belstaff and perched in a chair across the table from the Sherlock typing on John’s (one of the Johns’?) laptop.  “Can you please stop bickering?  Or, if you must continue, can you make it a little more physical?” she smirked.

“I would never hit Sherlock,” said the John in the chair.

“You punched me in the face!” said the Sherlock at the laptop, slamming the lid closed.

“Only because you punched me first,” said the John at the window, whirling around.

“What about at the Landmark?” asked the Sherlock on the sofa.  “I didn’t punch you first then.”

“That was justified!  You lied to me.  Two years, Sherlock!  And you let me grieve.”

“I never meant to hurt you,” whimpered Sherlock, wrapping his dressing gown tightly around him.

Irene rolled her eyes.  “It doesn’t really matter.”  She gestured to the Sherlock across from her.  “He’s quite right.  We’re clearly all in some kind of mind palace and none of us are real.”

“I’m real,” pouted the Sherlock on the sofa.

“You’re no more real than the rest of us,” said the Sherlock seated across from Irene.

“But I have to be real!”

“What for?”

“Because if I’m not real, then other people who see themselves in me won’t know that it’s okay to be like me.”

The leather-clad Sherlock snorted.

“Maybe it’s Not Okay to let your friends think you’re dead for two years, Sherlock,” snapped the John at the window.   “Did you ever think of that!”

The pyjama-clad Sherlock bit his lip, eyes welling with tears.

“Why do you let him shout at you like that?” said Mycroft, walking in from the kitchen and leaning in the doorway on his brolly.  “Honestly, Sherlock.  Sherlocks,” he amended, taking in the others without giving any indication of alarm, “if you would just use your words like adults and talk through this whole situation, I’m sure John would understand.”

“I wouldn’t,” said the John at the window, “there’s no possible justification.”

“I would,” said the John in the chair, setting down his teacup.  “I’ll always forgive you, Sherlock, no matter what you’ve done.”

“Both of you are ridiculous,” said the Sherlock at the table, “forming conclusions without knowing the facts.”

“Quite,” agreed Mycroft.

“The facts don’t matter since none of us is real,” Irene interrupted again.

“But--” protested the Sherlock sulking on the sofa.

“Oh, do shut up about being real,” sniffed the suited Sherlock.

“Do shut up entirely,” agreed the Sherlock in the fishnet top.  “It’s frankly alarming, watching you simper and fawn and make puppy eyes over John like a …” his eyes roamed over Sherlock’s rail-thin, be-dressing gowned body.  “Like a sad, gay baby.”

Sherlock’s mouth fell open.  “I am not a sad gay baby!”

“Yes, you are,” said Irene.

“Well, what is he, then?” sputtered Sherlock.  “Splaying his legs open so everyone can see his cock through those trousers.”

Everyone in the room let their eyes dart over to confirm this was, in fact, true, to which the lounging Sherlock responded by putting his palm on his leather-clad thigh and smirking.

“Look at him!  He’s not even ashamed.”

“Why should I be?” he asked.

“Because it’s indecent!  You’re just sitting there leering at the rest of us like some sort of superior …” he sat up on the sofa, running his fingers through his wild, untamed curls.  “Dark fuck prince.”

Sherlock chuckled and leaned back further into his chair.  “Thank you.”

“It wasn’t meant as a compliment.”

“I’m still fairly certain it is,” said Irene.

There was a knock at the door.  “Boys!” called Mrs Hudson.  She walked into the kitchen, an expression of confusion coming over her face as she peered around Mycroft at the assembly in the sitting room.  “Rather more of you boys than I was expecting.  And one lady,” she said, nodding her head at Irene.

“If you can call her that,” coughed the John at the window into his fist.

“John Watson,” said Mrs Hudson.  “I will not have you slut-shaming sex workers in this house.”  She smiled at Irene.  “I was an exotic dancer, you see.”

Anthea came in behind Mrs Hudson, her heels clicking across the floor.

“Oh, right,” Mrs Hudson gestured to Anthea.  “Forgive me, this lady is here to speak with you.”

Mycroft frowned, moving away from the door so the two women could enter the sitting room.  “I didn’t call you.”

“With all due respect, Mr Holmes, you aren’t real.”  She gestured to all the characters in the sitting room.  “None of you are.”

“I told you,” said the Sherlock at the table.

“You’re all probably wondering where you are, and why you’re here.”

“I’ve been waiting all bloody afternoon for someone to tell me what the hell is going on,” said the John at the window.

“Manners, John,” said the John in the chair.  He stood up, setting his tea-cup on the coffee table.  “Speaking of which, Mrs Hudson, please sit.”  He crossed the room and took a seat at the table with Irene and the Sherlock in the black suit

“Thank you dear,” said Mrs Hudson.  “It’s just this hip.”  She walked over and took his seat, pausing to grin at the Sherlock seated across from her.

He winked.

“You are all inside a headcanon--” began Anthea.

“What the hell is that?” asked the John at the window.  “Some kind of weapon?”

“It’s a collection of fandom theories about what all of you are like and what happens in the aspects of the show viewers don’t see.”

“Like on the telly?” asked Mrs Hudson.

“Or a broadway show?” asked Mycroft with a shudder.

“What’s fandom?” asked the suit-clad Sherlock.  “Is that like those people Anderson hangs out with?  With the hats?”

“Something like that, yes,” said Anthea.  “You are all characters on a TV show called ‘Sherlock.’”

“Why is the show named after him?” protested Mycroft.

“Because I’m more interesting than the rest of you,” said the Sherlock in leather trousers.

“You are certainly the character that is most often represented in fanworks.”

“Is that why there’s three of us?” asked the Sherlock in the suit.

“Excellent deduction.  Yes, there are three of you because there are more interpretations of your character.”

“You said you were going to tell us why we were here,” said the John at the window.

“Right,” said Anthea.  “So, you can think of this little gathering as a kind of casting call.”

“Ooooh,” said Mrs Hudson.  “Like, to be on the TV Show.”

“No, to appear in a work of fanfiction.”

The John in the chair raised his eyebrows.  “You mean, like Fifty Shades of Grey?”

“That’s one example,” acknowledged Anthea.

“Oh, God.  You mean, some teenaged girl is going to write an awful novel with us in it?”

“John, given the appalling quality of the prose on your blog,” said the Sherlock in the suit, “I hardly think you’re in a position to take on the role of literary critic.”

Anthea smiled.  “Not all, or even the majority, of writers are teens, though they are majority female, and the quality of prose varies wildly.  But no, this particular casting isn’t for a novel.  It’s for porn without plot.”

“Porn without plot?”  The John in the chair licked his lips.  “Wait, so, like, there’s no case, or anything, people just write about us having sex?”

“I would have thought that was obvious, given the description,” muttered Sherlock in leather trousers.

“Wait,” said the John at the window.  “People write about us,” he circled his finger around the room, pointing at the other John and all the Sherlocks.

“Not exclusively,” said Anthea.  “But yes, the vast majority of the erotic works are about you and Sherlock, yes.  There’s even a name for the ship--that’s short for ‘relationship,’ for the two of you together.”

“Dare I ask what?” asked the Sherlock at the table.

“Johnlock,” said Anthea, with an entirely straight face.  “You’re the fandom’s ‘OTP,’ or ‘One True Pairing.’”

“But I’m not actually gay!” protested John.

The Sherlock on the sofa rolled into a ball away from the others and made a great display of burying his face in the cushions.

The Sherlock in the fishnet top rolled his kohl-rimmed eyes.

“Actually,”said Anthea, “Most of fandom interprets you as bisexual.”

John sputtered for a minute, and then folded his arms across his chest.  His face had become nearly as red as the button-down he was wearing.

“What John actually means when he says he’s ‘not actually gay,’” said the Sherlock in the suit, “is that he isn’t sexually attracted to men.  Which is fine.”

“I know it’s fine,” John continued.  “It’s absolutely fine to be straight.  Why won’t anyone let me define my own orientation?”

“Well, dear,” Mrs Hudson fussed with her teacup.  “It does make you sound a bit homophobic.  Especially when you say it around Sherlock, you know, since he’s gay.”

“I am not,” said both of the black-clad Sherlocks together.

“Well, I am,” said Irene.

“You wouldn’t know it by the way you throw yourself at Sherlock,” muttered the John sitting next to her.

Irene shrugged.  “Love is more complicated than orientation.”

“I--” he began.  “That.  Yeah.”

“Wait,” said the John in the red shirt.  “Are you saying you’d fuck Sherlock?”

The other John coughed.  “Well I wouldn’t put it like that.  But I mean, I don’t know.  Just, if the moment were right.  And only if he felt the same way.  And I’m not saying it might not be weird, with a bloke.  But yeah.  I’d ….”

“Fuck him.” John repeated.

“What makes you assume I’d be the one getting fucked?” asked the leather-clad Sherlock.

The John at the window fumbled.  “Well, you’re ….”

“What?”  His grin was all teeth.  “A bottom with the soul of a poet?”

“Don’t go putting words in my mouth.  I never said--”

“You implied.  Heavily.”

“I just thought--”

“You assumed.”

John flushed.  “Yeah.  I did.  I’m sorry about that.”

“Leave him alone!” snapped the Sherlock on the sofa.  “He didn’t mean it.  Besides, there’s nothing wrong with being a bottom.”

“I never said there was,” said the Sherlock in leather.

“Some people like to hold people, and other people like to be held.”

The other Sherlock brought his hand to his eyes, smearing his eyeliner.  “Do you think you can manage to talk about sex like an adult?”

“Not everyone’s as comfortable with sex as you!”

“Clearly,” said Mycroft.

Sherlock rolled across the couch to pout at him.  “It still doesn’t alarm me.”

‘Wait for it ….” said the Sherlock at the table

Mycroft sighed.  “Well I’m not going to say it now.”

“And this is seriously why people think I’m a virgin?” asked the Sherlock in leather.  “Because Mycroft says so?”

Anthea shrugged.  “That’s the line supporters of the virgin!Sherlock headcanon most frequently cite, yes.”

“Virgin Sherlock?”

“With an exclamation mark in between the two.  Like an email server bang path.”

The John at the table’s eyebrows furrowed.  “Bang baths?  What does that have to do with fanfiction?”

“Bang paths,” corrected Anthea.  “In email servers, putting a bang after a name helped the email server distinguish between, say, Jim!FromTheHospital and Jim!Moriarty.  In fanfiction, fans started using bang paths as a kind of shorthand for different interpretations of a character.  Tagging consistently helps search engines sort and filter stories so readers can find what they like.”
“What’s my bang path?” asked the Sherlock in fishnet.

Anthea grinned and gestured between him and the Sherlock on the sofa.  “You two already deduced one another’s.”

He laughed.  “DarkFuckPrince!Sherlock?  Seriously?”

“You do look it,” said John in the red shirt.  “What am I?”

“Angry!John.”

He grimaced.  

Anthea gestured around the room.  “Saint!John,” she pointed at the John in the striped rugby shirt.  “JustTransport!Sherlock,” he rolled his eyes.  “And GayBaby!Sherlock, of course.”

“I am not a gay baby,” he muttered.

“Whinging about it is not exactly making your case,” said DarkFuckPrince!Sherlock.

“And what about the rest of us,” asked Mycroft.  “Do we have … bang paths?”

“All of the characters have bang paths, but there’s no point in assigning them with only one of you in the room.  The more popular the character, the more bang paths, and the more vehemently certain people defend their preferences.”

“There’s nothing wrong with having preferences,” GayBaby!Sherlock grumbled into the sofa.

“Having preferences is fine,” agreed Anthea.  “Disparaging people whose preferences are different than yours isn’t.  In particular, there’s been a lot of disparaging of people who prefer toplock.”

“Toplock?” asked Irene.  “You mean top/bottom, like the BDSM roles?”

“No,” said Anthea.  “That would be Dom!Sherlock.”

“So you mean ….”

“I do.”

Irene frowned.  “Why would anyone care so much about who penetrates whom?”

“Some people just prefer reading things one way.  Others have a character they empathize with, and maybe want that that character to get penetrated if they’re female or otherwise bottom-identified themselves.  Still others may uncomfortable with the potential role ambiguity inherent in same-sex relationships and want the reassurance of fixed roles.  They designate one chopstick as the fork.”

“Does that make Toplock the knife?” asked DarkFuckPrince!Sherlock.

“Because that’s not a problematic way of looking at penetration, at all,” said Irene.

Anthea frowned.  “I suppose, but I think we’re sort of losing sight of the original object of the casting call with all the flatware analogies.”

“And that object of the exercise is ….” asked Mycroft.

“To find a toplock, and someone for him to top.”

“Actually, I think the flatware analogies make that deduction elementary,” said DarkFuckPrince!Sherlock.  He gestured to himself, “Knife,” he pointed at GayBaby!Sherlock, “fork,” and at JustTransport!Sherlock, “spoon.”

Chapter Text

“Since it’s rather obvious which of us is Toplock,” said DarkFuckPrince!Sherlock, “shouldn’t we focus on figuring out whom I’m going to fuck?”

“I’m not losing my virginity to anyone but John,” said GayBaby!Sherlock.

“I always wondered about that,” said Angry John. “If you were a virgin.”

“Why does it matter if I’ve had sex or not,” asked JustTransport!Sherlock.  “You made it abundantly clear that you have no sexual interest in me.”

“I don’t.  But that doesn’t mean I didn’t wonder if you were gay, or asexual, or whatever.”

“Concerned I might ogle your bum?” asked DarkFuckPrince!Sherlock.

“No,” Angry!John scowled.  “Just curious about something that’s fairly important to most people.”

“Not to me,” JustTransport!Sherlock muttered.

“What’s unimportant?” asked Irene.  “Sex, or your orientation?”

“Both.  Sex is tedious, and labeling people based on their sexual interests or lack thereof is even more tedious.”

She shrugged.  “It can clarify things for both yourself and potential partners--or indicate that you don’t want partners.  You don’t have to let the label pigeonhole you.”

“Then why does it bother you if I call myself a virgin?” asked GayBaby!Sherlock.

“Because virginity is a social construct,” said Irene.  “The idea was created to control the sexuality of women, convince them their only value was their purity, or some rot.”

“That’s true,” agreed Mrs Hudson, “but I still think there’s a significance to being intimate with someone for the first time, and I think it’s sweet that Sherlock wants to save it for someone special.”

“Still, the emphasis on penetration is bollocks,” said Irene.  “I’ve never been penetrated by a man.  Does that mean I’m a virgin?”

“Of course not,” said GayBaby!Sherlock.  “But you don’t want to have penetrative sex with men.  If you did, you might have reasons for regarding the act as significant, or in wanting the first time to be with someone you love.”

“Wait,” said JustTransport!Sherlock.  “When you said you would ‘have me right here on this desk until I begged for mercy, twice,’ what did you mean?”

She smiled like the Cheshire Cat.  “Deduce it.”

His eyes widened momentarily, and then narrowed.  “Disgusting and unhygienic.”

Mycroft winced.  “If I had known this gathering was going to turn into a discussion of my brother’s sexuality--”

“You’d have what?” asked Anthea.  “Not come?  You’re a fictional character; you can be compelled to do anything.”

Something passed over DarkFuckPrince!Sherlock’s face that might have been intrigue.

“Yes,” said Anthea.

“You couldn’t possibly know what I’m thinking.”

“Rule 34,” said Anthea.  “It’s a generally accepted axiom that if it exists, there is porn of it on the internet.  And with fanfiction, there’s porn of lots of thing that don’t exist, as well.  So, I assure you, whatever you’re thinking, someone has written it.   And yes, you and your brother are a ship.  It’s called Holmescest.”

Mycroft’s eyebrows went into his hairline.

Saint!John sputtered.  “You mean that people actually write about Sherlock and Mycroft ….”

“And draw it, yes.”

“Oh, my god.  What the hell is wrong with people?”

Anthea shrugged.  “It’s fairly common to fantasize about breaking the incest taboo.”

“Is it common, then, to ship Holmescest?” asked DarkFuckPrince!Sherlock.

“Not particularly,” said Anthea.  “Most of Sherlock fandom ships Mycroft with DI Lestrade.”

Mycroft frowned.  “Truly?”

“Indeed.  Other people ship you with me.”

He tilted his head, appraising.

“As intriguing as all this speculation about my brother’s sex life is,” said DarkFuckPrince!Sherlock, “I do find the possibilities in the room a bit … limited.”

“What are you saying?” said Angry!John.

“You know, for someone who keeps insisting he has no sexual interest in me,” said DarkFuckPrince!Sherlock, “you seem awfully distressed that the lack of attraction is mutual.”

Angry!John scowled.  “It’s not just about me.  You just insulted everyone in my room.”

“Well, forgive me, but apart from my brother, there’s Mrs Hudson, who is something of a mother figure, so, no.  Then there are the two other versions of myself, which feels vaguely like twincest, and is further complicated by the fact that one of them isn’t interested in sex, and the other one insists on ‘losing his virginity’ to you.  I could attempt to convince The Virgin that having sex with one’s alter ego is a form of elaborate masturbation and therefore wouldn’t count, but I still think fucking him would be like clubbing a gay baby seal.”

“I am not a gay baby.”

“So you keep insisting.” DarkFuckPrince!Sherlock gestured between Angry!John and Saint!John.  “That leaves you and him.  You’ve said, ‘I’m not gay’ so many times I’m wondering if any fans have turned it into a drinking game, and he’s still insecure in his sexual orientation, which really isn’t my bag.”

“You forgot me,” said Irene.

“Forgive me,” he said.  “But unlike the Johns here, you are secure in your orientation, and have said that you have no interest in getting fucked by a man.  So, all my options seem either incestuous, or unenthusiastic, or both.”  He cocked his head at Anthea.  “So, I hope either you have more options, or that you are offering your lovely self.”

She smirked.  “Sorry, but I’m here in a strictly organizational capacity.  I do think I can call in some reinforcements, though.”

Multiple sets of footsteps clacked across the kitchen floor in lockstep  “Hi-i.”  The voice had a distinctive, sing-songy lilt.

DarkFuckPrince!Sherlock’s eyes flew to the door.  Jim Moriarty strode through it in his blue Westwood suit, one arm around Molly Hooper in the yellow dress she’d worn at John’s wedding, and the other arm around a grizzled blond man in a leather jacket and combat boots with jagged scars across his face which appeared to have been made by some kind of animal.

“Miss Anthea here told me she had a job that required a consulting criminal.  Or maybe it was a job for Mr Sex.”

“I thought you were dead,” said DarkFuckPrince!Sherlock.

“It certainly seems that way,” said Moriarty.  “That hasn’t stopped the fandom from shipping me and a character who isn’t even on the show like FedEx.”

“Yes, I was wondering who that was.”

“Colonel Sebastian Moran,” the blond man snarled.

“Anyway, if you were looking for more options,” drawled Jim, “you can top me, honey, anytime.  Molly, I know, feels the same, and Seb here does whatever, and whomever, I tell him to.”  He and his companions sauntered across the sitting room to GayBaby!Sherlock, who was still sprawled across the sofa.  “Budge up.”

GayBaby!Sherlock begrudgingly drew his legs up until he took up only one of the three sofa cushions.  Sebastian and Jim sat on the other two, and Molly perched in Moriarty’s lap.

