Chapter Text
It really shouldn't have been a big deal, or that was what John thought initially when Sherlock texted him to request his assistance with a new case and to come back to the flat as soon as possible, but he later admitted to himself that, considering this was Sherlock Holmes, he shouldn’t have expected anything less.
His shift at the clinic ended early, as it happened, so when he reached 221B and jogged up the stairs, the last thing he expected to see was his flatmate in his best outfit. It was the usual Spencer-Hart, but Sherlock had a tight-fitting black shirt instead of the white John was accustomed to seeing, again with the topmost buttons undone, with the whole outfit emphasizing the paleness of Sherlock's skin and the flawlessness of it. Not that this was unusual. Sherlock had a habit of making even the grubbiest outfit look fantastic, such was man's character with his self-confidence and well-deserved ego, but that wasn't the detail that made John pause in the entrance to the living room with a complete loss of what to say.
The man was sitting in his chair, one leg crossed over the other, with his riding crop draped over his knees.
“Ah, John,” Sherlock said, looking completely unfazed at John’s somewhat surprised expression. John found he couldn’t tear his eyes away from where Sherlock’s fingers were on the crop, one hand holding the base while the other slowly slid the tips of Sherlock’s fingers up the length of it before sliding them back down in what John was sure was just a check for damage or wear. Yes, that must be it. “The clinic let you go early. Good.”
“Err… Case?” John asked, swallowing around a dry throat that had seemingly come out of nowhere.
Sherlock pushed himself to his feet with all the fluid grace that only a Holmes could possess, holding his riding crop down by his side as he pulled out his mobile. “Lestrade texted me. The body of a twenty-two year old Caucasian male was found down by the docks at half past two today. I’ve just returned from examining the body at the scene.”
“What, in that outfit?” John didn’t know exactly how much the suit cost, but he was certain it was more than his monthly salary. People didn’t go down to the docks in something like that.
“Why not?” Sherlock said, barely glancing up from his mobile. “It’s December, John, I wasn’t about to go swimming in the Thames. It’s almost frozen over anyway.”
“Right…So why do you have your riding crop with you?”
Sherlock finally looked up at John from where he’d been frantically pushing keys, his mouth quirking into a sort of half smirk. “Funnily enough, Lestrade wasn’t joking when he said I would find this one interesting.” He looked back down at his mobile and pressed some more keys before turning it around to show John what he’d pulled up, and John found himself blinking at some images several times before he realised they were close up shots of a very naked man’s abused backside. “These are some pictures I took of the body whilst I was there,” Sherlock went on to explain. “Underneath the strikes of the flogger there are fading bruise marks; you can see them there along the small of the back, the buttocks and thighs.” He took the mobile back from John and locked the screen before putting it back inside the pocket of his suit jacket.
John still didn’t understand what this had to do with Sherlock’s riding crop and it must have been all over his face when Sherlock rolled his eyes at him. “The bruises were made two days ago, but the flogging marks were made just before his death by a man who didn’t know what he was doing with the flogger, or, more likely, didn’t care how he was striking the victim. Yet the bruises have been placed on the body with deliberate care; it’s possible the man was a submissive because there is clear evidence of aftercare on the bruises and he wouldn’t have been able to look after them himself without some sort of assistance.
“Lestrade has already texted me the details of the man they’re interviewing; a Dom called Jeffrey Burkenright. He reported a missing person to the police shortly after the bruises were inflicted, probably because they had played a scene before parting company, and it was afterwards that the man was kidnapped. It’s obvious the Dom didn’t kill the victim though; the flogger strikes are all wrong compared to the bruising.”
John felt his mouth drop open at the end of Sherlock’s deductions, his brain faltering over Sherlock’s use of the words ‘Dom’, ‘submissive’, and ‘flogger’. “Ok… So why do you have your crop again?”
