Archive of Our Own

The very first time they are at a crime scene together after they've had sex, Lestrade puts his hand on the small of Sherlock's back when he approaches the body. The gesture is probably meant to be soothing, except that Sherlock has seen plenty of bodies before, and this one isn't even particularly gory, so mostly it feels insulting.

“Don't do that,” he hisses, and the hand goes away.

It's something he ends up saying multiple times -- don't tell me when to stop talking, don't try to guide me like a pet, don't manhandle me. And each time, for some reason, Lestrade doesn't, stopping instantly and with a small amount of surprise, as if he hadn't realized he'd been doing it in the first place.

Lestrade doesn't ask where Sherlock's bracelets are, and doesn't make any mention of collars to him (not even just in the context of sex, though Sherlock has caught Lestrade looking at his throat speculatively, a few times). He notices, but doesn't comment when Sherlock cuts his hair, not even when Sherlock texts him later that day and Sherlock ends up on his knees with Lestrade's cock in his mouth and Lestrade's hand in his hair, nails scratching his scalp.

Lestrade doesn't try to punish Sherlock for violating police procedure, or speaking out of turn, or not participating properly in some stupidly public social custom he doesn't care for. He doesn't punish Sherlock at all, not for using his safeword or slipping his restraints or even when he gets bored and ignores commands just to see what Lestrade will do next (the answer: sometimes he ignores it, sometimes he threatens to walk away, sometimes he repeats himself).

That's why, when Lestrade texts Sherlock a photo of his sitting room followed by the text, 10 PM?, after Sherlock has already decided to stop this thing between them, Sherlock changes his mind and replies, Yes.

--

It's different with Lestrade, because Lestrade puts the cases first too, and he doesn't -- he doesn't want Sherlock, not the way Sherlock knows John wants him. Lestrade wants to fuck him, and hurt him, and use him. He wants Sherlock to kneel and plead and whimper.

But he doesn't want to keep him, and Sherlock doesn't want to be kept, and that's what makes it easy.

They're just colleagues. At most, they might be friends.

Sherlock's never asked what Lestrade wants (he hates talking about these sorts of things), but Lestrade says once, when the thing between them is still young and half-formed, while he is tying Sherlock face-down to the bed, “I'm never going to ask you to be my sub, if you were wondering about that.”

(If you were worrying about that, Sherlock hears, but pretends he didn't.)

Lestrade runs a hand down Sherlock's back, lingering just barely on the scar over his latissimus dorsi -- Sebastian couldn't hold a whip properly if his life depended on it, so it'd only been a matter of time before he'd left a permanent mark. Sherlock shivers and scans back through all his previous conversations with Lestrade, but they're all -- they're all blurred, sense memory and impressions and pleasure instead of sharp details like words.

He doesn't know how much Lestrade has read in him, in the scars on his body and the way he begs and the way he acts when the thoughts have been pushed down and everything is blissfully quiet. If their places had been reversed, Sherlock would know everything, but Lestrade is less observant than he, and Sherlock guards his secrets fiercely.

So Sherlock thinks, Thank you, and he thinks, Then I won't have to say no to you, and he thinks, Then we can do this indefinitely, but he says, with an insolent sneer, “A child could escape these knots.”

Then, he tugs on the loose ends of the knots just so. They fall apart in his hands, and Sherlock realizes he has shown something of himself that he'd meant to keep hidden when, instead of being angry or embarrassed, Lestrade goes silent and still behind him. His hand squeezes Sherlock's newly-bound ankle tightly, but he doesn't seem aware of it.

“They're meant to do that,” Lestrade says quietly. “You hold the loose end in your fist, and if you ever feel the need, you can pull it to get free.”

Sherlock doesn't know how to feel about that -- he doesn't want to think right now, doesn't want to follow the line of Lestrade's thoughts or wonder what significance there is in the fact that he's never been tied like that before. The knowledge is at the edges of his thoughts, but he pushes it away, refuses to let it distract him.

“Get on with it then,” he says curtly instead, and puts his wrists back in position.

Lestrade smacks him, hard, on the arse -- paddle, held correctly, force distributed evenly over its surface area. “I didn't give you permission to speak,” he snaps, and the tone of his voice coupled with the blossom of pain across his backside sends a rush of warmth curling down Sherlock's spine, snapping his body to attention.