“Wait,” said Saint!John, staring at Molly.  “Are you and Moriarty, like, together?”

She laughed.  “All of us are together.  We’re an OT3.”

“Oh tea what?”

“OT3,” said Anthea.  “Spin off on the traditional OTP, but a triad.  It’s another kind of ship.  They’re called Mormormoll.”

“But Molly likes … kittens.  And pink.  And Glee.  Her blog is covered with flowers and hearts, for fuck’s sake!”

“And I also like cutting up dead bodies and having sex with sociopaths.  Jim and I have common interests,” she winked at DarkFuckPrince!Sherlock, “including a certain tall, Dark! and handsome consulting detective.”

DarkFuckPrince!Sherlock grinned.  “I confess, the two of you together intrigue me.”  DarkFuckPrince!Sherlock turned to Anthea.  “Is there a ship name for the three of us?”

“Not that I know of,” she admitted.

“How does Sherlolliarty sound?” he asked.

“Terrible!” protested Saint!John.

“Why?” asked DarkFuckPrince!Sherlock.  “Are you jealous?”

“No.  Well, maybe a little, but that’s beside the point, which is that Molly deserves better.”

“And you don’t?” Molly asked.

“That’s different!” said Saint!John.

“Different, how?”

“I mean, Sherlock and I are both pretty damaged.”

“Speak for yourself,” said DarkFuckPrince!Sherlock.  “I’m Byronic.”

“You’re the one who said it,” said Saint!John.  “I’m a doctor who went to war.  A man who couldn’t stay in the suburbs for more than a month without storming a crack den and beating up a junkie. You’re a self-professed sociopath who solves crimes as an alternative to getting high.”

“And I’m a woman who spends all day interacting with corpses because she’s awkward around people, who risked a career (at which she’s actually very good, thank you) to help her sociopath friend fake his death and successfully lied to everyone about it for two years.  A woman dated a serial killer and came out of the relationship remarkably unscathed, though nobody ever notices how that’s actually not a normal response.”  Molly fowned.  “I’m also apparently a woman who talks about herself in the third person.  Why are we doing this, John?”

“Because I just think … I mean, Sherlock is horrible to you.  What he said at the Christmas party ….”

“I did apologize,” interjected DarkFuckPrince!Sherlock.

Saint!John rolled his eyes.  “An apology isn’t enough, Sherlock.”

“I thought you said that you forgave me?” GayBayby!Sherlock whinged.

“I did, but I also expect you to change your behavior,” said Saint!John.

“So do I!” interrupted Molly.  “I mean, I’m hardly just going to do whatever Sherlock asks because he asks it, anymore.  And he knows it.”

“She did slap me about over the drugs thing,” said JustTransport!Sherlock.

“Yes, because you were being an idiot, and squandering your gifts and betraying the love of your friends, of which I am one.”

“Are you?” asked Saint!John.

“Do you think I would have stolen a cadaver and forged an autopsy record for him if I wasn’t?”

“I mean,” said Saint!John,  “I always got the feeling that you wished Sherlock wanted to be more than friends.  Which is the main reason I objected to the two of you sleeping together.”

“The three of us,” interrupted Moriarty.

“Yeah, about that,” said Angry!John.  “Sherlock, you can’t be serious about sleeping with him.  He’s a murdering psychopath!”

“And what’s Mary?”  GayBaby!Sherlock retorted.

Angry!John sputtered.

“What are we?” asked DarkFuckPrince!Sherlock.  “Or have you forgotten that we shot an unarmed man in the head?”

“That was to protect John,” GayBaby!Sherlock protested.

Sherlock shrugged.  “Justify it however you want.  The point is, most of the people in the room are killers, including them.”  He pointed at the Johns.

“I shot the cabbie to save your life, Sherlock,” said John.

“You also invaded Afghanistan,” pointed out JustTransport!Sherlock.

“For Queen and Country,” said Mycroft.

Jim rolled his eyes and sighed loudly enough to draw the gaze of everyone in the room.  “Can we stop bickering and arguing about who killed whom?  I was told there’d be sex.”

“I was told there’d be cake,” said Mycroft.

“Cake!Croft,” said Anthea with a smile.  “Also a popular ship.”

Saint!John mock coughed into his hand to hide his grin.  “That’s ridiculous,” he frowned.  “Still not as ridiculous as ‘Sherbet-lolly-whatever.’  Seriously, Sherlock, even you have to realize that’s reckless.”

He turned to Anthea.  “Is there such a thing as a ‘nope-TP’?”

She smirked.  “Yes.  It’s called a NOTP.”

“Well DarkFuckPrince/Molly/Psychopath is mine.”

“Can we stop throwing around the ‘p-word’?” asked Moriarty.

Molly folded her arms across her chest.  “You know, in trying to ‘protect’ me, John, you’re actually perpetuating a sexist double standard.  I can’t sleep with Sherlock and Jim because I’m a woman, so you assume I don’t know my own limits and can’t keep myself from getting hurt.  But you can sleep with Mary or Sherlock because you’re a man, so you can take care of yourself.”

“I’m not saying you aren’t right, Molly,” said Anthea.  “But it’s also more complicated than that.  Yes, the ‘you deserve better than Sherlock’ argument is patronizing, since it assumes you don’t know your own mind.  And your point that Sherlock is no worse for you than either he or Mary are for John is valid.”

“But?” Molly demanded, thrusting her chin forward.

“But I also think that fandom, which is mostly women or people socialized as women, has difficulties seeing a female character, who could be very interesting in her own right, defined by her relationship with the show’s leading man.”

“I’m the titular character,” said JustTransport!Sherlock.  “Everyone on the show is defined by their relationship with me.”

“True,” Anthea admitted.  “But John and Mycroft get their own character arcs.  Hell, even Anderson gets a character arc.  But Molly and Irene’s character arcs,” Anthea nodded to the women, “revolve around their sexual interest in Sherlock.  Which is kind of problematic, particularly when we consider that Irene identifies as a lesbian.”

“I would hardly be the first lesbian-identified woman to have feelings for a man,” said Irene.

“No,” said Anthea.  “But it is kind of disheartening to some fans that the only queer female character on the show gets written as a man’s love interest.”

“What about Kate, Harry and Clara?” asked Irene.

Anthea flushed.  “I’d forgotten about them.”

Irene shrugged.  “Everyone does.”

“If fans are so concerned about Irene and I being with Sherlock, why don’t they ship us?” asked Molly.

“Oh, they do!” said Anthea.  “Molrene is the most popular femslash ship.”

The two women looked at each other, considering.

“Interesting,” said Irene.

“Flattering,” said Molly.

“Hot,” said Angry!John.

All four women in the room glared at him.

“What?” he asked.  “So, all of these female fans can read and draw Sherlock and I having it off with each other, but if I want to fantasize about Molly and Irene, that’s Not Okay?”

“There’s rather a different power dynamic at work, there,” said JustTransport!Sherlock.  “Perhaps that’s part of the reasoning, as well.  Women, even if they like female characters, even if they are sexually attracted to other women themselves, may be uncomfortable with depictions of women in erotica because it is reminiscent of the way that women are objectified in reality.”

“Right,” said Anthea.  “That’s part of what I was trying to say to Molly but not articulating well.”  She turned to her.  “Part of the reason why some fans don’t like Sherlolly in general, and you and DarkFuckPrince!Sherlock in particular, is that they’re used to seeing women on the bottom in popular culture.  Since fandom tends to be a countercultural space, there’s a certain amount of backlash against male dominant, female submissive pairings.  Even the author isn’t entirely comfortable with writing the dynamic, although she enjoys playing with male tops in real life.”

“I thought you said Toplock and Dom!Sherlock were two different things,” said Molly.  “I wasn’t actually planning on doing a BDSM scene.”

“They are different things,” said Anthea, “but DarkFuckPrince Sherlock is kind of an amalgam of Toplock and Dom!Sherlock and Dark!Sherlock, which is why Toplock has become controversial.  It’s actually him that’s controversial.”

He shrugged.  “Why am I controversial?”

“It’s complicated.  But mostly, there’s a perception that you pose an existential threat to GayBaby!Sherlock.”

“How?” asked GayBaby!Sherlock.  “I mean, I don’t particularly like him, but we’re both managing to be in the same sitting room.”

“It goes back to what you said earlier,” said Anthea, “about needing to be real.  A lot of your fans feel the same, and they argue that Gaybaby!Sherlock is canon.”

“What was canon again?  Is it different from headcanon?” asked Angry!John.

“It is, but the line between the two is blurry,” said Anthea.  “Canon is anything that’s actually depicted in the show.  Headcanon is what the fans believe, which may or not be in the show.  But there’s overlap.  And some people are very interested in arguing that their headcanon is canon.  And if GayBaby!Sherlock is canon, then DarkFuckPrince!Sherlock cannot also be canon.”

“There can be only one!” said Angry!John.  “Maybe you three should just duel instead of all the fucking.”

“That would be my preference,” said JustTransport!Sherlock.  “I know how to fence; I presume the others do as well.”

“No one is killing anyone,” said Anthea.  “Besides the fact all of you are fictional, and therefore cannot actually die, the point the author is trying to prove here is that there doesn’t have to be only one version of Toplock.  Spoiler: all of you are going to top someone.”

DarkFuckPrince!Sherlock pointed at GayBaby!Sherlock.  “Even him?”

GayBaby!Sherlock folded his arms across his chest.  “Why, does that surprise you?”

“Well, you were going on about preferring to bottom.”

“I said it was fine to prefer to bottom.  I didn’t say I prefered to bottom.”

“You certainly implied--”

“I did no such thing.  You assumed.  Just like Angry!John did with you.”

DarkFuckPrince!Sherlock opened his mouth, then closed it again.  “So I did,” he said at last.  “I apologize.”

“Sorry, mate,” said Saint!John, “but, I admit, I assumed the same.  You just don’t seem the domineering type.  But, um, femme in the streets, butch in the sheets, I guess.”

GayBaby!Sherlock rolled his eyes.  “In addition to being vaguely homophobic, your remark entirely misses the point.  You don’t have to be domineering to prefer to top.  I like …” he flushed “… I think I’d like taking care of someone.  And also, while sex doesn’t alarm me, I’m still not sure I’d be comfortable being penetrated.  It seems like allowing someone else in your body makes you vulnerable, which is why I have so much respect for anyone who does it.”

“I never thought of it that way,” said DarkFuckPrince!Sherlock.

“Because you think of a bottom as somehow less-than,” said GayBaby!Sherlock.

“Now who’s assuming?” snapped DarkFuckPrince!Sherlock.  “I respect all of my sexual partners, and I’m versatile myself, thank you very much.  And I don’t feel that bottoming makes me vulnerable at all.  In fact, I can promise you that everyone who’s ever had me ride their cock knows that just because I’m the one getting penetrated doesn’t mean they’re not the one getting fucked.”

“I do love me a power bottom,” said Jim.  “Though, this time around, my understanding is that the object is for you to top, which is also fine.”

“Yes, it’s all fine, except, apparently, not wanting to have sex at all,” JustTransport!Sherlock grumbled.  “How am I supposed to manage topping someone?”

“Well,” said Irene, “like I said earlier, the meaning doesn’t have to be sexual.  Top/bottom can also refer to giving vs. receiving sensation, as in a BDSM context.”

He narrowed his eyes, then looked at Anthea.  “Does this qualify?”

“Yes, of course.”

JustTransport!Sherlock turned to Irene.  “And would you be … amenable, to that sort of scenario?”

“Yes.  It’s the only way I thought you and I would ever work, actually.  Like I said, I’m only open to very specific kinds of sex with men, and I always suspected you wouldn’t really be up for me having you over a desk.  I prefer to top myself, of course, but I will bottom with the right top.”

“Lovely,” said Anthea.  “I’m glad that you’re willing to give the non-sexual BDSM angle a try.”

“I can’t promise it will be completely non-sexual for me,” said Irene, “but I’m fine if it’s not sexual for him.”

“DarkFuckPrince!Sherlock, you and Molly and Jim are still interested in each other, I presume?” asked Anthea

“Absolutely,” said Jim and Molly together.

DarkFuckPrince!Sherlock turned to Sebastian.  “Sorry love, but blond, scarred soldier boys aren’t really my type.”

Sebastian and both the Johns glowered at him.

“More for me.”  GayBaby!Sherlock sniffed at DarkFuckPrince!Sherlock.  He squared his shoulders and turned to Saint!John.  “I know that earlier, you said if the moment were right, that you might--”

“No,” said Molly.

GayBaby!Sherlock turned to glare at her.

“Look, Sherlock.  If John thinks he can say that Sherlock’s not good enough for me, then I think I can say John’s not good enough for you.”

His eyebrows drew together.  “But I love John.”

“I know you do.  But you have to know that you don’t have to settle for someone who asked you to be Best Man at his wedding knowing full well you wanted to be the groom.”

GayBaby!Sherlock bit his lip.  “Yes, but, he said he wanted the two people he loved most in the world there, and I couldn’t say ‘no,’ not after what I did ….”

“No, Sherlock.  I know you hurt him.  That we hurt him.  But that doesn’t mean that he gets to hold that over you for the rest of both your lives.  That’s not how relationships work.  Not healthy ones, anyway.”

“I know,” he whispered.  “But--”

“You still want him.  I get that.  And you can have him, but you have to listen to me.”  She cradled his face in both hands.  “What Anthea said earlier, about fans creating their own works because they aren’t getting what they want from canon?  That goes for us, too.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that if you don’t like what John has become, you can fix him.”

“Fix him how?”  His eyes darted towards the table, where Saint!John was sitting, open mouthed, with JustTransport!Sherlock and Irene.

“Don’t look at him.  Look at me.”

He nodded.

“What do you wish John Watson were like, Sherlock?”

He licked his lips.  “I wish he were … like he used to be before, like he was the night we met.  When we ran all over the city chasing the cab and then it was just some Californian in the back seat and I told him, ‘Welcome to London.’  When we made it back to the flat afterwards, we were both so … and I thought maybe … But I’d already told him I was married to my work, and then later he said he wasn’t gay, and--”

“What if John were gay?”

Sherlock stood still and blinked rapidly for several seconds.  “But then he wouldn’t be John.”

“So don’t make him gay.  But you want him to be comfortable with you, and with his sexuality, yeah?”

He nodded.

Molly turned to Anthea.  “Can you do this for him?  Can you give him a better option, like you did for DarkFuckPrince!Sherlock?”

Anthea chuckled, and made a great show of lifting Billy the Skull from the mantel and producing a wand from her sleeve.  She traced a circle above the skull, leaving a trail of sparkling lights through the air.  “Bibbity-bobbity-boo, baby darling.”

A whirlwind of sparkles swirled into a tornado shape and settled into the form of a smiling John Watson clad in his oatmeal cabled jumper.  He glanced around the room, eyes widening slightly when he took in the other two Johns and three Sherlocks.

“So, what’s all this, then?” he asked.  “First day with my mad flatmate and he’s what, cloned us already?”

Anthea smiled.  “You’re a fictional character, John, as is your mad flatmate, and the duplicates are all different interpretations of your characters.”

He nodded, apparently unfazed.  “Alright, then.”

“What’s his bang path?” asked JustTransport!Sherlock

“Excuse me?” said the new John.

“BAMF!John,” said Anthea.

John raised his eyebrows. “BAMF?”

“Badass motherfucker,” said DarkFuckPrince!Sherlock, looking him up and down.  “What makes you a badass, John?”

John’s tongue darted across his lips.  “Well, I’m not sure I’d describe myself that way.”

DarkFuckPrince!Sherlock rolled his body to vertical with something akin to a belly dancer’s movement and strode across the room.  “Then how would you describe yourself?”

“Just a regular bloke, I guess, who used to be in the army and sometimes shoots bad cabbies.”

Gaybaby!Sherlock stood in front of BAMF!John, spreading his arms out, dressing gown swirling around him.  “You can’t have him.  Anthea made him for me; he’s mine.”

DarkFuckPrince!Sherlock chuckled.  “So it seems you do have a spine after all.  Don’t worry, pet.  I’m not going to steal your bone.”

GayBaby!Sherlock narrowed his eyes.

“I’m not anyone’s, thank you very much,” said BAMF!John.

GayBaby!Sherlock flushed and stepped backwards.  “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have presumed.”

BAMF!John touched his arm.  “It’s fine.  I’m flattered by your interest.  I’m just--”

“Not actually gay,” Sherlock whispered.

“No, I’m not, though I have had it off with blokes on three continents.”  He smiled, then frowned as GayBaby!Sherlock crumpled against him.  “Whoa, I--” BAMF!John wrapped an arm around him, smoothing his disheveled curls with his other hand.  “There’s a lot going on here I don’t think I understand.  What I meant to say was, ‘I’m just trying to figure all of this out,’ okay?”

GayBaby!Sherlock nodded into BAMF!John’s chest, twisting his fingers into the cabled jumper.

“There’s not that much to figure, really,” said DarkFuckPrince!Sherlock.  “I’m about to go into my bedroom and have an absolutely spectacular romp with these two.”  He took the place GayBaby!Sherlock had vacated on the couch next to Jim and Molly, ignoring Sebastian.  “You should take the swooning creature in your arms upstairs and divest him of his virginity.  I suppose that leaves JustTransport!Sherlock and Irene with 221C, which isn’t particularly comfortable but is probably suitably atmospheric for whatever kink the two of them have planned.”

“Is that all?” asked BAMF!John.

Gaybaby!Sherlock stood up, drawing himself to his full height and peering down his nose at John.  “That’s quite enough to be going on, don’t you think?”

BAMF!John laughed aloud.  “Oh, god, yes.”

Chapter Text

“Oh my goodness, the look on Bastian’s face.”  Molly giggled as soon as she had shut Sherlock’s bedroom door behind her.  “You made him so jealous.”

Sherlock shrugged, folding back the grey striped duvet and stripping the pillows off his bed.  “I don’t mean to create tension between you, but he really isn’t my type.”

Molly shook her head.  “Don’t worry about it.  He gets off on Jim fucking other people.”

“What about you?” asked Sherlock.  He grabbed Jim’s hips and pulled him to his body, looking over his shoulder at Molly.  “Do you get off on Jim fucking other people?”

She smirked.  “I get off on watching Jim get fucked.”

Sherlock chuckled.  “That can be arranged.”  He covered Jim’s lips with his, forcing his tongue between Jim’s teeth and claiming his mouth.

“Wait--” said Molly.

Sherlock broke their kiss and looked at her.

“Before we go any further, we need to figure out how this is going to work.”

“Well, Jim, I know, is gagging for anything I’m willing to give him.  As for you, let me know what you’re comfortable with.”

She shook her head, the enormous yellow ribbon flopping in her ponytail.  “I don’t mean the sex, I mean the narration.”

Sherlock arched an eyebrow.  “The narration?”

“Well, we can’t continue on like this.”

“Like what?”

“All dialogue, no discernable POV.  Readers might have liked that when we were just talking but it doesn’t work for sex.  It isn’t intimate.”

“So what’s intimate?” asked Sherlock.