Sherlock looked at John as if seeing him for the first time, his confusion darting across his face. “Oh, didn’t I mention it? We’re going to the BDSM club where the man was last seen by his Dom before he disappeared. But it’s not just any BDSM club, John. It’s a gentleman’s club!” The last was said with a gleam in Sherlock’s eye and that half-smirk again, showing just how amusing the detective was finding the whole ruddy fiasco.
“Of course we are,” John replied whilst making no such move to do so, instead wandering towards the kitchen to soothe his quickly developing urge for a cup of strong tea.
As he was pulling a cup of the cupboard and went to find the sugar, he couldn’t stop himself from startling again when he realised Sherlock was directly behind him. “Jeez! Sherlock!” John gasped, turning around to face the other man. “Honestly, one of these days I’m going to buy you a bloody collar with a bell on it!”
Sherlock cocked his head to one side, intrigued. “Why would you want to do that?”
“So I can hear it when you’re coming!” John said before turning back to finish his tea. He flicked the switch on the kettle and went to retrieve the milk while he waited for it to boil; and felt his irritation rise when he heard the switch being put back into the ‘off’ position and the faint ‘chink’ of the cup being put away. “Sherlock, what are you doing?”
Sherlock didn’t answer immediately, instead taking John’s arm by the crook of his elbow and guiding him to the stairs which would take them up to John’s room. “No time for tea,” Sherlock was saying before gently ushering John up the stairs. “Your outfit for the club has been laid out on your bed.”
“Oh, so you’re dressing me now?” John said, a hint of sarcasm dripping from his voice, but Sherlock didn’t even flinch.
“This particular club is the most prestigious of such establishments within a ten miles radius,” Sherlock drawled. “We can’t go there looking any less than our best and I’m afraid your jumpers and jeans just aren’t going to cut it. It shouldn’t be an issue, however, as the suit should be to your liking.”
“Why?” John asked, hesitating with his left hand on the banister. “What have you done to it?” The experiment with the itching powder wasn’t something John was going to forget in a hurry.
“Only taken into account your preference in fabric, colour and measurements,” Sherlock said, giving him another look of impatience. “Come on, quickly! We have to leave soon.”
John didn’t have an anything to say to that and obediently trudged up the stairs to get dressed, although he couldn’t resist sticking his middle finger up behind him because he just knew that Sherlock was watching.
The sound of Sherlock’s laugh rang in John’s ears for a long time after he’d shut his bedroom door.
oOo
Twenty minutes later, John found himself sat in the passenger seat of a rented Aston Martin, the DB9, in a gleaming charcoal colour that had looked simply stunning when the hire car employee dropped the car off outside their flat. His face had broken out into a wide smile, having never considered the fact that looking their best also meant having the best on offer as well.
And Sherlock hadn’t been kidding when he said that they needed to look fantastic. The detective had bought him a suit that John had never seen before, coloured a lovely dove-grey with a pale blue shirt and light grey shoes which were a shade darker then the colour of the material. Checking the labels, John recognised all the brands from Sherlock’s own clothes; Spencer Hart, Yves Saint Laurent and Dolce & Gabbana all making an appearance, so when he finally put the clothes on, it was blatantly obvious that there had been no spared expense. The fabric clung to his frame in all the right places, making him look subtly taller and also more streamlined, something he had trouble with due to his stocky build and, as Sherlock had said, the suit had been especially tailor-made to John’s specifications (even down to the shoe size). It had left John wondering when Sherlock had gotten his measurements before he realised that Sherlock had barged in on him more than once in the bathroom when he’d been completely naked. After the Irene Adler case, he was no longer surprised at how Sherlock managed it.
Sherlock must have noticed that it was no trouble at all for John to leave the flat when the car arrived, undeniably excited about getting the chance to drive an Aston and feeling like he’d woken up on Christmas morning. And more than a little put out when he realised he wouldn’t be driving it.
“It’s not proper,” Sherlock said, but that didn’t really explain anything.