He doesn't end up speaking for the rest of the night.

--

Most people, when they meet Sherlock, don't realize he's technically a sub, until they view his legal documents (though he has a fairly passable forgery that identifies him as a dom, for certain cases). His hair is either long for a dom, or short for a sub, and he doesn't wear any of the ornamental bracelets most subs wear, to show that they're unattached. Nor does he have a collar, to show that he's taken (this is because he's not).

And. And he wouldn't care, except that John Watson is sharing a flat with him because he thinks Sherlock's a fellow dom, and John Watson entertains a steady stream of subs -- stupid, empty-headed little things that crawl to his room, or wait naked for him in the sitting room, stars in their eyes.

(He can understand the latter, at least, because when they come down in the mornings to cook breakfast for John and he, they move with a languid disassociation that means they're on autopilot, peacefully cared for in a way that he'll never be.)

John gives out orders without even realizing it -- “Sherlock, eat something,” or “Sherlock, go to bed,” or “Sherlock, take the eyeballs out of the microwave”. And each one hooks into some part of him he can't control, has him standing or sitting or reaching for a fork before he even realizes it.

And he hates it, hates the rush he gets when he does something right for once and John smiles at him (something so small and thoughtless as a smile doesn't deserve to control his emotions), hates the way he's taller and it feels wrong every time he has to look down to meets John's eyes.

But mostly, he wants, wants and wants and John doesn't even know.

--

Sherlock tried the “being a sub” thing when he was sixteen, sixteen and at Cambridge early -- too young to do anything, or go anywhere, but he'd managed to sneak out anyways.

And Seb had been... Interesting. An experiment. He'd taken and taken and Sherlock had never once said no (he'd prided himself on that, at the time), not even when he knew he'd end up shaky and sick the next day, not even when he missed midterms and finals. Not even when he'd thought, I don't think I want to do this, I don't think I enjoy it.

At one point, he'd thought they were in love.

And then Sebastian had gotten bored of him, chosen a prettier, sweeter sub who'd crawled at his feet and knelt at his side during meals, and did what she was told, and never, ever told him he was being a tosser or that he held a paddle the wrong way (Sherlock bets he still uses it wrong too, hits hard when he should be going for teasing, and gentle when he ought to be punishing).

He doesn't care -- he'd rather be alone than an object, and he'd rather belong to no one than an imbecile. He doesn't need anyone.

--

Sometimes, Sherlock has a particularly bad day -- no interesting cases come to light, too many solicitations from subs offering themselves to him (tried that too; it was even more boring than the other way round), nothing to drive out the noise of the rest of the world pounding against his thoughts, until everything is a jumbled mess and he's useless, worthless, because if there was a case, he'd be unable to focus long enough to solve it, and if he can't solve cases, he can't do anything.

On those days, he likes to curl up in a ball on the sofa, as small as he can make himself. He closes his eyes and forces his breathing to slow, and pretends he's been told to stay still, to calm down, to rest. He imagines a hand in his hair, and the weight of a collar on his neck, and the words, low and masculine, It's okay, Sherlock. Just focus.

It's easier to fight it if he pretends he's been given an order.

But today, there is a hand -- a real hand, carding through his hair, and it grounds him instantly. “Sherlock. Are you okay?”

Every muscle in Sherlock's body tenses, because that is John's voice, and the alternative to going still is to turn to him like a plant to the sun and that's -- he can't do that. “I'm fine,” he says, and his voice is strained. “I'm not feeling well.”

“Well, turn around. Let me get a look at you.” John's tugging lightly at his shoulder -- more of a nudge, really, a polite suggestion from one dom to another. He's seen John with subs as patients before, heard the steel in his voice when he'd needed to give orders to calm an anxious patient. This is nothing like that.

Sherlock half-turns, then sits up fully. He meets John's eyes (to prove to himself that he can). “No, it's alright,” he says, and stands up.

John's lips are pursed unhappily -- he wants to check on Sherlock, make sure he's okay. And if he knew Sherlock was a sub, knew that one vulnerability he could exploit, Sherlock's sure he'd do it, order him down and still until he was done.