Molly slipped a hand between Sherlock and Jim and gently pried their bodies apart, worming her way between them.  She rocked her hips forward into Sherlock’s leather clad thigh, and leaned back into Jim, who circled his arms around her waist, the heat of his hands insistent as they roamed over her belly and hips.  She cupped Sherlock’s jaw and pulled his mouth down over hers, parting her lips beneath his.  He slid his tongue across hers, running his hand down her side and beginning to ruck up the yellow fabric with his fingers.  Jim pressed against her from behind, the wool of his trousers brushing the backs of her legs as Sherlock hitched the yellow dress up around her waist.  Sherlock turned his body, pushing his thigh between hers until she was completely pinned between them.  She moaned, rutting against Sherlock’s leg, her wetness soaking through her knickers and into his leather trousers as he took control of the kiss and Jim cupped her breasts from behind.

Sherlock pulled back, eyes wide.  “Wow, that was ….”  He let out a huff of breath, running his fingers through his hair.

“Intense,” Jim murmured against Molly’s neck.

‘You felt that?” she asked.

“Yes,” said Jim.

“We all did,” said Sherlock.

“Oh.”  Molly untangled herself from Jim’s arms and stepped back, looking at the two of them.

She put one hand at the small of Sherlock’s back, and one between Jim’s shoulder blades, and nudged them closer together.  Sherlock put his arms on Jim’s shoulders and Jim circled his around Sherlock’s waist, hooking his thumbs through the belt loops of his leather trousers.

“Now kiss,” she urged.

Sherlock tucked his hand behind Jim’s nape, and parted his lips with his tongue.  Jim’s mouth opened under his, warm and receptive.  He felt Jim’s small, strong hands tighten along his back as he pressed his pelvis against Sherlock’s thigh and arched his neck back.  Sherlock broke the seal of their lips to mouth his way over Jim’s chin, savoring the scratch and pull of his stubble before nipping at his adam’s apple and dipping his tongue into his suprasternal notch.  Jim made a low, rumbling sound in his throat which he felt beneath his lips.  Sherlock sucked hard, leaving a dark mark above Jim’s round collar, fingers tightening on the the short, stiff strands of his hair.  He slotted their lower bodies together, rubbing his prick against Jim’s through the layers of wool and leather.  Jim’s hands slid lower, moving from his waist down to his arse, and Sherlock bucked his hips, chasing the friction of the suede side of his leather trousers and the heat of Jim’s body.

“Oh, fuck,” Molly moaned.  She kicked off her shoes and climbed onto the bed, settling with her back against the headboard.  She ran her hands down her own body, opening her legs and pressing the heel of her palm against her cunt through the yellow fabric.  “Do that again.”

The right corner of Sherlock’s mouth pulled into a smirk, and he tilted his head to the side.  His wide set, khol-rimmed eyes fixated on Jim’s throat.  Sherlock’s pale countenance and predatory, inquisitive gesture made Jim think of a ravening undead about to tear the throat of its prey.  Jim rolled his pelvis into Sherlock, clenching his fingers tighter around the twin swells of his perfect buttocks, and leaned back, presenting his neck.  Sherlock’s teeth grazed his throat, and Jim shivered, torn between the hope and fear that Sherlock would crush his larynx and the knowledge that he wouldn’t, that, close as their bodies were together, Sherlock would deny him that intimacy of all intimacies, yet the threat of it set his pulse thundering in his carotid, which fluttered beneath Sherlock’s lips.  Sherlock nuzzled his neck, no doubt cataloguing his pulse rate and the temperature of his skin, tasting the composition of his sweat.  

“My, but you are twisted.”  Sherlock’s tone was more admiring than horrified, but he pulled back all the same, lips and chin pink from Jim’s stubble.  He ran his fingers down Jim’s jaw, over the line of his throat, and curled them around Jim’s tie, jerking him forwards.  “You’d let me tear you apart, wouldn’t you?”

Jim licked his lips and threw his arms out to the side.  “I told you, before Sherlock.  You can torture me.  You can do anything you like with me.”

“Fuck,” said Sherlock.  “The lack of consequences for any of my actions due to our unreality makes that prospect very tempting.”  He released his hold on Jim’s tie, pushing him a step backwards with his palm.  “Don’t push it.”

Sherlock turned his attention to Molly, whose eyes were wide and dilated, fingers twisted in the wrinkled fabric of the front of her dress.  “Alright,” he said, “I see what you mean.”

She nodded.  “It’s kind of overwhelming, not knowing whose head you’re in, whose body.  We can’t keep switching like that or the readers are going to feel like ping pong balls.”

“What do you want?” he asked.  “To do together, I mean.  Let’s decide what we’re doing and then pick the most logical POV for the activity.”

She met his gaze, unflinching.  “I want to come with both of you inside me.  And then I want to watch you fuck him.”

Sherlock chuckled.  “Where have you been all my life, Molly Hooper?”

“Right here, you great berk,” she smirked.

He smiled back.  “Okay.  If you want to be the center of attention, then I think you should narrate.”

Her ears went pink.  “I’m not sure that’s a good idea.”

“Why not?”

“I--” she twisted her skirt in her fingers.  “I’m a woman.”

“And?”

“Well, if we narrate from my perspective, people are going to say I’m a Mary Sue.”

“Is this you, or the author, who’s worried about this?”

She bit her lip.  “Maybe both?  We’re sort of conflated, I think, since she identifies with me in this scenario.  Which is the problem.”

“It’s a problem for a woman to identify with a female character?”

“I mean, in this obvious kind of wish-fulfillment scenario, yes.”

“Wish fulfillment?”

She rolled her eyes.  “Oh, now you’re just fishing for compliments.  Who wouldn’t want to be between the two of you?  Anyway, because of that, people will say this is self-insert fic, that the author’s just fulfilling her own kinks, especially because the three of us having sex in the first place is already kind of implausible.”

“So?” asked Jim.  “Isn’t that rather the point, to fantasize?  Why write or read erotica if you don’t get to do whatever and whomever you want?”

“There are lots of reasons,” protested Molly, “you have to pick what works for the story, you can’t just--”

“Please,” said Jim.  “Anthea told us this was ‘porn without plot.’  Don’t overcomplicate it.”

“Agreed,” said Sherlock.

Molly sighed.  “It is tempting.  But still, this fic is supposed to be about Toplock.  It’s your story, Sherlock.  It should be told from your perspective.”

He shrugged.  “There are three of me.  Surely at least one of the other scenes will be narrated by one of my alter egos.”

“Yes, but I--”  Molly turned pink again.  “I also liked the way it felt when you kissed Jim.”

Sherlock arched an eyebrow.

“I mean, I’ve also kissed Jim.  But it’s different, feeling it from your perspective.  You’re taller than him, and stronger--”

“Maybe,” Jim interrupted.

Molly smiled.  “He could snap you in half and you know it.”

“Only because I’d let him.”

“Whatever you say, love.”  Molly shook her head.  “Anyway, the way it felt when the two of you were rutting your cocks together through your trousers …  I’ve never felt … I can’t actually fuck him, not the way you can, and I’d like to know what it feels like.”

Sherlock smirked.  “Understood.  You said you wanted to have both of us and then watch me fuck him.  We can tell us having sex with you from your POV and then me fucking Jim from mine.”

“Don’t I get a POV scene?” Jim asked.

“No,” said Molly and Sherlock together.

“Why not?”

Molly rolled her eyes.  “Jim, dear, I love you, but let’s face it: nobody wants to be inside your head.”

Jim pouted.

“Well, I don’t know about ‘nobody.’” Sherlock sauntered close to Jim, walking his fingers down the edge of Jim’s lapel.  “I believe I have described you and your crimes as, ‘beautiful,’ ‘elegant,’ ‘smart,’ ‘brilliant,’ ‘neat,’ ‘novel,’ and ‘gorgeous.’”  He dropped his voice low on the last word and laid a quick, chaste kiss against Jim’s forehead.  “Still, you can’t ever seem to make up your mind about whether you and I should fuck or kill each other, and that’s bound to squick some people.”

Jim smirked.  “You know you love it  The sexually disinterested answer to, ‘is that a British Army Browning L9A1 in your pocket, or are you just pleased to see me?’ is not ‘both.’”

Sherlock ran the ball of his thumb over Jim’s lip.  “Especially considering it was actually a Sig Sauer P226R.  If I hadn’t wanted you, I’d have said ‘neither.’”

Molly smiled and shook her head.  “You boys and your gun kink.”

Jim thought back to Sherlock’s hands, steadying the gun mere feet from his face, a guaranteed kill shot, but of course Sherlock hadn’t pulled the trigger, hadn’t disappointed.  His cock twitched inside his trousers.  “You’ve no idea.”

“You know what else I wanted to do ….”  Sherlock tightened his fingers around Jim’s lapels and wrenched the jacket open.

Jim’s eyes and mouth widened in indignation.  “Westwood!”

“No consequences, remember?” Sherlock loosened the knot on Jim’s tie without untying it,  lifted it over his head, and dropped it to the floor.

Jim shivered.

Sherlock unbuttoned the top button of Jim’s shirt, pausing to nip at his neck before tearing it open to the waist, sending the buttons flying.  Sherlock rocked back on his heels, admiring either Jim’s body or his own handiwork.  Perhaps both.  He conceded Sherlock could multi-task.

“Strip,” Sherlock demanded.

Jim took off his jacket and unfastened his cuff links before removing what was left of his shirt.  He took off his shoes, socks, and belt and stepped out of his trousers, naked except for his neon underwear and a white vest, feeling Sherlock’s eyes on him.  He squared his shoulders.  He wasn’t ashamed of his body; whatever Molly had said about Sherlock being able to break him, he had a lithe, wiry strength.

Sherlock stepped into Jim’s space, grabbing the hem of his vest and pulling it up part way over his head, trapping his arms in it and covering his eyes.  Jim groaned, opening his mouth, searching for Sherlock’s, arching his hips forward, but Sherlock stepped back, keeping his body just out of reach.  Sherlock grasped both of his wrists with one hand, holding him at arm’s length, then wrapped his free hand around Jim’s throat.  He grunted and went limp, letting Sherlock walk him backwards to the bed and shove him onto it without protest.

“You sly thing.”  Molly rolled next to him, pulling the vest the rest of the way off of his head and over his arms.  “Stealing the scene when no one was paying attention.”

He smirked.  “Are you going to punish me?”

“I suppose that’s a matter of perspective,” said Sherlock.  He cocked his head at Molly.  “Sit on his face.”

“Gladly.”  Molly climbed astride Jim and held his hands over his head, burying him in her skirts.

He arched up and began to suck on her mons through her knickers.  She ground against his face, grateful for the increased friction of the cotton barrier between his tongue and her body.

Behind her, Sherlock unlaced his boots.  She cast surreptitious glances at him while he wriggled out of his fishnet and leather.

Sherlock crawled up the bed and snuggled against her back, kissing the nape of her neck.  He unfastened her dress, lifting it up over her head and pulling her against his chest.  She arched backwards, letting Jim catch a quick gasp of air as Sherlock slipped his fingers into the cups of her bra before unclasping it in the front.

“Still think they’re too small?” she taunted.

He tugged on her nipples by way of reply, and she released Jim’s wrists so Sherlock could slide the bra from her shoulders.

“Sherlock’s too much of an arse to admit he was wrong, Molly,” Jim murmured against her cunt.

She giggled and rocked against his face again.  Jim caught the crotch of her panties between his teeth, pulling them aside before she bore down, stabbing his tongue up into her folds.  She hissed, snatching Jim’s wrists again and pressing against him.

He bucked up beneath her, and she glanced over her shoulder to see that Sherlock had pulled Jim’s absurd green pants down over his hips and sucked the head of Jim’s cock into his mouth.

Molly climbed off Jim to let him breathe, then sat against the headboard to watch Sherlock work.

Sherlock draped an arm over Jim’s waist and pinned him, swirling his tongue around the head of his cock and fondling his bollocks with the other hand.  Jim had shaved himself completely smooth.

“Is this for me?”  Sherlock asked, stroking the silky, bare skin.

“Yes.” Jim lifted his chin.  “I shave for Sherlock Holmes.  Hell, I’d vajazzle for you if I you asked me.”

“Your pillow talk is abysmal,” Sherlock muttered, and took Jim into his mouth again.

Molly watched as he hollowed his cheeks and sucked, bobbing his head up and down the length of Jim’s shaft.  She shimmied out of her damp panties and tossed them to the floor, and perched over Jim’s face again, facing Sherlock this time.  His eyes met hers and darkened, and he swallowed Jim’s length into his throat as she sank down on Jim’s tongue, which pushed up between her arse cheeks.

It was somewhat awkward to brace one arm against the headboard and balance on her knees to keep from smothering Jim while trying to rub her fingers against her clit with her free hand, but Sherlock’s lips were made for sucking cock and she couldn’t not touch herself while watching him from her front row seat.  He pulled back and pumped Jim with his long fingers, then bent and licked around the glans with long, flat strokes, at least partially for her benefit, she was sure, as Jim probably preferred him sucking.  As if on cue, Sherlock swallowed again, the shape of his throat changing as he took Jim’s cock all the way to the base.  Jim bucked underneath her, pressing his tongue inside her.  Molly lifted her hips so Jim could breathe, and then pushed down again to grind against him, struggling to get enough friction from her fingers on her clit.

Sherlock pulled off Jim with a wet plop and crawled up his body, moving Molly’s hand aside and sucking her clit into his mouth.

“Oh, fuck,” Molly groaned, shuddering against him.  She snatched at the headboard with her other arm to keep from crushing Jim, who worked his tongue deeper inside her, sucking at the ring of relaxing muscle.  

Sherlock licked up the length of her slit, pressing his tongue against her hood, and she groaned, meeting his eyes.  He peered at her beneath a single curl that had broken free of his slicked back style and fallen across his forehead.  Sherlock gripped her thighs, grinding her into Jim, who was fucking her with his tongue, now, thrusting in and out, as Sherlock traced circles over her clit with the tip of his tongue.

“I’m going to come if you two keep this up,” groaned Molly.

“Is that a problem?” asked Sherlock

“Yes.  If I come now, I’ll be too sensitive to keep going.”

Sherlock pulled away and lifted her off of Jim and into his arms.  “How do you like to prep?” he asked.

“Honestly, this is probably enough if you use a lot of lube and go slow.”  She’d never been fond of the feeling of fingers stretching her arsehole.

“Lube’s in the nightstand,” he told Jim.

Jim paused to take what remained of his clothes off, kicking off his pants and untangling his vest from around his elbows, and returned with the flip cap bottle.

“Do you have a preference as to position?” asked Sherlock.  “And whom do you want where?”

“Spooning is easiest to start.  After that I’m okay with moving.”  Molly took the lube from Jim and opened the cap, pouring a copious amount over her hands.  “As for who I want where, I think I’ll need to do a head to head comparison.”  She slid her hand between her and Sherlock to grasp his cock, pausing when the ball of her thumb touched metal.  “Oh, you wanker.”  She glanced down at the heavy gauge PA, some kind of black metal with a silver bead.  “Taking your trousers off when I had my back turned so you could hide this from me.”

He smiled, eyelids fluttering closed when she bent down and took the head of his cock into her mouth, spinning the ring with her tongue.

“Do you like it?” he asked.

She rolled her eyes and took more of the shaft, holding the base of his cock steady with her right hand while reaching for Jim with her left.

He obliged her, fucking her fist as she bobbed up and down Sherlock’s cock.

After a few strokes she pulled her mouth off, keeping her hand wrapped around Sherlock’s shaft.  “Okay, comparisons,” she tugged both of them lightly, and Jim and Sherlock both shuffled on their knees towards the other, until Molly could bring their lengths together, stroking them both with a single, slick hand.  Jim tangled his fingers in Sherlock’s hair; Sherlock wrapped his arms around Jim’s back, and both of them rutted against each other and Molly’s fingers.

“Fuck that’s hot,” she whispered.  “I confess, though, I’d already decided.  Stroking you two together was mostly for fun.”

“And?” asked Sherlock.

She rubbed Sherlock’s piercing with the pad of her thumb.  “I’ve never had a partner with a PA before, and I’m pretty sure I want that in my cunt.”

He smirked.  “As you wish.”

Molly disentangled her hand from both their cocks and pulled Sherlock into a kiss.  Sherlock tucked his hand behind her head and eased them both down on the mattress.  His tongue tasted like her and Jim together, and she sucked it deep into her mouth.  He clamped his hands to the side of her face, sucking her lower lip until she whimpered and wrapped her legs around him.  Sherlock rolled them both onto their sides, thighs still locked together.  Jim took the opportunity to spoon up behind Molly and kiss the back of her neck.  “No rush,” he whispered.

Molly pulled away from Sherlock and arched her neck towards Jim, who kissed a tender spot behind her ear while Sherlock caressed her breasts.  She hooked a leg over Sherlock’s hip, rocking forward into him, rubbing her mons against his shaft, feeling him thrust up along her folds but not into them.  Jim slid his hand down her side and along the length of her thigh.

She raised her right leg, tilting her hips back into Jim, brushing the head of his cock with her arse.  “Do it.”

He hooked his hand up under her leg and lifted it, then handed it off to Sherlock, who held her in place while Jim retrieved the lube.  He poured some into his palm and slicked his cock again, then rubbed the excess over her hole, massaging the skin without penetrating.  He spooned up behind her again, sucking at her earlobe, and lined his cock up against her arse.  She tried to rock back against him, but Sherlock held her tight as Jim made slow circles against her hole.  

“Look at me, Molly,” demanded Sherlock.

She met his eyes.  They were narrowed with intense concentration, boring into her.

He nodded to Jim.  “Fuck her.”

Jim pressed forward until the head of his cock breached the ring of muscle, and Molly let out her breath, hard and slow, as the flared head of his glans popped beyond the first sphincter.  Sherlock shifted closer to her, still holding her leg, and moved in for a kiss.  He sucked her lower lip into his mouth, biting down as Jim began to press his cock forward and pull it back by increments, controlling the depth with his hand.  His knuckles brushed against her arse cheeks.

Molly groaned into Sherlock’s mouth, and he pulled back.  “You alright?”

She nodded.  “Fine.”  Molly enjoyed anal sex, particularly combined with other forms of stimulation.  While she and Jim and Sebastian didn’t do double penetration frequently, it was in their repertoire.  “Touch me.”

Sherlock released Molly’s leg and slid his hand where Jim’s cock wasn’t, cupping her mons and dipping two fingertips between her lips.  He circled his hand slowly, pressing against her clit.

“Mmmm, that’s good.”  She clenched her muscles around Jim.  “Okay, you can go deeper.”

Jim slid forward halfway, then pulled almost all the way out, pouring more lube on his cock before sliding forward again.  He pulled her thigh back and rolled his hips into her until their bodies were flush.  She shivered at the stinging burn, focusing on Sherlock’s fingers, which curled up in soft, beckoning motions.

Jim lifted her leg and began to move, and she went limp, relaxing her body completely and letting him set the pace.  When Jim fucked her cunt, she liked to grind and rock against him and chase friction.  But when he was in her arse, she relaxed and focused on the feeling of fullness, a feeling she knew would only be heightened once Sherlock joined in.  Whenever they had done this with Sebastian, she had become non-verbal, a pliant, incoherent pleasure vessel.

She moved her hand to Sherlock’s, closing her fingers around his wrist so his hand went still inside her.  “I want you on top,” she told Sherlock.

