Work Text:
...foetid, festering, cloying...
Sherlock turns the words on his lips, savouring syllables and flooding his mind with texture and imagery to match. With his free hand he flips through the Journal of Infectious Diseases from an article on parasites to one on a new form of antibiotics, resplendent with true-colour illustrations of infected glands and wounds, in 'before' and 'after' poses.
His climax is immediate, and he's quick to lap up the semen that splatters onto the page, wiping it deftly with his sleeve to prevent the journal from spoiling further.
John walks in during this kerfuffle, and one doesn't need to be Sherlock himself to deduce what he's been doing, sat on the settee, as he is, trousers around his thighs, legs spread, stimulus firmly in hand.
"Christ, Sherlock, couldn't you go into your room for that kind of thing?"
"Could you bring me some tea?"
Sherlock shifts his slender form back into his trousers, but doesn't bother to zip them up.
"You look as if a cigarette might be more in order."
"I've told you, I'm not smoking this month."
"Of all the things to deny yourself..."
"I'm sorry, I can't imagine where that sentence was going."
"Go on, show me. What is it that prompts you to behave like a man, rather than a laboratory?"
Sherlock looks blankly for a moment, and then holds up the journal. "This? I subscribe. I'm surprised you don't. Excellent reading. Very evocative."
"Evocative."
"You can almost taste it."
John shudders, and Sherlock looks sideways at him. "You appear to be expressing disgust. An educated man like you must surely-"
"Most men enjoy...the..."
"...naked female form? As I've told you before, it really isn't my area of interest."
"Or at least the naked male form..."
Sherlock shrugs. "One human body is much like another. Subtle variants in size, hair colour and coverage, muscularity and skin tone are rarely depicted with the level of detail I require to sustain arousal."
"Whereas disease..."
"Disease is hot, wet and sticky too, John. Vibrant and terrifying and clever, so very clever."
Sherlock's never been ill a day in his life, no more than shakes and sweats and a dire need for one clear glass bottle or another, but he's met with every symptom and consequence under the sun, one way and another, alive, dead, halfway between the two. Disease has a language, a tune, a plan all of its own. It's a beautiful thing.
"Still..."
"After all, sex is simply one's desire to get inside someone else's orifices, isn't it? To feel the warmth and tack of bodily fluids against one's own skin..."
"I've never heard anyone make it sound so un-erotic..." John has backed himself up against the wall, and his shifting to the side causes him to hit his head on an antler. "Ow...fuck."
"Even my walls sympathise..." Sherlock says to himself, and something in him finds that amusing.
John shakes his head, whilst rubbing it, and sinks into the armchair. He has a feeling he ought to have left around five seconds after his arrival, but he hasn't, so it's too late now.
"Could you at least do your trousers up?"
"I could. Whether I shall or not, remains to be seen. Don't roll your eyes. Ask a silly question, as they say."
"They don't have to live with men who are sexually aroused by pus."
Sherlock licks his lips.
John's stomach turns.
"I thought I was joking."
Sherlock's lips bow into a consciously gleeful smile.
"I know you know what I mean, John. We all have it in us. The human body is the greatest mystery of all - as a doctor, you should know that as well as any. And what could be more arousing than mystery? Intrigue? Attack and consumption? The great fight within us for continued function. Doesn't that make your heart beat faster, just to think of it? There's your body responding even within the concept itself, preparing you for the excitement of the contemplation of illness alone."
"No...no."
"But the flush in your cheeks and the contractions of your throat tell me otherwise."
"No."
"Humour me."
"It's all my days appear to consist of, so, continue..."
Sherlock nods, and sits forwards, palms open in a curious pose as if he were about to hand John something.
"Think of the wars. Think of the greatest surgery you performed on a battlefield."
John's eyes sink to middle-distance, but his expression remains the same. "I don't..."
"Tell me what happened."
Watson describes a tracheotomy carried out on an officer under fire in such vivid detail that Sherlock finds himself on the verge of further arousal, but he restrains himself from acting upon it, if only to avoid the inevitable and tiresome disruption of his conversation.
"But I didn't want to fuck him whilst I did it," John finishes up with.
"That wasn't my point."
"I'm struggling to imagine your point, let alone see it."
"Now tell me about your day to day work, the maintenance, the bandaging, the cleaning."
John frowns. "I don't..."
Sherlock says Yes you do without saying anything at all.
"The sand was the worst of it. Gets everywhere."
"So I've heard..." Sherlock says, dryly. "And the rest?"
"The...look, stop. Just stop."
"You promised to humour me."
"I don't recall promising you anything."
"The promise was implicit."
"I'll implicit you..."
"Now now, don't be dull. Come on. Think of it. Think of the infections. The illness." Sherlock's eyes sparkle as if he were a child urging a friend to imagine the fairground.
"There's nothing sexual about malaria. About maggots eating their way through..."
"Ah, maggots!"
"Nothing..."
"This is nature, we're talking about, John. What's the most natural way to deal with a wound? That's right, yes, it is what you're thinking - to lick it, or to have a creature with the perfect interest in your ailment to lick it for you."
"I can't believe..."
"But you can, I can see it. Nature is the greatest game of all, and there are no accidents in its design...to lick, correct me if I'm wrong, is an essential part of the average sexual performance?"
"So is dinner and a good bottle of wine but I wouldn't take a box of maggots out to share those with me."
"I feel that an explanation of the difference between courtship and intercourse is the kind of lecture you ought not to require."
"Also not one I'm sure you're qualified to give?"
"Perhaps not. So let me make my point-"
"Do try."
"I find a seeping, festering wound, crawling with bacteria all fighting to dig their way into the exposed, bloody flesh to be a thousand times more enticing and evocative of the wonders and delights of the human body than an oral exploration of the genitalia of a mildly obliging partner. I also operate at a very highly stimulated pace and need regular relief from the demands of all my organs, thus in this instance I am bound to seek out the fastest and least complex route to orgasm."
"You can look at a gorilla for your orgasms for all I care, but don't try to make me agree with your motives."
"It's important to me that you know that I am right."
"Sexual preference isn't constructed of rights and wrongs, Sherlock..."
"No, but it is made of rhyme and reason - perhaps not rhyme, but then again - and reason is my backbone, thus if you profess shock and horror at my enjoyment of something that is inherently arousing then this is the result."
"Get off on anything you like, just don't do it in the living room."
"I always wash the stains out."
"I'm genuinely surprised."
"I like the freedom to ejaculate wherever I wish."
"Please stop talking."
"But I've so much more to say."
"I've so little desire to hear it."
"And yet you'll listen all the same. And you will agree with me in the end. Even if we must find a practical demonstration. For now, come, sit beside me, I'd like to show you some delicious sketches of lacerations...but wait, perhaps you'll fetch that cup of tea, first..."