Some small part of him wants that. The rest of him rebels at the idea.

“I'm fine,” he insists, and walks, straight-backed, to his bedroom. And then he closes the door and drops to his knees and, pressing his forehead against the wood, pretends he'd asked John to help him instead.

--

Sherlock's not a dom. He knows he's not, knows it in the way he knows he's a sub. He knows it in the way that when he calls his command voice, he feels only a superficial smugness at being obeyed. He knows it in the way that he feels a dom's commands, the way the words slide over his spine and push, and the way part of him (sometimes a large part, sometimes a small one, but never gone) wants to yield.

He doesn't hide the fact that he's a sub, not deliberately. There's an S on his driving license and an S on the paperwork he'd had to fill out to consult with the police, and a pair of soft leather bracelets in his room (somewhere, possibly in a drawer -- he hasn't seen it since moving in) that lie flush against his skin when he puts them on.

But he rarely puts them on, because he doesn't pull, and doesn't want to be pulled, because doms always get confused about him. They think that having sex with him is some sort of pass to take control of (and subsequently mess up) his life, as if Sherlock would ever want to trust his well-being to some imbecile who can't even tell -- well, anything, really. That Sherlock doesn't want them to do it, possibly.

And, he thinks, that is where the problem is.

If he wants to change the S to the D, it's just be a matter of paperwork -- Mycroft holds enough influence that he'd be able to get all Sherlock's forms retroactively switched, so that he'll have always have been a dom.

That's not what he wants; that's not him. He sees no appeal (aside from spite, which he's told is just vengefulness, and not the same) in making someone kneel at his feet, feels no interest when a sub steps closer to him and looks up at his mouth. He'd enjoyed it, when Sebastian had collared him and used him and had him sleeping at the foot of his bed, like an animal.

He'd actually enjoyed it a lot, if he was being honest about it; the problems had come when Seb had tried to correct Sherlock in public, had told him to not speak until spoken to, and then proceeded to speak for him, as if he'd even a fraction of Sherlock's intellect. As if he'd known Sherlock's thoughts at all.

When they finally broke up (when Seb had broken up with him, because he'd found someone else, someone better, someone sweeter), it may have been unnecessary for him to strip off his collar and throw it at Sebastian's face. But then, the buckle had left a bruise on Sebastian's cheek for weeks, and Sherlock had felt the hot burn of satisfaction every time he'd seen it.

Most of the time, he doesn't really think about it. It's just not important, not in the way the work is important, and if he's not attracted to them anyways, it hardly matters whether someone thinks he's dom, sub, or even switch. He lets them think whatever's most convenient for him.

But.

But he's attracted to John. He wants John, wants John to look at him in that quiet, competently assessing way he looks at subs that catch his eye. He wants John to hold him down and hurt him and afterwards, stroke his hair and tell Sherlock he's got him.

Sherlock's not sure what kind of sub John's looking for -- his partners for one-night stands have no particular pattern, and they haven't lived together long enough for Sherlock to gather a proper amount of data for John's more serious relationships.

John's subs stay over in the mornings, sometimes -- will cook breakfast, and kneel at his feet, proud to have been chosen by him. And John will pet their hair distractedly, while Sherlock steals his attention from them with a few well-placed comments about something that's actually interesting.

Because John likes him more.

--

He knows John will figure it out eventually -- if he doesn't, Sherlock will blurt it out himself to get it over with, when he has an opportune moment. He doesn't mind John knowing. Lestrade knows, Mycroft knows, Mrs. Hudson really ought to know but he suspects she thinks he's a switch, and none of them are as important to him as John is.

He wants John to know.

But once John knows, Sherlock's not sure what he wants to happen next.

--

John finds out the mundane way -- he borrows Sherlock's wallet to pay for takeaway, and and comes back with a strange expression on his face -- surprise, confusion, and a small amount of suspicion. He's not limping, and he's not angry, so Sherlock ignores it in favor of taking his pot stickers (he had let John order for him; John usually knows what he prefers, though, so it's alright).

“So, you didn't tell me you're a sub,” John says, and looks at Sherlock's wrists. No tan marks, nor on his throat, Sherlock knows -- he hasn't marked himself as available in a long time.