Sherlock removed his hand from between her legs and made eye contact with Jim, who wrapped his arms around Molly and rolled them both onto their backs.  Jim positioned his legs below hers and opened them, securing her knees with his. Sherlock knelt between them, eyes wide, lips parting as he stared at the two of them.  He bit his lower lip, hesitating for just a moment before crawling up Molly, positioning himself between her thighs.  

Sherlock braced himself against the headboard with one hand and guided his cock into her with the other.  His first thrust was shallow, just the head rocking inside her.

Jim hissed beneath her as Sherlock rubbed against him.

“Oh, fuck,” moaned Molly.

Sherlock smirked, then moved his other hand to the headboard, shifting his weight so that he could roll his hips deeper.

Molly’s heart pulsed hard in her cunt as Sherlock rocked back and forth, working his way in.  She whimpered when he was fully seated, collapsing boneless against Jim.  Sherlock took full advantage of her exposed throat, bending down and nipping beneath her jaw.  She shivered.

“You feel amazing,” said Sherlock, stirring her; her slickness made a squelching sound.  “I can’t believe how wet you are, how tight, I can feel--”

Jim thrust his hips once, beneath her, and Sherlock moaned.

“Fuck, yes, that,” he encouraged.

Both of them began to move, thrusting in counterpoint to the other.  Molly wrapped her arms around Sherlock, clawing at his shoulders.  She would have wrapped her legs around him, too, but Jim held her knees back with his.  She tested his hold, struggling to close her legs, and Jim responded by spreading her wider.  She pointed her toes as Sherlock thrust hard and deep, his thighs slapping against hers.

“You can give us some of your weight, you know,” said Jim.  “You’re not going to crush me.”

Sherlock let go of the headboard and dropped his arms to Jim’s sides, palms flat on the mattress.  Jim locked his arms around Sherlock’s, stabilizing him and giving him leverage, and cupped Molly’s breasts, pulling her close and tweaking her nipples.  She hissed at the pain of Jim’s fingers and the pressure of Sherlock’s hips on hers, the increased sense of fullness that came with the additional weight.  Sherlock lowered his belly to hers, kissing her deeply.  Molly twisted beneath Sherlock and tore her legs free of Jim at last, wrapping them tightly around him.  She clung to him, digging her heels into his glutes, biting his lips, as Jim began to thrust up into her from beneath.

Sherlock matched his rhythm to Molly’s, grinding into her mons, sharing her air as she gasped and moaned into his mouth.  “Please.”  She pointed her toes, trying to arch up and finding herself completely pinned between Sherlock and Jim, realizing that there was no way she was going to be able to induce her own orgasm in this position, that she was going to have to rely on them to fuck it out of her.  “Please, I’m so close.”

Sherlock released just a bit more of his weight, and Molly gasped as the air was pushed out of her, as Jim’s hands and cock pushed into her, as both of them were pushed into the mattress.  Sherlock rocked harder, eyes clenched shut, rhythm steady, and Molly struggled, trying to get more friction on her clit, which didn’t really work, though she was beginning to realize that might not matter; the added fullness of Jim in her arse made Sherlock’s every thrust push against her clitoral wings from the inside, and she could feel her orgasm building, the slow burning, elusive kind, which was reached not by clenching and reaching for it but surrendering and letting it happen.  

Jim squeezed her nipples, hard, and sucked at the side of her neck, and Sherlock held his rhythm, fucking her hard and just so, and she went limp between them, letting her held breath out in a series of small, shuddering cries in time with Sherlock’s thrusts as he pulled her orgasm from her in small, steady waves.  She never came as hard this way but the orgasms lasted so much longer.  Spasm after spasm overtook her, and she clawed at Sherlock’s shoulders until she broke the skin, shuddering beneath him.

Sherlock went rigid, and held very still above her, eyes clenched shut.  “Don’t move,” he whispered.

She felt Jim go still beneath her.

Molly lay against Jim, who stroked her hair.

Sherlock pulled out slowly and knelt up between her legs.  “Are you alright?”

She flexed her muscles experimentally, making Jim twitch.  She nodded.  “A bit stretched.  I’ll probably feel both of you tomorrow, which will be lovely.”

Sherlock nodded and crawled over her, positioning himself behind Jim.

Jim folded his arms around her and slowly rolled them on their sides again, turning his back to Sherlock.  He planted a kiss on Molly’s nape and eased out of her.

Sherlock peered at her over Jim’s shoulder.  “Do you still--”

“Oh yes,” she said.  “I’d just like to snuggle up in the duvet and watch.”  She crawled to the edge of the bed and dipped between the covers.

“I’m afraid this may be over rather quickly,” said Sherlock.

“Maybe for you,” Jim taunted.

“For you as well,” growled Sherlock, flipping Jim onto his belly and pinning him to the mattress.  “You are going to come from my cock, before I do, or not at all.”

“Is that so?” Jim giggled.

Sherlock spanked him.

“Oh, I like where this is going,” said Molly.  She fished about in the covers until she located the lube.

“Not sure we’ll be needing that.”  Sherlock spread Jim’s cheeks and spat onto his hole.  “You’d let me fuck you just like this, wouldn’t you?”

Jim remained silent, but canted his hips back.

Sherlock spanked him again.  “Answer me!”

“Yes,” he said.

“Lucky for you,” Sherlock murmured, “you’re not real.  I can ravage you dry and bareback, the way you’ve always wanted.  Would you like that?”

“Yes,” Jim whispered.

“I.  Can’t.  Hear.  You.”  Sherlock punctuated each word with a spank, hard enough to make his hand sting.

“Yes!”  Jim snarled.  “Do it.  Please.”

Sherlock smirked.  “It is nice to hear you beg for it.  I still probably shouldn’t though.  Don’t want to squick the readers.”  He extended his hand, palm up, to Molly, who handed over the lube.

“Spread for me,” said Sherlock.

Jim obligingly pulled his cheeks apart with his hands, and Sherlock poured the lubricant over his hole, watching him twitch from the cold.  He drizzled a line up the length of his own cock, as well, and stroked himself twice, coating his cock, pausing to flick the bead on the PA out of his slit, which provoked a small zing of pleasure.

He lined himself up against Jim and breached him without warning, shoving himself through the tightness of Jim’s clenched muscles.  He stopped after the head of his cock was inside.  That was the best bit, anyway.

Jim exhaled sharply, panting as he adjusted to the stretch.  His muscles twitched around Sherlock’s cock.

Sherlock braced himself above Jim.  “You can rub yourself off on the sheets.  But no hands.  Give them to me.”

Jim put his hands out at his sides, and Sherlock interlocked their fingers from behind him, pressing Jim’s palms to the mattress, ignoring the pain in his own fingers.

“Rut,” he ordered.  “And fuck me back, you slut.”

Jim made a desperate, garbled sound and pushed back against Sherlock until he had taken as much of him as he was able, and then rocked forward, rubbing his leaking cock against the sheets.

Sherlock stayed still, holding himself in a plank position as Jim undulated beneath him.

Molly sidled up to them, stroking Jim’s hair as he fucked himself.  Sherlock began to sweat, arms burning, abdominals quivering from the strain, until the pain of his protesting muscles began to override the the pleasure of Jim pushing back against him.  When the burn became overwhelming, he pulled out, brushing aside the sweat-soaked curl that had fallen into his eyes, slicking it back from his forehead again.  He smacked Jim, who was rubbing himself into the mattress, on the arse again.  “Arch your back.”

Jim lifted his hips higher, and Sherlock fucked him shallowly, thrusting with just the head, pulling out each time to feel the pop of Jim’s muscles over his glans.  Physically, that was certainly more pleasurable for him than for Jim, but by the way Jim whined and alternated between dipping down into the sheets and lifting his arse for Sherlock, he took pleasure in being used, too.  Sherlock reached along the length of Jim’s back, fingers searching for purchase in the hair at the back of his head.  “This is entirely too short,” he muttered, settling for wrenching Jim’s head to the side and putting his palm behind Jim’s nape to pin him to the mattress.  He leaned forward, pressing Jim’s face into the sheets, and snapped into him in hard deep strokes that pushed Jim forward along the bed and left him struggling to keep his hips up, denying Sherlock the angle that he wanted.

Sherlock growled and knelt up, pulling Jim’s hips higher, lifting him off the sheets, and pushed down on the small of his back, angling his thrusts downward to push the head of his cock (and the PA), into Jim’s prostate.  Jim made a choking sound and lurched forward, fingers clenching the sheets and muscles clenching around Sherlock.  A groan escaped Sherlock’s lips as he felt his own climax pooling deep in his groin.  He seized Jim’s hips with both hands and pulled him onto his cock hard enough to make the slapping of flesh on flesh audible.

“You have ten seconds in which to get off,” he warned Jim, careful to keep his strokes even, to consistently hit the spot that was making Jim moan at the end of each thrust.

“Fuck,” Jim cried out, already shuddering beneath him.  “Fuck, fuck.”

Sherlock drove into him cruelly, digging his nails into Jim’s hips, until he heard the spatter of come hitting the crisp cotton sheets.  He let his weight fall on Jim, his rhythm erratic now as he chased his own pleasure, which raced along all the tightened muscles of his calves as he buried himself as deeply as the position allowed.

Jim collapsed, sweaty and shivering, his belly settling into his own come and his fingers tangled in the sheets.

Molly slid up beside them both and stroked each of them in turn, as they lay together, still coupled.  Gooseflesh formed along his sides beneath her fingernails.

“Can’t breathe,” Jim protested at last, and Sherlock pulled himself out slowly and rolled over, leaving Jim in the middle between himself and Molly.  He put a hand on Jim’s hip, tilting him, and Jim rolled into his arms.

Molly snuggled against Jim’s chest and kissed him, then twined Sherlock’s fingers in hers.  “Was that everything you ever wanted, Jim dear?” she asked.

He snickered.  “Yes, darling.”

Sherlock watched over Jim’s shoulder as Molly trailed her fingertips down his stomach, dipping them into the mess congealing in the fine, downy hair connecting his belly button and groin.  “You’re a complete mess,” she observed, a smile on her lips.  She looked up at Sherlock.  “Do you want to shower?”

“I don’t think there’s enough space for three.”  Sherlock reached across Jim and took Molly's sticky hand.  “We’d have to go in shifts, and I’d rather lie here with the two of you for a while.”

“How long is a while?” asked Jim.  “Because in about twenty minutes, I’m going to want another round.”

Sherlock grinned into Jim’s back.  “You are absolutely insatiable.”

“Are you saying you’re not up to it?” Molly needled.

“There are limits to even my stamina.”  He kissed Jim’s shoulder and squeezed Molly's hand before releasing her and flopping onto his back.  “Sorry, lovelies, but your Dark Fuck Prince is dead.”

Chapter Text

“Suitably atmospheric.” Sherlock’s lip quirked as he pushed open the creaking door to 221c, staring at the peeling, water-damaged wallpaper in the basement flat.  Yellow light bled through the gauze curtain covering the full-length windows, turning the seafoam green paint on the walls an unattractive avocado color.

“I suppose that’s one word for it.”  Irene clicked down the stairs behind Sherlock and followed him into the room, turning around slowly, his coat billowing around her.

“Not quite the style you’re accustomed to playing in,” said Sherlock, following her and closing the door behind him.  “I suppose I could blindfold you,” he said, tilting his head to the side.

“You could,” said Irene.

“Is this where we discuss interests and limits, then?”

Irene cocked an eyebrow.  “Have you ever actually done this before?”

“Not with another person,” Sherlock admitted.  “I’ve tried a few things on myself.  I was experimenting.  Seeing if my nascent libido might be roused by pain rather than pleasure.”

“And?”

“Pain still feels like pain.”

She smiled.  “It’s not like they describe it in 50 Shades.  Most masochists aren’t actually cross-wired so that they experience pain as pleasure.  It still hurts.  If it didn’t, you wouldn’t release endorphins, which is what causes the high.  Which is not to say that a sense of personal accomplishment, or a desire to please a partner, or sexual arousal, can’t make the pain experienced in a scene more pleasurable than say, banging your shin.”

“Do you enjoy pain, then?”

She shrugged.  “It depends.  What kind of pain are you interested in inflicting?”

“I’ve tried needlplay, a bit of cutting.  I’m fairly handy with a riding crop; that’s somewhat awkward to use on oneself but I’ve a bit of practice whipping corpses--”

She suppressed a giggle by biting her upper lip.  Her lipstick was one of those formulas that remained un-smudged.

His eyes narrowed.  “It was for a case.”

“I’m sure it was.”  Her tone was neutral enough, but the light in her eyes was mocking.

He ignored it and continued.  “I know how to properly tie someone up, which has come in handy on multiple cases.  I know how to escape from various restraints as well, though that’s probably less relevant since I’m going to be topping.  I’m something of a pyromaniac, and enjoy applying alcohol to my skin or other surfaces and lighting it on fire.”  He paused.  “And I’ve tried, erm … auto-erotic asphyxiation.”

Irene shook her head.  “I don’t do breathplay.  Too dangerous.”

Sherlock frowned.  “You do realize both of us are fictitious and we can’t die, right?  Moreover, that’s not the response I was expecting from someone who dosed me with a sedative without my consent.”

Irene sighed.  “I was both afraid for my life and working for Moriarty at the time, in case you’d forgotten.  I did things I wouldn’t have under other circumstances.”
“I distinctly remember you saying, ‘I’ve used it on loads of my friends.’”

She sighed.  “Fine.  I was trying to come up with a headcanon that made my actions vaguely logical, but have it your way.  Yes, I drugged my friends.  So did you.  You drugged John’s coffee at Baskerville. You drugged your brother, your parents, and a pregnant woman.”

“Again, all fictional characters who weren’t in any actual danger.  I’m not downplaying my own unethical behavior, just wondering why you’re drawing the line at breathplay.  It seems inconsistent.”

Irene pressed her lips together.  “The author isn’t comfortable with it.”

Sherlock raised both eyebrows.  “Now that is interesting.  Especially when one considers her body of work.  Not entirely risk aware and consensual, is all I’m saying.”

“Yes, well,” said Irene.  “There’s a difference between something that is overtly non-consensual, like what I did to you with the sedative, and something portrayed as a mutually pleasurable.”

Sherlock sighed.  “Very well.  No breathplay.  I take it everything else on the list is acceptable?”

“Yes.”

“And you are content with there being no sexual contact of any kind?”

“I’m fine with neither of us performing sex acts on either ourselves or each other.  I can’t guarantee I won’t become aroused.”

“As long as you don’t …” he flushed.

“What?”

“Nothing.  Nevermind.  Unlikely to become relevant.”

“Oh, now you have to tell me.”

“You can’t demand things of me.  I’m the Dom.”

Irene rolled her eyes.  “Not until we start the scene.  Tell me.”

He folded his arms over his chest.  “That sound you recorded.”

She threw her head back and made a loud, orgamsic moan, shimmying her shoulders.

“Yes, that one.” He sniffed.

She smirked.  “Why does it bother you?”

“It’s fake.  I don’t want feigned reactions from you; I’m not a client.”

She nodded.  “Duly noted.  So, genuine noises are okay, then?”

“I suppose it wouldn’t be fair to demand you be silent.”

“Of course it’s unfair.  That’s why it’s called power exchange.  I don’t mind if you’re unfair, or unkind.”  She paused.  “You could also gag me.”

“With?”

She gestured behind her.  There were two folding tables arrayed with a variety of impact toys, assorted restraints, cotton and kevlar fire wands, coils of hemp rope, silk scarves, and ring and ball style gags.  “Anything you like.”

“Rather convenient, fiction.”

“Then why can’t we just teleport to Belgravia?”

“There’s only so far you can push suspension of disbelief,” said Sherlock.  “This isn’t a Dr Who fic.”

Irene sniffed, but refrained from further protest.

“Speaking of suspense ….”  Sherlock scanned the ceiling for possible anchor points.

“You really ought to use something built to hold a hanging chair, or similar.  I won’t let you tie me to a light fixture.”

His lip quirked.  “Mrs Hudson will never admit to it, but she once had a trapeze down here.”  He found the anchor points in the middle of the room, now disguised with an ugly electric chandelier.  “Ah, here we are.”

“And you’re lecturing me about suspension of disbelief.”

“Hush, or I will gag you.”

She folded her arms.  “Not until we’ve established a nonverbal safe signal.  Or for that matter, a safeword.”

“Do you have a problem with snapping your fingers and ‘safeword’?”

“I’d really prefer to have a way to slow down the scene rather than just stop it.”

“Fine.  “‘Yellow’ if you want me to slow down.  ‘Red’ if you want me to stop.”  Anything else is ridiculous.”

She smiled.  “If you say so.”

“So, I believe it’s standard to review what I intend to do to you before we begin the scene.  Unfortunately, that conflicts somewhat with narrative tension.”

She chuckled.  “Well, presumably readers have read the tags and have some idea where this is going.”

“Very true.”  He circled around her, settling into role as he did so.  It was easy enough, really.  He cloaked himself in the same aura he did whenever he was conducting investigations where he was not, strictly speaking, allowed on the premises.  A projection of quiet confidence and authority which suggested that he was in charge and others shouldn’t speak unless spoken to.  Irene seemed to sense the change immediately, the last trace of a smile falling from her face as he ran the ball of his thumb over her lips and cupped her chin.

“You’re wearing something that belongs to me.  I presume you don’t object to divesting you of it.”

She shook her head.  “No, sir.”

He chuckled.  He hadn’t felt the need to insist on an honorific, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t appreciated.  He made quick work of the buttons on the Belstaff, unfastening the coat and then turning her around so he could slide it from her shoulders.  She shivered slightly as he folded the coat and set it on the table, and he doubted that had anything to do with the temperature of the room, which was warm.

“The shoes as well.”

She stepped out of her stilettos, revealing delicate, white feet and a pedicure the same shade as the soles of her shoes.

“Go the the loo and fetch a basin of water and a towel.”

She nodded and padded naked across the floor, which turned the soles of her feet a dingy grey.  She kept her back straight and her head high and still looked taller than her actual height even without the heels.

He smiled after her, then crossed to the table and surveyed his implements, selecting a pair of padded suspension cuffs sized for Irene’s slender wrists.

Irene returned with the towel and basin.  He cocked his head towards the floor, and she folded the towel and placed it next to the basin beneath the table.

He unbuckled the cuffs and set them open on the table.  “I am going to restrain you with your hands above your head.  And then I’m going to do any or all of the things on the list which you’ve said were acceptable, until either I decide we’re through, or you safeword.”

She nodded.

“Give me your hands.”

Irene held out her wrists.

Sherlock fastened the buckles tight enough to support, but not so tight as to cause discomfort.  The cuffs were sturdy, padded leather things with elongated straps over the palm ending in D rings that could be attached to a suspension point.  He held her hands in his and stepped backwards, taking deliberately long strides that forced her to stagger to keep pace with him, pulling her to the center of the room where the length of chain where the trapeze had once hung.

He took the dusty chandelier down and set it on the floor, then lifted Irene’s wrists, drawing her up on her toes, exploiting his superior height.  Irene let her breath out as he threaded the chain through the D rings and secured her wrists above her head.  He adjusted the chain high enough that she would need to stand on her toes, but kept her position shy of an actual suspension.

Sherlock stood back to survey the body he’d wrongly thought he’d memorized, taking note of every mole and freckle.  She watched him, eyes hard and chin high, as he removed his suit jacket and set it on the table.  He deliberately unfastened his cuffs and rolled them up over his elbows, then made a show of flexing his wrists and stretching first one arm and then the other behind his back.

He surveyed the assortment of toys on the table.  “Shall we start with the riding crop?” He lifted the item in question and turned the handle in his hand, feeling its familiar heft, flexing the slapper against the palm of his hand.

Irene’s pupils dilated.

Sherlock circled, shark-like, and aimed his first strikes at her buttocks.  “We have the same crop, in fact.  Did you mean to copy me?”

The leather snapped against her skin, and she wobbled a bit on her toes, but did a remarkable job of staying mostly still.  “I think the props people were just lazy.”

Sherlock chuckled, then mirrored the strokes on her other side, making her flesh jump.  Irene’s breath caught, but she otherwise made no sound as he worked his way down, inch by inch, making a series of short, sharp strokes down the backs of her thighs.  Nothing like the full body swings he’d used to mark corpses.  He avoided striking Irene with the shaft, focusing on popping the leather tip against her skin, leaving a series of narrow, rectangular welts up the length of her back, in wings pointing down and away from her spine.  He stroked his fingers over the marks, feeling the warmth of her blood rising to the surface.  She quivered at the touch.

He circled to her front, eyeing her face.  Her lips were parted and a light sheen of sweat coated her face.  A stray hair stuck to her forehead.  He brushed it away with his fingertips, then cupped the side of her neck to feel her pulse.  It was racing.

He scratched his nails along her torso, leaving four red tracks between her breasts and down the length of her belly.  Her lips fell open, and she squirmed against his hand.  He paused, debating whether or not to strike her breasts, wondering whether or not it was sexual.  He decided that it wasn’t sexual to him, and Irene didn’t seem to care either way, and stroked the crease beneath the left one with the tip of the crop.  She craned her neck, straining to see.

“Eyes on me.”

She snapped her gaze to his, and he struck her nipple with the crop.  Irene hissed through clenched teeth but held his gaze.  He flicked the other one.  She swayed on her toes but kept her head level.  He wasn’t even certain she’d blinked.

“I used to worry my parents as a child,” he said.

Irene licked her lips.

“I enjoyed playing with fire a great deal.  Mycroft was always convinced I’d burn the house down.”

Her eyes tracked him as he returned to the table and selected a lighter, flicking the flame open and running his finger through it slowly enough to feel the heat, quickly enough not to burn himself.  He picked up a red candle and lit the wick before flicking the lighter shut.  He used the first candle to light a second, and then a third, continuing until he had a cluster at the foot of the table.  Irene stayed silent and stone faced, but her fingers clenched the edges of the leather straps.

“How are your fingertips?” he asked.

“Tingling,” she said.

“Any numbness?” he asked.

“No, sir.”

He nodded and carried two of the candles over and set them behind her, far enough to be out of the range of her feet.  He continued arranging them in a wide semicircle around her, leaving the front open so he could access the tables.

“Mrs Hudson and John don’t really trust me with fire, either,” said Sherlock. He pointed towards a fire extinguisher leaning in the corner.  “Which is why we have these all over the building.”

She smiled, but it was a tight, drawn thing.

Sherlock stepped back, watching the interplay of the candlelight with the sickly rays streaming through the curtains.  “The windows are bothering me.”

Irene arched an eyebrow.

“They shouldn’t be there.”  Sherlock continued.  “We’re in a basement.  Technically, we’re supposed to be under the cafe.”  He pointed at the squares of illumination on the floor.  “Where does the light come from?”

Irene frowned.  “I don’t know.”

“Neither do I,” said Sherlock. “I’ve wondered that since The Great Game, but that was one mystery that episode never solved.

The windows disappeared, leaving Sherlock and Irene alone in the orange glow of the candlelight.

Irene blinked rapidly, and Sherlock took advantage of her disorientation to take his gloves out of his coat pocket and put them on.  He should really probably wear kevlar, but when had he ever done anything exactly as he should, especially where fire was concerned?  Still, some basic precautions were warranted.  Once his eyes adjusted to the darkness, he plunged the towel into the basin until it was thoroughly soaked, and carried both items into the candle circle.  The fire extinguisher was a last resort; the flames he intended to create would be small, and should be readily smothered with his hand, or the towel, should that fail.

The towel in place, he picked up a bottle he’d noticed earlier.  Isopropyl alcohol, seventy percent solution.  Irene’s eyes followed him as he poured a small quantity into a shallow dish and soaked the cotton head of a kevlar handled fire wand.  He lifted the dish in one hand and the wand in another and approached her.

“Do you know what I’m going to do?” he asked.

“Yes, sir.”

He painted her skin with the fire wand, trailing the damp cotton between her breasts to her navel, then brushing broad strokes over the tops of her hips.  Then he circled behind her and drew a line down the length of her spine.  She shivered as the alcohol trickled over the nubs of her vertebrae.  Sherlock left the dish on the floor, out of reach of Irene’s feet and the candles, then bent down and touched the wand to one of the flames.  Blue light danced over the head as the alcohol caught, and Sherlock smiled, letting the light catch his face as he returned to Irene.  He should probably hood her to protect her hair and face, but her hair was up at least, and really, watching the flames lick up one’s skin was half the thrill of playing with fire.

“Are you ready?” he asked.

“Yes,” she whispered.

Sherlock touched the wand between her breasts, and a blue line flared down her sternum as the flames licked up the traces of the alcohol.  Irene made a whimpering sound, neck craned to watch the flames.  The water in the solution provided a protective barrier between the fire and her flesh, letting the flame burn on top of it without injuring her.  He let them fire dance across her skin for a few seconds before smothering it with his glove.  The flames still burned if left on the skin too long without intervention.  

He touched her hips with the wand next, and she danced on tip toe, shivering and wriggling as the fire outlined her iliac crests.  The scent of burned feathers filled his nostrils as he singed away the down around her navel.  This was part of the theatre of fire.  The flames awoke a primal urge to flee, which was of course prevented by the restraints, and the smell of burning hair and the eerie blue glow of the alcohol and the orange of the candlelight heightened the drama.

He put the flames out with his fingertips and rubbed her skin with the leather. Sherlock circled behind Irene, watching the line of her back tense as he brought the flame close enough that she could feel the warmth but the alcohol wouldn’t catch.  When he touched the flame between her shoulderblades, shielding her nape with his gloved hand as he did so, she lurched, straining against her bonds as the flames licked down her back.  The edges rippled and danced, like some bioluminescent undersea worm, and he waited until Irene hissed in pain before sweeping the glove down her spine and leaving darkness behind it.  Sherlock blew out the wand, then stopped to take stock of Irene.  She was shivering.  He wrapped his arms around her, pulling her body to his, running his gloved hands over her skin.

“Can we do another round?” he whispered into her ear.

She nodded against him, and he squeezed her waist.

“Thank you.  You’re being such a good girl.”

She went a bit limp in his arms, and he kissed her nape.

Sherlock returned with his dish of alcohol and painted the back of each of Irene’s thighs, and then, to be cruel, the soles of her feet.  He crossed in front of her and dabbed the tips of each nipple.  He soaked the wand thoroughly before returning his dish to the table.

“Which is more difficult for you,” he asked as he ignited the wand with one of the candles.  “When you can see it coming?” He waved the flame in front of her, slow enough that it wouldn’t go out.  “Or when you can’t see me?”  He crossed behind her, watching the line of her shoulders twist as she attempted to turn her head and follow him.  Hypothesis confirmed.

He touched the wand to the back of her thigh, watching her jump as the fire crept down her leg.  He swept the glove quickly over it, then touched the wand to the opposite foot, breaking the symmetrical pattern he’d kept so far.

Irene let out a little shriek and jumped, igniting the other foot.  She kicked out, squirming in the restraints.  There was no way to smother the flames with her kicking, but the soles of the feet were tough.  The fire danced blue, illuminating the outlines of her toes briefly, before the flickers died out.  He touched the back of her other leg, setting it alight, sweeping his hand up her body as she twitched and squirmed.  He spanked her arse with his gloved hand, making her stagger with surprise, and let loose a gasp of pain.

“Two more for me,” he promised.  “And then I’ll bring you down.”  He crossed in front of her again.  “Are you still here?”

“Yes,” she husked.

“Okay.  I’m going to light your nipples on fire, and then I’m going to have to wait a second while I put the wand out before I extinguish you.  It’s going to hurt.  Can you bear this for me?”

She nodded.  “Yes, sir.”

“Good girl,” he said again, noting the way her head leveled when he said it.  “Look up.  I know you want to watch, but I don’t want your face near the fire.”  She shifted her neck back between her forearms and raised her chin.  The line of her throat bobbed as she swallowed.

“Be brave for me.”  He touched the wand first to one nipple, then the other.  Blue flames whooshed over her chest in circles as he closed his gloved hand over the wand, extinguishing it.  Irene let out a hiss of pain, tugging hard on the restraints, and he took a step backwards to stay clear of the flames and dropped the wand on the floor behind him.

He cupped both her breasts with his gloved hands, smothering the flames which licked up between his fingers and then died as he ran the leather over her flesh.  Irene slumped forwards in her bonds, and he lay a kiss on her forehead, massaging her breasts with his hands, plucking at her sore nipples with his gloved fingers.  She pulled hard against the cuffs, rattling the chain above her head as she tugged on the D rings, and this time he let her lean against him, moving his hands around her back taking her into his arms.

Sherlock ran his hands up and down Irene’s sides, caressing her in long, smooth strokes.  She was trembling, whether it was endorphins or exhaustion or cold, he couldn’t be sure.  He unsnapped the the chain from the D rings on her cuffs and released her, holding her wrists in his hands and bringing her arms down slowly to her sides.

“How are you feeling?” he asked.

She giggled.

“I guess that answers that question.”  He held her for few minutes, letting her lean against him while he stroked her hair.

She shivered a bit in his arms at first, then relaxed against him.

“Can you walk?” He asked.

Irene nodded.

Sherlock took her by the hand and led her out of the semicircle of candles back to the table, where he unfolded the Belstaff and draped it around her shoulders.  She put her arms through it, buttoning it closed, and he led her through the semi-darkness to a threadbare chair in the corner.

“Stay here until I put all the candles out.”

Irene leaned back in the chair with a small sigh.

Sherlock snuffed all the candles save one, which he carried to light his way, and poured the alcohol remaining in the dish into the fireplace.  He touched the candle to the bricks and jumped back, watching the blaze of blue which lept up the back of the hearth and then died down to a few, fitful flames lapping the last remaining vestiges of the alcohol.  Sherlock watched the fire until it died, then retreated back to Irene’s chair.  He crouched next to her, watching her face in the candlelight.  She smiled, and her eyes were glittering.

“So, I figure we have two choices,” he said.  “Either I can turn on the light, which will be irritating for a bit, but we will get used to it, or we can sit here in the dark until you feel like going upstairs, and you can be uncomfortable up there.”

“I’d rather sit in the dark for now,” said Irene.

Sherlock nodded, and sat on the floor.  His trousers were probably going to be covered in dust, but he didn’t care at this point.  He realized he was still wearing his gloves, and stripped them from his fingers.  A burnt aroma clung to the leather.  He felt suddenly tired.  He set the candle far enough away that he wouldn’t accidentally knock it over, and leaned against Irene’s chair.

She reached out and stroked his curls.  “You did well.”

He smiled.  “I know.”

She snorted.  “You’re supposed to say something like, ‘So did you.’”

“Dull.  Besides, that was never in question.  You’re not the one who needed to prove yourself.”

Her hand stilled in his hair.  “Didn’t I?”

He stayed silent, waiting for her to continue.

“I thought I had quite a bit to prove, actually.  There are so many tropes to overcome.  ‘Lesbian just needs the right man,’ ‘strong woman ends up needing to be rescued,’ plus the whole male/female D/s dynamic Molly was apprehensive about before.”

He let his head fall back against the worn upholstery.  “I hadn’t really thought about it.”

“That’s because you’re incredibly self absorbed.  And I suppose you had a lot to prove, as well.  You needed to demonstrate to the others that sex doesn’t alarm you without compromising who you are by actually having it.”

“Does it disappoint you?” he asked.

“What, that we didn’t have sex?”

He nodded into Irene’s hand.

“If we’re being brutally honest with each other--”

“When are we not?”

“Then, yes.”  She exhaled audibly, stroking his hair again.  “But at the same time, no.  This is the most I ever expected from you, really.  And I’d rather do this than have sex, anyway.”

“You’d prefer to have both, though.”

She chuckled.  “Quite.  No such thing as too much.”

“That’s why you lost the game,” he said.

Irene was silent for several, pregnant moments.  “Did it never occur to you that I might not have wanted to win?”

“Never.  You worked too hard to throw everything away.”

“Perhaps.  But I also wasn’t willing to win at any price.”

He thought of the slump in Irene’s shoulders when she’d typed her farewell into her camera phone in Karachi.  He’d seen the same defeat in his own reflection in the window of the airplane Mycroft had chartered to take him back to Belgrave.

“Sentiment,” was all he managed to say.

“I’ve heard you’ve become sentimental yourself, this past series.”  He could hear suppressed laughter in Irene’s voice, but there was no mockery in it.  

“I’ve no idea what you’re talking about.”

The laughter broke through.  “Neither does your brother, I’m sure.”

“What am I supposed to say to that?”

“Indeed.”  She stroked his hair again.  “Don’t worry, you’ve a whole hiatus to come up with a witty rejoinder.  Let’s hope you can top, ‘How would you know?’”

He sniffed.  “Let’s hope you’ve come up with a more secure passcode than, “I AM SHERLOCKED.”

“Oh, yes.  The new one is, “I AM SPOON!LOCKED.”

“Did you just--”

She laughed again.  “Come on, you left yourself wide open.”

He sniffed.  “I suppose.”

She patted his head. “You did.”  

He smiled into the candle flame, knowing his expression mirrored Irene’s own, even though his back was to her and it was dark.

Chapter Text

“So I guess we’re just supposed to….” John licked his lips.

“Yes,” said Sherlock.  It was easier not to specify. Have sex.  Make love.  Fuck.  He knew which he wanted, but didn’t want to presume.

“And you haven’t done this before.”

“I’m a virgin.  I thought I made that abundantly clear.”

John lifted his hands.  “I’m just making sure that we’re on the same page.”

Sherlock nodded stiffly.

“And you want to, um … top.”

“That is one of the constraints of the prompt meme, yes.”

John frowned.  “Is that the only reason you’re doing it?  Because it’s part of this ‘Sex Hurricane Fest’--Jesus, who comes up with these titles?”

“Someone called Corpsewhipper, apparently.”  Sherlock tried to keep a straight face, but a smile pulled at the corner of his lips, and suddenly both he and John were laughing.  “We can’t giggle,” Sherlock admonished.  “It’s a sex scene.”

John laughed.  “You really are a virgin.”

Sherlock tensed, but the creases around John’s eyes told him his laughter wasn’t malicious, so he held his tongue.

“Sorry, just, giggling is to be expected, really.”

“Did you giggle?” Sherlock asked.  “Your first time, I mean.”

“What, can’t you deduce it?” asked John.

He sighed.  “I’m observant, John, not psychic.  I can deduce by the wrinkles on someone’s clothes or the scent of transferred cologne if they’ve had sex recently and make some inferences about with whom and how based on context.  I can’t tell you anything about your first sexual encounter.  There’s no evidence.”

“Guess,” said John.

“I never--”

“Humor me.”

Sherlock rolled his eyes.  “You’ve informed me giggling is to be expected.  It’s a fairly typical response to adrenaline and anxiety, both of which are likely to accompany loss of virginity, ergo, you giggled.”

John smiled.  “Wrong.  I was too terrified.  I wish I had giggled, though.”

“You made someone else giggle, then,” said Sherlock.  “When you ‘divested them of their virginity.’”

“Yeah.”

“Who?” asked Sherlock.  “Or is that Not Good?  Asking about past partners.”

“I don’t know that it’s Not Good,” said John.  “It’s unusual to discuss it so soon.  That’s usually a conversation that comes up in a long term relationship.”

“I thought we--”  Sherlock clamped his jaws shut, fighting the urge to cover his mouth.  For John, especially this version of John, their acquaintance was still new--which was what he’d asked for.  But the consequence was that while the bitterness that had festered between John and himself was absent, so was their established camaraderie.  The last thing he wanted was to come off as clingy.

John’s eyes widened.  “I’m sorry, I didn’t know--”

Sherlock turned towards the wall so John wouldn’t see his face heat.  “This story is supposed to be ‘porn without plot,’” he huffed.  “Not an epic romance.  Anthea made that quite clear.  This is a one-shot.  I’m not expecting anything long-term.  The fact that I’m a virgin doesn’t mean I’m going to imprint on you like a duckling.”

“Hey.” John tugged Sherlock’s wrist.  “Slow down.  I just didn’t know that’s what you wanted.  That’s why I asked you if you were only doing this for the prompt meme.  I thought it was about you proving something.”

He snorted.  “What would I need to prove?”

“That being a virgin doesn’t mean you’re a bottom.  That sex doesn’t alarm you.  That you’re not a sad gay baby.”

Sherlock sucked his cheeks to hold back his retort.

John pointed at him.  “See?”

“Point taken.”  He shifted on the bed.  “And maybe I do, on some level, want to prove those things.  Or maybe the author does.  It’s hard to tell the difference.  That doesn’t mean I don’t--” he’d made a vow, it should be obvious “--I can multi-task, John.”

John chuckled.  “Is that your ridiculously roundabout way of saying that you want to be in a relationship?”

“It’s saying we already are in a relationship, or at least, I am, with the--” he didn’t want to say ‘the real John,’ and risk offending him “--the you I know, and the pretext of you and I having just met, however much I might wish I could turn back time, is absurd.”

“Okay,” said John.  “That’s fine.  I’m here to be what you need me to be, Sherlock.”

Sherlock wasn’t even sure what he wanted or needed John to be.

“You’re my best friend.”  John answered his unspoken question.  “And I’m not going anywhere.  It’s not like this is your only shot with me.  Even with this author.  She’s not really anti-Johnlock; it’s just hard for her to write us.

“Series two was where the ‘not actually gay’ bit started, but things didn’t really go pear shaped until Series three.  She has issues with the way I reacted when you came back from the dead--”

“I wasn’t dead.”

John held up his hand.  “Yes, you were.  To me.”

Sherlock fell silent.

“I mourned you.  I grieved.  I lay awake at nights wondering what I could have done differently, what I should have said to keep you from jumping off that building.  I get that the author doesn’t like how I reacted to you.  Hell, I don’t like how I reacted to you.  Bloodying your nose isn’t something I’m proud of.  But you hurt me, Sherlock.  And maybe on some level I wanted to hurt you back.  Maybe I was trying to prove something, too--that you couldn’t just leave and lie to me and then waltz back into my life and expect me to drop everything and come running back to you.”

“You did,” said Sherlock.

“What, run back to you?”

He shook his head.  “Hurt me.”

John nodded.  “I know.  I know it doesn’t make it better, but I hurt myself, too.  I knew that I was making a mistake with Mary, but I wanted to prove that I’d moved on when I hadn’t so badly that I ended up doubling down on it instead.”