“No, I suppose I didn't.” He hadn't meant it to be a secret. He'd let John assume he was a dom initially, because John was likely to feel more comfortable agreeing to share a flat with a fellow dom, but that had been ages ago. And then it had seemed a strange thing to bring up, something that oughtn't matter (except that it did, of course it did, but he liked to pretend that there was no difference between him being a dom and him being a sub).

“Is it true?”

Lestrade had asked that too; Sherlock hates that question.

“Why would I lie about that? Society favors dominants, so if I were to lie about my role, I'd best gain by claiming to be a dom. Well, I'd lie about it for a case, obviously, but if I were doing that, I'd use a fake name as well.” John is still looking at him expectantly. “Oh, and yes. I am.”

He eats, and John stares at his wrists. “You're still staring at me,” Sherlock points out (but he tilts his right wrist subtly, giving John a better view).

John looks away, embarrassed at being caught. His thoughts are written plainly on his face -- he's thinking about Sherlock.

“Yes,” Sherlock answers. He's bored of the rest of his pot stickers, so he uses his chopsticks to eat from John's box, which has noodles. He shouldn't, probably, but he wants to and he's never been one to follow social conventions.

“What?” There is a slow, dull flush crawling up John's neck, which is fascinating because his cheeks aren't red -- Sherlock wants to trace it with his tongue, wants to do something -- something provocative, something teasing, and see how far it can go.

“You were working yourself up to ask if I'd ever subbed for someone before. Yes. I have. Yes, I enjoyed it.”

John can't seem to stop looking at Sherlock's wrists -- erogenous zones, vulnerable zones, and it's flattering -- more than just flattering. He likes the sudden power John's given him, the way John's suddenly attracted, thinking about it, like a moth to a flame. If Sherlock lowers his eyes in just the right way, he can draw him in, and have him.

“But you're single now,” John says.

“Obviously.”

A hesitation -- unsure, tentative expression, because John's about to ask a personal question he isn't sure Sherlock will answer. “When was the last time you --”

“Last time I had sex? About six months ago.”

Six months ago had been before he'd met John -- a kidnapping had turned into a murder-suicide. Sherlock hadn't been involved in the investigation, but Lestrade had, and after the news had broke, Lestrade had sent him an offer through text.

Sherlock had accepted, even though he hadn't needed to, because he'd known Lestrade wouldn't take it the wrong way -- wouldn't assume anything Sherlock did was a promise to him, wouldn't expect Sherlock to defer to him when they met each other at a crime scene. Contrary to what others may think, Sherlock does like Lestrade -- he's the least incompetent of the DIs at Scotland Yard, and trustworthy.

He'd enjoyed it.

“So, when I -- when I kissed you, and you turned me down,” John says. “That was because you're a sub.”

“Among other things,” Sherlock replies, because John had come home drunk that night and pressed himself close to Sherlock, and said in a voice that sounded like promises, “I'd sub for you, if you wanted”. And Sherlock had refused, because he'd been afraid that if he hadn't, he'd have responded, “I want you to own me,” and John would have said, “Yes,” and then -- and then what?

“And if I'd asked to top you instead?”

Sherlock knows how it would play out if he said yes.

They would have sex, and it would be great. And afterwards, not immediately, but eventually, John would do something -- he'd tell Sherlock to wear a wrist bracelet, or grow out his hair. And Sherlock would do it, just to see John's expression -- he'd be proud, Sherlock thinks. Proud and happy and maybe even a little bit surprised, as if he hadn't thought Sherlock would agree.

And then John would become used to it, and get sick of how Sherlock is -- he'd upset too many people, or his deductions would be too intrusive, or he'd want a real sub. So Sherlock would kneel for him, and walk behind him, and let John collar him, and it still wouldn't be enough, because John would want to come before the cases, and nothing comes before the cases.

Or -- or John would come before the cases, and when he leaves (as they always do, because Sherlock's never enough -- nothing he does is enough), it will be worse than losing the cases.

Sherlock can't lose the cases; he never wants to find out what will happen if he falls in love with and then loses John.

So he says, “I'd still say no,” and pretends not to care about the flicker of disappointment in John's eyes.