“You thought it was a mistake,” Sherlock said slowly.  “The whole time I was folding napkins and composing waltzes and picking out bridesmaids’ dresses.”

John flushed.  “Yeah.”

Sherlock creamed him with a pillow.

John grabbed the corner of it, clearly intending to retaliate, but Sherlock had the element of surprise and superior height on his side and overbalanced him.

John collapsed back onto the bed, and Sherlock climbed atop him, pressing the pillow to his face--though not hard enough to truly smother him. John was giggling, so he had to be getting some air.

Still, he let up, just a bit, and John wrenched the pillow down off his face, pushing it up into Sherlock’s chest.  Sherlock grunted but held steady, using his weight to pin John’s arms beneath the pillow, and kissed him.

John’s breath caught, and for a moment, Sherlock almost pulled away, but then John was lifting his neck up off the mattress to meet him, playfully nipping and sucking.  Sherlock did his best to imitate John’s movements, trying to keep his lips soft and his tongue light.  A girl had kissed him once, on a dare, and he remembered it being entirely too forceful and with too much saliva.

John arched up against him, apparently struggling to press his body into Sherlock’s rather than get out from under the pillow.  John’s firm, hot erection pressed against his thigh, and and it occurred to him that this was actually happening; John was becoming aroused by Sherlock’s weight on top of him, and he felt his own body reciprocate.  His blood began to re-distribute, leaving him suddenly light-headed.  Was it all in his cock, aching between his legs?  Or maybe it was in his ears, pounding  with each heartbeat.  He froze, trying to still his breath so he could focus on the sound of his heart.

“Sherlock?”

He blinked at John.  And kept blinking.  Why couldn’t he stop blinking?

“Hey.”  John worked his arms out from under the pillow and touched Sherlock’s face.  “Are you okay?”

He managed a quick nod, but couldn’t make himself speak.

“Because I’m not doing this if you’re not okay.  Sod the prompt.  Sod the writer.  We’re not dolls; this isn’t one of her fuck or die stories.”

He took a deep breath and let it out slowly.  “I’m fine, John.  Just--this is all a bit much.  I never imagined this would actually happen, and now that it is--”

“You can’t focus on what’s happening because you have to keep stopping and reassuring yourself that it’s real.”

He hadn’t wanted to offend John earlier, but now, it needed to be said.  “But you’re not real.”

John frowned.  “Neither of us are.”

“That’s not what I mean.  I’ve accepted that we’re characters on a television program.  It seems impossible, but we must eliminate that explanation in the face of such overwhelming evidence and accept that it is, however improbable, the truth.”

“I’m hearing a ‘but’ at the end of that sentence.”

“No ‘buts,’ John.  I’m sorry for inverting the cliche, but the problem isn’t me, it’s you.  You aren’t real, even in fiction.”

“Sherlock, you’re getting sci-fi on me.  Speak clearly.”

“Anthea conjured you up.  From Billy the Skull.”

John frowned.  “There’s a weird Biblical reference in there somewhere ….”

Sherlock tore his fingers through his hair.  “Can you be serious for two seconds, John!”

“Sorry.  It’s just, I think you’re reading too much into this.  We’re here.  We love each other ….”

“But that’s my point, John.  You don’t love me.  Not that way.  You’ve said again and again that we’re not a couple, that you’re not gay--”

“I’m not gay, I’m bi.”

“But that’s illogical!  JustTransport!Sherlock had the right of it, damn him, when he said ‘not actually gay’ means ‘not attracted to men.’”

“Oh, so now he gets to decide what I mean?”

“Not you!  The John on the show.  No well-adjusted bisexual person would split hairs over the distinction.  The intention was clearly to emphasize that we aren’t a couple.”

“Maybe he’s bi but not well-adjusted.”

“Maybe.  But you are well-adjusted.  Which is the problem.  I thought I was fixing the problem.  Molly asked me what I wanted, and I said I wanted you to want me, and to be comfortable with that.  But now that you’re here and you want me, I don’t believe you, because it’s not you--him.  Are you following me at all?”

John took a deep breath.  “You think I’m out of character.”

“I suppose that’s one way of explaining it.  You can’t just go from that, to....”

John ran his fingers along Sherlock’s jaw.  “I’m not meant to have gone from that to this, Sherlock.  I’ve always been this.  I’m …. like DarkFuckPrince!Sherlock.”

“Don’t be absurd.”

“I don’t mean that our personalities are similar.  I mean that we’re both… there are enough similarities between us and the characters on the show that we’re recognizable, but we’re not ‘faithful’ interpretations, and we aren’t meant to be.  DarkFuckPrince!Sherlock is the star of some sort of sex and drug fueled backstory, or maybe an AU….  I’m closer to the character on the show than he is, but I’m still ... they call it ‘canon divergent.’”

“But I want you to be--whatever the opposite of that is….”

“‘Canon compliant.’”  John took a deep breath.  “Sherlock, I… we…” he gestured between them, “this….  It’s never going to happen on the show.”  

Sherlock looked away.  “But it has to, John.  After everything that’s been implied about us, if we don’t end up together, the best case scenario is we become the butt of a running gag about how many bedrooms we need.  The worst case is--do you know what they almost did with the stag night sequence?  Now there’s a joke: Sherlock and John walk into a gay bar.  Everyone thinks they’re together, isn’t it funny?”

John’s jaw clenched.

“It only works as a punchline if the audience thinks it’s absurd, John.  They know we’ll never be together, and they know I know it and that’s why I’m meant to be a ….”

“Sad gay baby.”

“Do they not realize how deeply that cuts?  To be reminded of how pathetic you are, pining after someone who loves you but doesn’t want you due to an accident of orientation.  It isn’t cute.  It’s wretched.”

John’s fingers closed around his wrist, and Sherlock stared down at his strong, square hand.  John had held his hand when they’d been cuffed together, shaken his hand before he’d stepped on the plane back to Serbia.  He rotated his wrist, offering his palm, and John entwined their fingers.  John had never held his hand like this.  He squeezed down tight.

“The endless search for evidence of your bisexuality actually makes it worse.  If you really are bi and insist you’re ‘not actually gay,’ if you had a previous, clandestine relationship with Major Sholto, then….  The idea that you might actually care for me, but it still isn’t enough to justify giving up a socially acceptable marriage and children and a house in the suburbs that was only going to make you bored and miserable….”

He dropped his gaze.  “Except Mary wasn’t boring, was she?  I thought she might satisfy your desire for danger.  I tried to--I was bleeding inside, John, and I tried to--you chose her.  ‘Sad,’ doesn’t begin to convey the ….”

Pain.  Heartbreak.  Loss.  Death.  It’s all good.

He pressed his lips together, pushing aside the images of Moriarty in his straitjacket and Mary Morstan in her wedding dress.

For a long moment, John simply held his hand.  Sherlock blinked hard again, this time to hold back the tears welling in his eyes.  He’d ruined it all.  John had been perfectly content to kiss him and rut against him moments before, and now he’d gone and brought up Mary, of all things, and the moment was lost.

“I’m sorry, Sherlock,” John said at last.  “You’ve a right to be upset about it.  Anyone in your situation would be.  But I don’t necessarily think … yes, there may be a few fangirls who want a depressed gay man to keep in their pocket because it’s ‘cute’ and sexually non-threatening.  But I don’t think that’s all of them, not by a long shot.  Sometimes, the people making jokes are laughing to keep from crying.  The people who wanted the gay bar scene are just looking for more shots of us together so they can make gifsets and write fanfic where we make out in a corner of the gay bar and then end up eloping before the wedding.  Or maybe it’s a party the night before our wedding.  You don’t know how many cropped pictures there are of the two of us in our morning suits.”

“But that doesn’t--you can’t just crop Mary out of the picture.  It doesn’t fix things.”

“You’d rather be in a Johnlockary fic?”

He parsed the etymology of the ship name in his head.  “What, with you married to Mary and her letting me have you?  No, leave the OT3s to DarkFuckPrince!Sherlock and Mormormoll.  I don’t want to erase Mary, and I don’t want some kind of polyamorous arrangement.  I want you to choose me.”

John laid his hand over his hair.  “Look, Sherlock, I’m sorry, but we have to cut some narrative corners here.  Series three is a sticky wicket.  There are maybe a couple ways to work around Mary, the baby, and Canon!John’s straight identity, but all of them are gnarly, and this writer can’t find a way through all of the angst and identity policing that goes along with them.  Certainly not in the space of this chapter.  The solution is to ignore the pieces of the canon that don’t fit.”

Sherlock’s fingers tightened in the knitted cables running up the front of John’s jumper.

“I know it’s not what you’d prefer.  But there are advantages to this being fanfiction.  In fic, we can have an infinite number of first times, instead of one which would be heavily edited for network television.”

Sherlock smiled tightly.  “This is your way of insinuating that we should get back to doing the things the networks would censor.”

“Or not, Sherlock, I don’t want to push you if--”

Sherlock pressed his mouth over John’s, stealing his words.  John yielded, sliding one hand behind Sherlock’s nape and parting his lips, letting Sherlock dip his tongue into his mouth.  Sherlock tried to let himself dwell on the details, to focus on John.  Maybe it wasn’t so bad that this wasn’t the John he knew, because this John was his, this John was here with him now, and it wasn’t fair to him to waste the time they had together speculating about whether or not he’d ever get to have this with the John he’d last seen standing on the tarmac with a very pregnant Mary.

Sherlock catalogued John’s reactions: the way his breath caught when Sherlock bit at his lower lip, the shudder of his hips against Sherlock when his lips grazed a patch of stubble against John’s jaw.  He worked his way down John’s neck, rucking up his jumper, pushing his vest aside so he could see John’s scar.  He wanted to trace the gnarled pink tissue with his fingers, but later.  He’d killed the mood once this evening already; he had no intention of doing it again.

John was right.  There would be time for him to explore John’s scar and all sorts of other things later, in ways which would never be permitted on the BBC.  He wanted a topographical map of John’s every elevation and depression, wanted the chemical formula for his sweat.  He wanted to sequence John’s genome and take John’s fingerprints and study his saliva and blood under his microscope.  Only fanfiction would permit him to study these things and others he burned to know: what his face looked like when he climaxed, how his ejaculate tasted, whether he would let Sherlock take his time fingering him open or would grow impatient and beg.

John’s eyes widened, and Sherlock realized he’d apparently said everything he’d been thinking out loud.  How utterly inconvenient that when John had asked him to be his Best Man he’d made a gracious acceptance speech that had remained in his head, and when he finally had John in bed with him, he’d blurted out a litany of things that were better left unsaid.

“Everything I just said--delete it.”

John laughed at him.

Mockery was a better reaction than horror, but he still braced himself for rejection.

Something must have showed on his face, because the wrinkles at the corners of John’s eyes softened as John’s laughter died and his lips shifted into a smile.

“Sherlock, I’m not like you.  I can’t delete things.”

Sherlock winced.

“And I wouldn’t want to.”   John touched Sherlock’s face.  “That was … intense.  But you’re intense.  And I’ve always loved that about you--will always love that about you.”

“But?”

John clasped his hands behind Sherlock’s neck.  “But this is our first time together.  This is your first time, period.”  He licked his lips.  “Look, we don’t have to--I almost said ‘go all the way,’ but that’s kind of missing the point.  You don’t need to actually fuck me for this to count as losing your virginity.  Harry gave me an earful for suggesting that she was a virgin back when we were teens.”

Sherlock bit his lip.  “Yes, but that’s--I already told Irene I wouldn’t consider her a virgin because she’s a lesbian.  It’s different with us because we can.”

“‘Can,’ doesn’t mean ‘must,’ Sherlock, or even ‘should’.  Lots of gay men aren’t into anal sex.”

“Yes, but I--” his eyes widened.  “Oh!”

John licked his lips.

“You mean that you don’t want to have anal intercourse, John.  Or at least, not if I top, I should have realized--”

John bristled.  “What, you think that because I’m bi I wouldn’t bottom?”

Sherlock frowned.  “Don’t be ridiculous, John.  The entire point of you was to separate the essence of your character from your--” he corrected himself “--the Canon!John’s internalized homophobia.  Do you really think Anthea would make me a John who thinks being bi makes you more masculine than I, or that bottoming would make you somehow less so?”

John coughed.  “Well, no offense, but, yes.”

Sherlock raised an eyebrow.

“I mean, you seem awfully hung up about penetrative intercourse and virginity, which is--and I quote Harry again--heteronormative.”

Sherlock flushed.  “There may be some truth to what you say, though I should hope it’s more that…. I’ve wanted this for a long time, and I had a particular image in mind of what our first time would be like.  But the idea of penetration makes you uncomfortable.”

“Yes, er, no.  I’ve bottomed before.  I’m just not sure that it’s a first date activity.”

“John, this is hardly--” he stopped himself, because he realized pressing the issue was Not Good; he was not going to cajole or wheedle.  “No, you’re right, ‘sod the prompt’ ….”

“I get it, Sherlock.  You still want to top.”  He smiled.  “Lucky for you, I have some ideas.”

“Such as?”

“Have you got any lubricant?”

Sherlock rolled off John and wriggled across the bed until he was able to nudge the drawer handle with his fingertips.  It remained stubbornly closed.  He waved his fingers at it.

“Oh, for Christ’s sake,” John muttered.  He sat up and crawled over, giving Sherlock a spectacular view of his arse as he swatted Sherlock’s hand away from the drawer and pulled it open.  He retrieved the pump bottle of lubricant, then set it on top of the nightstand.  “Right, so, we should probably be naked.”

“I’m a virgin, John, not an idiot.”

“I’m not implying that you’re stupid, Sherlock, just spectacularly ignorant of basic facts most people take for granted, like the name of the prime minister, the fact that the Earth orbits the sun, and that people generally have sex with their clothes off.”

Sherlocked growled and snatched John’s belt, forcing John to shuffle forward on his knees until he was inches from Sherlock.  He made quick work of the buckle, then jerked the belt completely through the loops of John’s denims, which was unnecessary but made a satisfying sound as the leather whistled against the cotton.  He flung the belt across the bed, then snapped open John’s button and unzipped his flies in a single motion.  He tugged impatiently at John’s trousers, which refused to budge over his hips, then abandoned the effort and buried his face in John’s groin and exhaled hard against him.

“Jesus,” John huffed, putting a hand on the back of Sherlock’s head and then pulling it away again, clearly torn between the desire to pull him away and hold him down.  Sherlock decided the issue for him by sitting up and shucking the dressing gown, then hastily stripping off his T-shirt and jackknifing out of the pajama bottoms, pulling the fabric clear of his erect prick.  He leaned back on his elbows and thrust his chin out at John.

“Well?  I thought you said we should be naked.”

John blinked.  “Right.”  He peeled off the vest and jumper together and dropped them off the side of the bed.  Sherlock got a tantalizing glimpse of John’s scar, which disappeared from view as John swung his legs off the end of the bed and toed off his shoes and kicked his denims down.  Sherlock sidled up behind him and peered over John’s shoulder at his red briefs.

He flushed, shrugging Sherlock off of him so that he could peel his socks off.  “They’re obligatory,” he muttered.

Sherlock smirked.  “They’re fetching.”  He scuttled backwards across the sheets and patted the bed next to him.

John stood up, giving Sherlock a full view of him for the first time.  He took in the golden down spattered across John’s chest, the hard lines of his pecs, the soft swell of his belly, and the tanline that could have been unsightly but only served to remind him that he was looking at John Watson with his shirt off, in red pants.  He grinned despite himself.

John’s answering, slow smile made his grin widen.  Then John slipped the red pants down, giving Sherlock his first view of his cock, which was flushed and leaking and bouncing freely from its thatch of cinnamon curls, and the grin slid from Sherlock’s face as his lips parted in silent appreciation.

“You do know how to stoke a bloke’s ego,” John murmured, climbing onto the bed.  He crawled to Sherlock, took his face between his palms, and kissed him.

The kiss felt different with John above him.  Sherlock leaned back, keeping his mouth soft and letting John take control, filing away all the bits of data in an effort to learn how John liked to be kissed.  Apparently: thoroughly.  John’s mouth was hard against his and his tongue pushed deeply into Sherlock’s mouth, flicking over his tongue.  His teeth grazed Sherlock’s lips and his fingers clasped him tightly, and he ground his pelvis into Sherlock’s, rutting their cocks together.

Sherlock went limp, baring his throat so John could cover it in kisses.  He wrapped his arms around John, pulling him tighter and snaking a leg between his.  Then he lifted his knee for leverage, and, with a twist of his hips, flipped both of them over.

John landed on his back with a huff.  “Look at you.  Fighting dirty.”

“I thought all was fair in love and war.”

“How is it that you managed to delete the solar system, and yet you remember random quotes?”

Sherlock reached for the lubricant, pumping the bottle twice into his hand.  “Because it’s relevant, John.  Love,” he wrapped his hand around both of their cocks--and oh! that was delicious, the softness of John’s foreskin and the friction of it against Sherlock’s own was so very different than his hand alone--“is a vicious motivator.”  He stroked slowly, with the firm grip he himself preferred, adjusting for the girth of John’s cock in his hand.  Then he leaned forward, dropping his voice to its lowest register and whispered into John’s ear, “so is revenge.”

John moaned beneath him, his words stuttering out between panting breaths.  “I’m not even sure... what I’m meant to have done….”

Sherlock lightened his touch until his fingers only hinted at caresses, pulling back when John tried to arch up into him.  “You were trying to turn the tables.  Sweep me off my feet with the Three Continents Watson routine, render me into a swooning, inarticulate ingénue for you to deflower.”

“I think you’re reading too much into it.  Though when you put it like that, it does sound appealing.”

“Have you already forgotten my willingness to smother you?”

“’S difficult to remember when--”

Sherlock flicked his thumb over John’s frenulum.

“Fuck.  When you, ah--”

Sherlock smirked.  “Yes, you’ve demonstrated that quite effectively.  Was this what you were proposing I do with the lubricant once you were naked?  Or were you referring to something else?”

“No, er, yes.  Sherlock, you can’t ask two questions requiring different answers like that!”

“I’m sorry, John.”  Sherlock stroked harder.  “Am I distracting you?  Would you like me to stop?”

“That depends.  Is this how you want me to come?”

“No.”  Sherlock had wanted John to come trembling around his prick, but if that wasn’t on the menu, he wanted John to come in his mouth so he could taste him.  He released his own cock, and stroked John’s at a slower pace, lying down on top of John and slithering his way down his belly until his lips were level with John’s cock.  He took a tentative swipe with his tongue at the bead of fluid at the tip.  He was disappointed that the bitterness of the lubricant overrode any other taste but salt.  He tried to keep that from showing on his face and took another lick.  There was really nothing for it but licking the lube off, he supposed.

It was not exactly pleasant.  Manual stimulation was easy enough because he had his own experiences as a guide and John’s reactions for feedback, but fellatio was uncharted territory.  He licked the head of John’s cock again.  It bobbed away from him, so he wrapped one hand around the base to steady it as he ran his tongue along the shaft, cleaning up the tacky bitterness of the lube.  He resumed licking the head, pressing his tongue against the sensitive underside as though he were licking an ice lolly.

“Jesus, Sherlock.  Do you have any idea how hot you look doing that?  Your mouth--”

Sherlock attempted to smirk again--and found it was harder to do that around a cock than certain erotic fanworks had lead him to believe.  He settled on sucking John’s glans--why did people call it a ‘blow job’ if you didn’t actually blow--unsure about the right amount of pressure.

He pulled his lips off with a wet smack.  “Is this--”

“A little more suction.  And move your hand.”

He gave John’s foreskin a pull and twist, like he’d done before when stroking them together, and then returned his mouth to the head of John’s cock on his way down.  He tried to keep the rhythm going, bringing his hand up to his mouth over and over while sucking.

“That’s better, yeah.”  John’s hands twitched on the bedsheets.  “Do the thing you were doing earlier, with your tongue.”

Sherlock returned to flicking his tongue over the frenulum only to realize he’d stopped using his hand.  He brought it up to his mouth again, trying to mimic with his mouth what he would ordinarily do with his thumb by sweeping his tongue across the corona.  John hummed appreciatively, but it hardly replicated the ‘fuck’ from before.

He stopped and pulled up again, licking his lips.  They were chapped.  His jaw ached.  He’d no idea that oral sex was so much work.

“What am I doing wrong?” he asked.

“Sherlock, there’s no wrong way to give a blow job.  Even a bad blow job is a good blow job.”

“So you’re saying this is a bad blow job.”

John rolled his eyes.  “I’m saying that this is your first blow job, and that I’m looking forward to practicing with you.”

“John Watson, I swear to god I will--”

“Smother me.  So you keep threatening.”

“I was going to say that I will make you eat your words one day, but yes, I will happily smother you if you continue to insult my performance.”

“Next thing you’ll be telling me how you would hide the body.”

Sherlock snorted.  “Elementary.  Really I don’t--”

“Shhhhh,” John shook his head, laughing.  “Sherlock, that was meant to be rhetorical.  We need to work on your pillow talk.”

Sherlock stuck out his lower lip.  “John, you should know I chose you in part because you’ve always made me feel appreciated.  Even when other people called me a freak.  I thought you’d be--if I’d have known you were just going to mock me….”  He sniffled.

John’s face fell.  “Oh, god, Sherlock.  I was only joking, I never thought--Jesus, come here and let me kiss you.”

Sherlock rolled off of John and onto his back, laughing until tears streamed down his cheeks.  “Oh, my God.  You think you would have learned by now, but you still fall for it and it never, ever gets old.”

John snatched the remaining pillow and tried to hit him, but Sherlock deftly dodged the blow, which struck the mattress with a deep thud.  He reached off the foot of the bed and grabbed the discarded pillow from the floor with his right arm while he shielded his face from John’s second blow with his left.  He swung his body upward and followed through with a backhanded strike which John deflected easily due to Sherlock’s non-existent leverage.  They exchanged a series of furious blows and parries that filled the air with little bits of down that drifted with the dust motes in John’s bedroom and caught the fading, golden light.

John caught Sherlock’s pillow and held fast, tucking it under his elbow and swinging his at Sherlock repeatedly.  Sherlock fended off the blows with his left hand and let his own pillow go, ducking into John’s space and catching his nape with his right.  He pressed their mouths together, and John dropped the pillow and wrapped his arms around him and then they were kissing again.  Sherlock almost didn’t care anymore if John thought his blowjobs were amateurish or whether or not they ended up having intercourse, because this had been what he wanted from John, the ability to go from sparring to kissing and having it be the most natural thing in the world, to be allowed to push John against the headboard and plunder his mouth while John dropped the pillows to his sides and wrapped his arms around him.

While Sherlock may have discovered sex was now a secondary motivation, the kiss seemed to be reinvigorating John’s interest, or maybe Sherlock straddling him while pinning him to the headboard had.  In any case, John’s cock swelled against Sherlock’s belly, and then against his cock as his own erection reawakened.  The friction of John’s foreskin against his own tugged somewhat unpleasantly, and he reached for the lubricant again.

“We still haven’t discussed what you planned to do with this.”

John took the bottle from Sherlock and pumped some liberally into his hand, which he proceed to wrap around Sherlock’s cock.

Sherlock hissed and braced his arms against the headboard, peering down and John’s fist, pumping up and down the length of his shaft.  He debated thrusting into John’s hand, but decided to simply let John move his foreskin back and forth across his cock head with a swift, delicate touch that was more of a tease than a concerted effort to get him off.  He bit his lip.

“Lie down with me?” John asked.

Sherlock nodded and climbed out of John’s lap.  John pushed himself away from the headboard and lay on his back.  After a moment’s hesitation, Sherlock lay beside him and put his palm against John’s chest.

John smiled absently and pumped more lubricant in his hands, which smeared over the insides of his thighs.

“Oh!” said Sherlock.  “Intercrural.”

John laughed.  “I was going to call it the ‘Oxford rub,’ but, yes.”

“You’re a doctor, John.  It surprises me that you can’t just use the correct terms.”

“I don’t usually equate clinical with sexy.”

Sherlock’s mind unhelpfully supplied an image of John in his lab coat and latex gloves, suggesting in a honeyed voice that it was time for a prostate exam, and he flushed.

“Unless you….” John began.

Sherlock shook his head.  “There will be time.”  He took the bottle back and liberally coated his cock before settling himself on top of John, bracing his forearms on the mattress.  John guided him down and pulled him into a kiss, and, as Sherlock slid his cock between John’s slick thighs, it occurred to Sherlock that he could actually continue to snog John in this position, which wouldn’t be possible with penetrative sex due to their height difference.

He balanced on elbows and knees and tucked his arms behind John’s neck, supporting his head as he dipped his tongue into his mouth.  John returned the kiss enthusiastically, wrapping his arms around Sherlock’s back, and stiffened his legs, squeezing them tightly together.  Sherlock began to thrust, slowly at first, rocking back and forth between John’s thighs.  The delicious pull of the friction was so good he shivered, shoulder blades bunching as he canted his hips forward.  He stared between their torsos; John’s cock was dripping and his erection swayed between his legs.  John arched up beneath him, and Sherlock broke the kiss so he could slide his body higher, bringing his cock just beneath John’s bollocks, so that he could stroke them with each thrust.  John grunted appreciatively, and Sherlock lowered his torso, trying to rub against John’s cock with his belly.

 “God, your face,” said John.  “You’re so beautiful when you’re concentrating.”

Sherlock flicked his eyes up to John’s.  The deep blue was nearly swallowed by the yawning pupils, holes in the ocean floor.  He bucked his hips fiercely and let himself fall into them.

“Harder,” John urged. “You can’t hurt me, and I want to see you work for it.”

Sherlock closed his eyes and let go, seeking his own pleasure in the tight space between John’s thighs. He wriggled his hips, burrowing closer to John’s body, taut and strong and hot beneath him.  John’s hands slid down his back and around his arse, one palm clutching each cheek and spreading him ever so slightly open, kneading his clenched muscles, sending jolts of pleasure crackling down his thighs.  Sherlock could feel his orgasm tightening his entire body--the arches of his feet, the skin of his scrotum, the backs of his hamstrings.

He opened his eyes, peering down at John, whose lips were parted in something like awe as he gripped Sherlock.  He snapped back to himself, realizing he’d all but forgotten John’s pleasure.

“Touch yourself.”

John let go of Sherlock’s arse and brought his left hand around to his cock, stroking hard and slow.  “Tell me when you’re close, Sherlock.”

“I--” he tried to nod.  He wasn’t sure if he could hold on much longer, and it was clearly important to John that he last until John was ready.  He tried to slow his rhythm, only to find John’s hand on the small of his back.

“Do it.  Let go.  Don’t wait for me.”  John stroked his cock faster, twisting at the top of each stroke.

Sherlock drove his hips forward again, feeling the tightness everywhere in his body clamping down on him, as though he would be squeezed out of his very skin.  The first wave of tremors rolled up and out of his body as he thrust forward against John and spurted between his thighs.  He cried out, tightening his fingers against the bedsheets, bracing himself on his elbows to keep from collapsing forward on top of John, still stroking himself beneath him.  His hips stuttered, arrhythmic, as he fought for a final bit of friction.

“On me,” John gasped.

Sherlock struggled to push himself up, arms burning, and the last, feeble spurts, white and thick, landed on John’s hand and belly.

“Fuck.”  John swiped his fingers through it and stroked his cock with Sherlock’s come, throwing his head back.  “Jesus, fuck.”

Sherlock wriggled backwards, sliding himself down the length of John’s body.

John’s eyes flew open.  “Sherlock, you don’t--”

He braced himself above John’s thighs, dipping his head down to John’s frantic hand.  “Let me.”

“God, Sherlock--”  John’s hips jerked up into his hand, and Sherlock leaned forward and caught the head of John’s cock between his lips just as it began to flutter.  The first pulses hit the back of his throat, and he struggled not to gag as the bitterness filled up his mouth.  There was so much of it, and he couldn’t swallow while John continued to ejaculate jet after jet.  John shuddered beneath him, one hand still curled around his cock and the other tentatively stroking Sherlock’s hair.

When at last the aftershocks had quieted, Sherlock pulled his head up, trying to be gentle and to keep from spilling, and swallowed.  The stickiness still clung to his tongue and the back of his throat.  He wiggled out from under John’s hand and sat up, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.  In spite of his best efforts, there was semen at the corners of his lips.

“Are you okay?” asked John.

He nodded.

“Come here.”  John opened his arms wide, and Sherlock lay against his chest and let John’s arms close around his back behind him.  He ran his tongue across his teeth, still tasting bitterness.

“Sorry,” said John.

“Don’t be.  It was … an experience.”

John chuckled.  “That bad, huh?  It’s an acquired taste, I guess--not that I’m saying you need to acquire it,” he hastened to add.

“John, please stop apologizing.  Your ejaculate is far from the most offensive substance I’ve ever had in my mouth.”

“Was that supposed to be a compliment?”

“Yes.”

John frowned.  “You really need to work on--”

“Everything to do with fellatio.  So you’ve said.”

“Actually, I was going to say ‘your pillow talk,’ again.”

“I’ll add it to the list.  It should be noted, however, that in spite of my supposedly lackluster skills, your pupils dilated when I mentioned substances I’ve had in my mouth, and your heart rate is coming back up now that I’m discussing blowjob techniques.”

“As excited as I might be to, erm, help you practice, Sherlock, I’m pretty sure that I couldn’t actually come again, whatever my pulse and pupils are telling you.”

Sherlock shrugged.  “Would the duration of a shared shower be sufficient time for your libido to reset?”

John laughed.  “Jesus, you are insatiable.  Also, the shower is downstairs, and to get there, we’d have to go past the others.  At that point, we might as well just rejoin them.”

Sherlock burrowed into John’s chest.  “Boring.  I’d rather stay here with you.”

“So would I, but I think we’ve upstaged the other pairings enough as it is.”

“Of course we have; we’re the OTP.  Why would anyone want to read anything else?”

“Sherlock, you know that’s a bit Not Good, right?”

Sherlock declined to dignify that with a response.

John kissed the top of his head and stroked his hair slowly.  “I love you, Sherlock, I do.  And I don’t want to be with anyone else, ever.  But that doesn’t mean that the other Johns and Sherlocks feel the same.”

“I know, John.  DarkFuckPrince!Sherlock was quite emphatic about that.  But I still--I prefer us.”  He traced his fingers over John’s scar.  “I prefer you.”

“I prefer us, too.  So do most people.  We’re the five hundred pound gorilla in the fandom, the--”

“I thought we were the Elephant in the Room,” Sherlock interrupted.

John snorted.  “Hardly.  The Elephant in the Room is a subject no one talks about.  Maybe, in canon, it’s a reference to you and I and all the things we’ve never said to each other at all the really obvious times--the pool scene, and the carriage scene, our goodbye scene on the tarmac.”  He squeezed Sherlock to his chest.  “But fandom talks about Johnlock all the time.  If anything--”

“People talk of little else.”

John nodded.  “We’re the flagship of the armada, Sherlock.  We’re your preferred pairing, my preferred pairing, most people’s preferred pairing, but we’re not the One True Pairing, love.”

Sherlock sighed.  “I know what you want me to say, John.  The small ship fans are entitled to representation, too.  The fans who see themselves in asexual!Sherlock and poly!Sherlock need positive stories about them the same way that I need a narrative that isn’t a sad gay love story about us.”

“More or less.”

“‘It’s all fine.’  That’s your motto and it should be the Sherlock fandom motto, too.”

“Yesss….” There was hesitation in John’s voice as he picked up the frustration in Sherlock’s.

“But what about when people write things that are hurtful, John.  I’m not talking about NoTPs or squicky kinks.  I’m talking about words that dredge up past trauma, or which reinforce denigrating stereotypes, like--”

“‘Sad gay baby?’”

“Must you keep saying it?  But, yes.”

“Sorry.”  John sighed.  “It’s complicated.  I guess, and maybe this is out of character, coming from me, since I’m not good at this sort of stuff, but…. You talk about it.  You speak your truth.  You open up about why something is hurtful to you.  You tell your story.  You don’t just say, ‘your gay baby is problematic’ and lord it over everyone.  And you have to be prepared that, even after you’ve said what you need to say, not everyone is going to change their behavior.  Then it’s just a matter of avoiding the things you find hurtful.”

“You can’t just ignore toxic people, John.  That’s what Mycroft asked me to do with Magnussen.  Stand by and watch while he attacked people who were different and preyed on their secrets.”

“Yes, well, you can’t go around shooting the Magnussens of the world, either.”

Sherlock sniffed.  “Obviously.”

”So you stand up to the Magnussens however you can, if you can.  I think that’s what this whole Sex Hurricane nonsense was really about.”

“I thought it was about finding the best incarnation of Toplock.”

John shrugged.  “The author is multi-tasking.  Also, I don’t remember Anthea saying it was a competition.”

Sherlock harumphed.  “I still think I won.”

“You would, you wanker.  I suppose you did have the most to overcome.”

“And what is that supposed to mean?”

John shook his head.  “It means possibly everyone was wrong about you, including me, and I will happily eat my words if it means you’ll top me again.”

Sherlock tucked his head against John’s chest to hide his flush and infused his voice with maximum swagger.  “Give me ten minutes, and that can be arranged.”

“Jesus, Sherlock.  You can’t possibly have that short of a refractory period.”

“Of course I can, it’s fanfic.”

John chuckled.  “Tempting as that prospect sounds, we really should rejoin the others.”

“Yes, yes, you’ve made it very clear it wouldn’t be fair to the other pairings if we get an extra sex scene.  But what if we just--” he looked up at the ceiling (even though it was entirely illogical to suppose the author was ‘up’ beyond it, like some sort of mythical deity figure) “--fade to black?”

He slid up John’s body again, kissing his chest, his clavicle, underneath his chin.  John opened his mouth beneath Sherlock’s and closed his arms in a circle behind Sherlock’s back.  Sherlock slipped his tongue between John’s parted lips, and closed his eyes.

Chapter Text

“Well, this is interesting,” said DarkFuckPrince!Sherlock, emerging from his bedroom clad in a black silk kimono and with Molly and Jim in tow, as he peered through the kitchen door  into the sitting room.

Anthea sat in his Le Corbusier chair, eyes fixed on Mrs Hudson, who had one leg up on the armrest and gyrated her hips with a smoothness only achievable with the aid of her herbal soothers.

Saint!John lay across the sofa, holding Angry!John sprawled prone across him by his wrists.  A sharp crack cut through the air as Moran brought his belt down across Angry!John’s arse, leaving a red stripe across the bare skin above his trousers, which were pulled down below his abused buttocks.

Mycroft, apparently impervious to the debauchery, sat in John’s chair, his back not touching the Union Jack cushion behind him.  He sipped tea while peering at John’s laptop, which rested atop his knees.

“Dear me, but you’ve all been naughty,” mused Moriarty, barefoot and wrapped in Sherlock’s tartan dressing gown.  He padded across the sitting room towards the couch and wrapped his arms around Sebastian, who lowered his arms to his sides and let the belt fall limp.

Angry!John rolled to face Jim.  “I thought you might be gone longer, what with DarkFuckPrince!Sherlock’s supposed prowess.  But it appears you three are the first back.”

“In fairness,” Mycroft glanced up from the laptop screen, “Irene and JustTransport!Sherlock seem to have finished and are just sitting in the dark, and GayBaby!Sherlock and BAMF!John only got as far as kissing before GayBaby!Sherlock had an existential crisis and they had to stop.”

Molly, in Sherlock’s red dressing gown, glanced over Mycroft’s shoulder at the laptop screen.  “Are you watching them?”

“We all were,” said Mycroft.  “At least until the others got …” he pointed his chin towards Mrs Hudson and Anthea, who were now entwined in Sherlock’s chair-- “... distracted.”

“Don’t you think that’s a bit creepy?” asked Molly.

“I don’t see how it’s any different than what the readers just did.  At its heart, all pornography is voyeuristic.”

“Yes, but you were watching your brother.  Brothers,” she amended.

“Please.” Mycroft rolled his eyes.  “This is a work of metafiction.  I’m fairly certain the readers are cognizant that Sherlock and I are both fictional characters, and that the actors who portray us aren’t actually related.  However, if it bothers you, I can change the channel.”  Mycroft flipped to an image of another Molly in her apartment on the sofa, fingers entwined in the silver hair of the man between her splayed legs.

“Is that Graham?” asked DarkFuckPrince!Sherlock, who stepped up behind Molly, twining his arm around her.

Molly rolled her eyes.  “It’s Greg.  And this doesn’t qualify as ‘less creepy,’ Mycroft.”

Mycroft hummed and sipped his tea.  “Point taken.  How about a male/male pairing?  Apparently slash ships are more popular in this fandom.”  He tapped the keyboard and brought up an image of Major Sholto, in uniform, and John, in his morning suit, snogging.

“Is that footage from the wedding?” asked Molly.  Her guarded expression didn’t entirely mask her intrigue.

“Could be anywhere, really,” said Mycroft.  “All of the channels I’m toggling between are headcanons.  Seeds for possible fanfic.  This writer’s drawn to the rare-pairings, the unlikely couples.”  He toggled again, switching to a view of Magnussen’s penthouse, where Mary and Janine sat on the foot of the bed, arms around each other.  Mycroft moved the mouse, which apparently moved the camera as well, as both women glanced at it, then raised their middle fingers to the camera and glared into the lens.

Molly smiled.

Mycroft tapped the keyboard again, and Molly caught a quick flash of what appeared to be a naked Anderson penetrating himself with the tail of a plastic toy T-Rex before Mycroft made a startled sound and closed the window, returning back to a split screen of night vision camera showing an empty 221C on one half of the screen and GayBaby!Sherlock and BAMF!John beating one another with pillows on the other.

Molly closed the laptop lid and lifted it out of Mycroft’s lap, exposing his tented erection.  She set the laptop on the table next to him.  “So the thing is …. ” She climbed into his lap.  “You can sit here, cool as a cucumber, and pretend you aren’t affected ….” She walked her fingers down his shirt, unbuttoning the buttons of his waistcoat.  “But we all know that’s just a big front.”  She grasped his tie in one hand and cupped his erection in the other, pulling his lips to hers.

Two pairs of footsteps echoed on the stairs.

“Well, hello,” Irene purred, clicking across the kitchen.  She wore JustTransport!Sherlock’s coat and her red-soled heels again.  She walked around the chair and put her hand on Molly’s shoulder.  “Do you need any help, there?”

Molly broke away from Mycroft and beamed up at Irene.  “I think I might.  I think Mycroft has been so very bad that it might take both of us to punish him sufficiently.”

JustTransport!Sherlock arched an eyebrow and picked up the laptop, carrying it back to the now empty table at the center of the sitting room.

DarkFuckPrince!Sherlock glanced around the room, trying to decide where he might join in.  Molly and Irene were circling Mycroft like lionesses with a fresh kill, Anthea had one hand up Mrs Hudson’s knickers, and Moriarty and Sebastian were debating whether to tag-team Angry!John while Saint!John continued to hold his wrists or whether they should each top one of the Johns separately.

“Do you think you could--” Sebastian cocked his head towards JustTransport!Sherlock, and then towards Angry!John’s wrists.

“I really couldn’t,” said JustTransport!Sherlock.

The doorbell rang.

“I’ll get that,” said DarkFuckPrince!Sherlock, and bounded down the steps.  He opened the door to find a put-out looking Lestrade and an equally miffed Donovan.

“Is there a reason all of Scotland Yard is here?” asked Sherlock.

“It’s just us two,” said Lestrade.

“Why are you here?”

“Mrs Turner called with a noise complaint.”

“Seriously?”

“No.  A bunch of readers were asking when we were going to show up in this fic, so we decided to come over.”

Sally snorted.  “Decided.  As if we’d want to come to an orgy with three different incarnations of this wanker.  The author wrote us in.”

“Who would have thought a woman whose married partner has a fetish for dinosaurs would be such a prude,” snapped DarkFuckPrince!Sherlock

Sally blanched.  “Freak, I don’t know what you think you’ve ‘deduced’--”

“I wish I were that clever, but in this case, I actually saw.” Sherlock’s grin was all teeth.  “And much as I wish I could delete it, this particular sight, once seen, cannot be unseen.”

Lestrade’s mouth dropped open.

“Though really,” Sherlock continued, “so many things are making sense, now.  His lunch box, the figurines at his desk, your own resemblance to a velociraptor--”

“Shut. Up. Now.”  Sally stepped into his space, drawing herself up on her high heels.

“Or what?”

“I’ll arrest you.”

“On what charge?”

“It doesn’t matter.  This isn’t a casefic.”

“Why, Sergeant Donovan, I’m starting to suspect you just want to see me in handcuffs.”

A smirk flicked across her lips.  “You bet your arse I do.  Turn around and put your hands atop your head.”

“I am still here, you know,” said Lestrade.

“Then I suggest you make your way upstairs,” said Sally, “or I will consider you a consenting observer.”

He chewed his lip.  “Sherlock, are you--"

“I'm quite certain I can take anything Sally’s prepared to dish out, Geoff.”

“It’s Greg.”  Lestrade shook his head and made his way up the stairs.  He shot a last, worried look over his shoulder.

The metal clicked in place around DarkFuckPrince!Sherlock’s wrists.  “Inside,” Sally snapped, pushing him into the hall.  “On the floor.”

He sank to his knees.

She walked in front of him.  “It was such a pity the Americans didn’t make you do this in A Scandal In Belgravia.”

He smirked.

“On your back.”

He arched an eyebrow, but complied, shifting into a seated position and then lowering himself onto his back, stretching his legs out on the floor.  He laced his fingers together and cradled his head in his cuffed hands.

Sally stood glaring down at him for a moment, then sank to her knees and straddled him.  She drew herself up to her full kneeling height, and cupped his chin.  “Now see here, Freak.  When you made your observations about the ‘state of my knees’ at the crime scene with the Pink Lady, I bet you were assuming they got that way because I was sucking off Anderson.”

He grinned up at her.  “You’re going to tell me you were actually riding him.”

She lowered herself and rocked her hips, brushing her groin against the erection burgeoning beneath the black silk of his kimono.  “Damn right.”  She leaned across him, holding down his cuffed wrists and pressing her body into his.  “On the floor inside the doorway because we couldn’t make it to the bedroom.  Just.  Like.  This.”  She punctuated each word with by rutting against his cock.

DarkFuckPrince!Sherlock’s eyes fluttered closed.  “You didn’t take your trousers off.  That’s why I noticed your knees.  The dust.”

Sally straddled his thigh, grinding her clothed cunt against his hip.  “I don’t need to.  That wasn’t about Anderson, and this isn’t about you.”

“Always something,” he muttered, and lifted his thigh to give her more leverage.

Lestrade’s eyes darted about the room as he took in the scene around him.  Mycroft was bent over John’s chair, his head in Molly Hooper’s lap and his trousers around his ankles, and Irene Adler was applying a riding crop to his backside.

“Can you hand me my phone?” asked JustTransport!Sherlock.  “It’s in my coat pocket.”

“Where’s your coat?” asked Lestrade.

JustTransport!Sherlock waved his hand towards the floor, where Angry!John knelt on hands and knees atop the Belstaff while Jim Moriarty and Sebastian Moran stood at either end of him, simultaneously availing themselves of both his orifices.

“Yeah, no,” said Lestrade.

He sighed.  “Well I’m hardly going in there after it.  John!” he held out his hand.  “Either of you, I don’t care.”

Lestrade boggled.  “Wait, there are two--”

“Obviously.”

“I’ll get it,” said Saint!John, who disentangled himself from Anthea and Mrs Hudson, who were all curled together on the sofa.  The two women resumed snogging one another.

Lestrade blinked as Saint!John stood up and walked across the room, straightening his twisted rugby jersey, and knelt on the floor next to the eiffel tower in progress.

“Sure you don’t want in on this, Johnny-boy?” asked Moriarty, slapping Angry!John’s arse as he snapped into him.

Saint!John lifted the edge of the coat and felt around until he found the pocket.  “I’m sure, ta.  You three seem to like it a little rougher than I do.”  He retrieved Sherlock’s phone and strode over to the table, setting it down in front of JustTransport!Sherlock with a clack.  “What do you need your phone for anyway?”

JustTransport!Sherlock ignored him, snatching up the phone and snapping a photo of Lestrade, framing the shot to capture as many orgy participants as possible in the background.

“Oi!”  Lestrade held a hand in front of his face.  “What was that for?”

JustTransport!Sherlock smiled at Irene, whose red fingernails scratched encouragement into Mycroft’s scalp as he nuzzled between Molly’s legs.  “Protection.  Maybe the next time you think of filming me while I’m on drugs, you’ll consider that I could post this to all my social media accounts. ‘Gavin Lestrade participates in orgy at 221b.  Hashtag silver fox.  Hashtag fandom bicycle.’”

“You bastard.  I am not participating.  And it’s Greg.”

JustTransport!Sherlock flashed his sociopath smile.  “You sure you don’t want in on the action?  Saint!John here has been staring at your mouth since you walked in the room.”

Saint!John flushed.  “Sherlock!”

Greg dropped his eyes, rubbing his nape with his hand.  “Well, if Sherlock’s telling the truth--”

“I am.”

“Then I’m flattered …  It’s just--”

JustTransport!Sherlock turned to Saint!John, “Gandalf is interested but hasn’t had sex with a man since before his divorce and has performance anxiety.”

“Gandalf ?” asked Saint!John.  “Come on, Sherlock.  He said his name seconds ago.  You’re clearly shamming.”

“What?  I made a reference to him being grey, er, gay.”

Moriarty looked over, one hand still pressed against the small of Angry!John’s back as he rocked in and out of him.  “Yeah, that fake Freudian slip wasn’t even funny the first time.”

“I wasn’t intending to--”

John’s bedroom door opened, and GayBaby!Sherlock stepped out, his fingers intertwined in BAMF!John’s.  They descended the stairs together.

JustTransport!Sherlock looked the two of them up and down.  “Well, it appears our Gay Baby is no longer a virgin.  The two of you had sex twice if we’re counting encounters, three times if we’re going by the individual acts.  The first encounter consisted of fellatio, John receiving, followed by intercrural, also with John receiving.  Then you attempted docking after the fade to black.”

BAMF!John’s’s eyes widened.  “How could you possibly have deduced that?”

GayBaby!Sherlock scowled.  “He didn’t.”  He released John’s hand, flounced down the stairs, and turned around the laptop, tabbing through the different windows until he found the feed from the upstairs bedroom.  He paused the footage and rewound it, his frown deepening as he watched himself and BAMF!John moving against each other rapidly in reverse.

“You recorded us?” stammered BAMF!John.

JustTransport!Sherlock shrugged.  “Technically, Mycroft did.”

“Is this true?”

Irene pulled Mycroft’s hair, lifting his head out from between Molly’s trembling thighs.  “Tell him, love.”

He licked his lips.  “Well technically, I didn’t do anything.  If you’re looking for someone to blame, go after the author.”

GayBaby!Sherlock sniffed.  “Typical.  You always find a way to avoid taking accountability for any of your morally dubious actions.”

JustTransport!Sherlock began texting with one thumb, holding his phone high above his head as Lestrade lunged for it.

“What are you doing!”  Lestrade demanded.

“What Mycroft suggested.  Inviting the author over for a chat.”

Chapter Text

A group of footsteps like a small herd of elephants thundered up the stairs.  DarkFuckPrince!Sherlock and Sally emerged first, somewhat flushed and sticky and refusing to make eye contact with each other, followed by Kitty Riley in her deerstalker hat and ‘I heart Sherlock’ pin, and a petite, dark-skinned woman wearing a T-shirt that said, ‘Ask Me About My Ship’ with an ‘IOU’-carved apple beneath it.

JustTransport!Sherlock frowned.  “So you’re the author.”

She arched one black eyebrow.  “Not what you were expecting?”

He shrugged.  “Didn’t have any expectations.  Why create this conceit that you tripped over these two,” he gestured to DarkFuckPrince!Sherlock and Sally, “coming through the front door.  Why not just--pop out of a cake, or something?”

She smiled.  “This fic is getting stranger and stranger.  You have to do something to give readers a sense of continuity.”

“Right. Well, if we’re continuing this conceit then, I suppose I ought to ask you to introduce yourself.”

“I’m Anarfea.”

“What kind of a name is that?” asked Angry!John.

“It’s a tribute to my first fandom. Tolkien Elvish for ‘spirit of fire.’”

Moriarty rolled his eyes. “Nerd.”

“And proud.” She walked over to Sherlock’s chair and sat slowly, palms down on the armrests. “And now….” she looked up. “You have questions.”

Mycroft’s eyes narrowed.  “That’s my line. And my pose.”

“I like stealing things from canon.  It’s fun.”

Kitty Riley pulled the client chair closer to the author, removing a tape recorder from her bag.  “Well, I don’t know about the rest of you, but I want answers.” She thrust a microphone towards Anarfea.  “Why did you decide to write this fic anyway?”

“Well, the fic was written for an online challenge called ‘Category 5 Sex Hurricane Fest 2015.’  It was a response to a rather vicious round of fandom wank where--and I’m oversimplifying, anyone who wants to know the whole of what happened can read about it on my blog or fail_fandomanon--some bottomlockers bullied toplockers for shipping the johnlock ship the wrong way.  In response, some fans decided to write fic about Sherlock topping anyone and anything.”

“Hey!” said Angry!John.

Anarfea shot him a smug look.  “And when I say anything--my dear friend Vulgarweed wrote a fic about Sherlock having sex with Ungoliant.”

Moriarty raised his eyebrows.  “You mean the giant spider born of darkness who devoured the light of the Two Trees?”

“I do. And now who’s the nerd?”

JustTransport!Sherlock smirked.

“Okay, but that was a really long time ago,” said Kitty.  “Why come back to this story now? You haven’t updated it in more than a year.”

“Because when I wrote the fic, I was really upset by what had happened, and I was trying to direct those feelings in as positive a way as I could.  But I was still very much satirizing Sherlock fandom tropes around topping and bottoming because I was irritated with the way that queer sex was being, for lack of a better term, heteronormalized.  I was hurt and angry that certain people were so consumed by the idea that there was only one way to write BBC Sherlock’s characters--which was, in my opinion, a heteronormative way--that they would try to destroy other fans’ lives.

“As time went on, though, I saw that in the wider fandom community the pendulum was really swinging the other way. Fans were starting to attack other fans for writing tropey slash, arguing that they were fetishizing gay men, calling the writers derogatory terms like ‘fujoshi,’ --a Japanese word for ‘rotten woman,’ which was reclaimed but is becoming a slur again, and suddenly, making fun of slash tropes wasn’t funny to me anymore.  So I stopped writing this story.”

“So you’re here to what, recant everything you’ve written so far?”

“Not at all.  I stand behind what I’ve written and where it came from.  But I felt like reexamining the issues in a contemporary context.”

“What the hell does that actually mean?” asked Sally.

“It means that while I still think that some slash tropes are heteronormative, and I think people should examine them critically, I’m not interested in shaming people--especially not a majority female, majority queer group of people--for having certain fantasies.”
Kitty’s eyes narrowed.  “What if those fantasies are problematic?”

“I hate the way people abuse that word.  ‘Problematic’ means ‘presenting a problem or difficulty.’  In reference to a theme, it means it’s complex, or controversial, that it requires critical analysis.  Nowadays people are using it as a synonym for ‘morally wrong.’”

“Oh, so you’re an anti-anti.”

“If you mean I’m against people bullying fellow fans for creating content they deem ‘problematic,’ then yes, I suppose I’m an anti-anti.”

“And you’re anti-Johnlock.”

“Oh, come on, Kitty these aren’t even questions.  No, I’m not anti-Johnlock,” she smirked. “Some of my best friends are Johnlockers.”

“If you’re not anti-Johnlock, why don’t you write it?  You’ve written basically every other pairing.”

“I have written Johnlock.  I wrote this fic, and I wrote a Johnlock tentacle porn fic for No Shame November.”

Kitty rolled her eyes.  “No, I mean a real Johnlock fic.”

“What’s a ‘real’ Johnlock fic?”

“One that actually takes their relationship seriously.  They’re the biggest pairing in the fandom, and one of the most famous duos in literature.  Why won’t you write them?”

“Does everyone have to?  I think I started out just being contrarian, like, ‘I’m not going to write Johnlock because that’s what everyone else writes.’  At a certain point, though, I tried to write a couple of Johnlock ficlets, and I discovered that, unless it was AU, I straight up couldn’t write the pairing at all.”

“Why is that?”

“I came into Sherlock fandom after Series Two, and while I understood why people shipped Johnlock, I personally didn’t see the subtext in canon.”

“You’re kidding me. It’s the loudest subtext in television.”

“So I’ve heard.  But I swear, I didn’t see them as more than friends.  I read fic because so many of the great Sherlock fics were Johnlock, but I wasn’t more invested in it than any other pairing, and I was convinced there was no possibility of it ever becoming canon.”

Kitty bristled.  “And why not?”

“Because the showrunners said repeatedly that that wasn’t the direction they wanted to take the show.  A bunch of fans who had gotten their hopes up for canon Johnlock said that Moftiss--that’s Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss, the show’s writer-producers--were lying, that they were denying that they were setting up a romantic relationship between Sherlock and John to avoid lessening the impact of a dramatic reveal.  They called it The Johnlock Conspiracy, or TJLC.”

DarkFuckPrince!Sherlock snorted.

“I never believed in it.”  She sighed. “And then Series Three happened--specifically, The Sign of Three happened.  I watched Sherlock at John and Mary’s wedding and I saw Sherlock pining for John, and I became convinced that Moftiss were going to give us the worst of both worlds: that they’d written Sherlock as queer and in love with his straight (or deeply-closeted) best friend, but that there was no hope of that love ever being returned.  All of the sudden, Johnlock got too real for me.  [One of the Three Patcher’s] said ‘there’s a scar on my fandom, and it looks like my life,’ and that’s how I felt about Johnlock post Series Three.  John said ‘I’m not gay’ one too many times, and it just made me ache inside. I couldn’t even read the pairing, unless it was canon divergent or AU, let alone write it.”

Gaybaby!Sherlock looked on solemnly, tears in his eyes.  He’d taken a seat on the floor next to BAMF!John, who snaked a protective arm around him.

“But I wanted to write Johnlock.  I play a game I call ‘pick the squick,’ which is basically finding the point in a story where I as the writer become uncomfortable or afraid, and gradually push the story closer and closer to that point.  I find the spot that hurts, and dig until I hit the place my high school drama teacher called the ‘appropriate depth of emotion.’ Series Three John, and the possibility of post Series Three Johnlock, made me so uncomfortable that I knew I needed to probe that dynamic and figure out if I could write my way through the absolute mess that Moftiss made of it.  In real life, my first partner’s internalized homophobia ended up destroying our relationship. I felt that I owed it to myself and to the characters to find a way for them to work past that in my fiction. There are bits and pieces of Johnlock dialogue floating around my Google docs files--nothing like a coherent story, but I tried.

“And then Series Four happened, and we saw John beat the shit out of Sherlock and Sherlock say he was ‘entitled.’  That was pretty much the last straw. I no longer want to see Sherlock and John get together in the BBC Sherlock universe, and I have no interest in trying to write anything to do with them except maybe Sherlock coming to the realization that he deserves better.  I am working on a Battlestar Galactica fusion fic where there will be some Johnlock in space, but as far as the canon is concerned, Series Four ruined the pairing for me. I’m done.”

“Sounds like you hated Series Four.”

“I actually enjoyed Series Four more than Series Three.  Mostly because it gave authors so much space in which to play.  Eurus in particular is fun to write. And Sherlolly is basically canon now, which is awesome.”

Kitty looked as though she’d swallowed a grapefruit.  “I personally felt like the showrunners left it wide open.  They didn’t confirm any ship.”

“Sure, Jan.”  The author smiled.

“One more question,” said Kitty.  “Why are you here? Why write yourself into this story?”

“I suppose it just seemed the most logical conclusion.  Self-insert fic. Even more reviled than the so-called Mary Sue, a character who represents an idealized version of the author but which doesn’t go so far as to use the author’s own form and name.  Why do we pathologize Mary Sues and self-insert so? Because they’re usually written by girls expressing their desires without shame. I admit I used to look down on it myself. The very first piece of fanfic I ever read was a Lord of the Rings Mary Sue fic, and it had all the tropes people scorn: the character was an elf with silver-gold hair and lavender eyes who was in a relationship with Legolas, and everyone in the Fellowship was in awe about how amazing she was.  That story probably kept me away from fanfic for years, because I assumed that was what all fanfic was like, and I thought I was better than the kinds of people who wrote those kinds of stories.

“Now, I think: so that fic was probably written by a teenage girl. Big fucking deal.  More power to her. Lord of the Rings isn’t exactly a canon that’s welcoming to teenage girls, and she found a way to make it her own.

“So, to answer your question, I guess I’m here to join the orgy.”

A murmur went through the room as all of the characters shifted in their seats and whispered to one another.

Kitty blinked.  “Wow.”

“Trust me, this is every bit as awkward for me as it is for you.”

JustTransport!Sherlock arched an eyebrow.  “So does that mean you are planning on getting topped by one of the Sherlocks?”

Anarfea’s eyes glittered.  “Actually, I want Mycroft.”