“What do you mean ‘proper’?” John asked, trying very hard not to act like the two year old he was pretty sure he’d been when he found out he wasn’t driving the car.
Sherlock glanced at him from the road for a split second, the look no less powerful for only having half of Sherlock’s focus on him. “It isn’t proper behaviour for a Dom to be driven around by their sub. Upsets the power dynamics too much, or so they would have us believe. Imbeciles.”
John felt his mouth drop open with Sherlock’s words, feeling a chill up his spine although the car’s air-con had been adjusted to a steady twenty-two degrees centigrade to combat the cold December air. “Excuse me?”
Sherlock stopped the car at a red light, pressing the handbrake release and putting the car into neutral before looking at John directly. “We need to have assigned roles to be able to infiltrate the club,” he said slowly, as though he were speaking to a child. “They’re not going to let us in the door if we don’t have the roles planned beforehand. I need to be the dominant partner in the relationship because I need to question the people there and I wouldn’t be able to do that as a submissive. It would draw too much attention.”
“And you didn’t think to tell me this before you decided to take us to a BDSM club?” John asked, the tension evident in the way his voice had lowered. “Tell me, Sherlock, does this mean that I’m going to be spread-eagled over a barrel before the night is out, or is that just the warm-up?”
Sherlock scoffed, resuming his driving again when the lights turned green. “Don’t be ridiculous,” he said, turning down another road and pulling into a car park that looked like it was for private use. “As your Dom, I will have a responsibility to ensure that you are kept safe and happy throughout the course of the evening. It does work both ways, of course. You will need to respond to any order I give you without question, but I won’t ask you to do anything that will break our cover.”
“So not that much left out then,” John grumbled, staring out the side window of the car in favour over glaring daggers into the side of the detective’s head. “And I suppose it hasn’t escaped your attention that I am one hundred percent straight, meaning that I have absolutely no interest whatsoever in pretending to be your sexual partner? Submissive or not?”
Sherlock reversed the car into a space that faced the entrance of the club and stopped the engine, unclipping his seat belt and reaching across to cup John’s face in one hand, urging John to meet his eyes. John barely stopped himself from pulling out of the hold in surprise, just spotting a group of people in his peripheral vision that looked like they were headed to the same place they were. From the sweep of their shoulders and the tilts in their heads, the group clearly had no qualms about looking into the car to see what they were up to and John realised Sherlock was already getting them into character. “Fancy giving me a little warning next time?” John said as he reached up with his left hand to cup Sherlock’s where it was pressed against his face.
“Now where’s the fun in that?” Sherlock said, boldly pulling John closer to him so their faces were almost touching.
John felt his whole body tense, unused to the proximity with the other man and very uncomfortable because of it. He wasn’t sure he’d be able to keep up the pretence of being Sherlock’s lover if Sherlock tried to kiss him and John had his principles. A straight man didn’t go around kissing his very male flatmate, even if it was for a case.
“John, I need you to trust me,” Sherlock said, his thumb making a board sweep of John’s lower lip and finally pulling his hand away from John’s face when the group moved into the building itself.
Otherwise this won’t work was the unspoken part of that sentence, but the words flowed through John’s mind as loudly as though Sherlock had spoken them. He licked his lips and tried not to think about where Sherlock’s thumb had been just now. “So what do you need me to do? How are we going to stop them kidnapping the submissives?”
Sherlock didn’t let him down, launching into all the details he deemed necessary before they prepared to enter the club.
oOo
Sherlock was a man of his word, John was relieved to see, so by the time they made their way inside, John only had to endure a few leering looks from the Doms who were undoubtedly single, with the eyes being more appreciative from the Doms who were already in relationships and had their subs kneeling down beside them.
When they walked through the front entrance to the building, John could safely say that it wasn’t anything like what he’d been expecting for an establishment that catered to the elite of the BDSM class. Rather than people being kept behind bars having pain inflicted upon them, or finding individuals swinging from the ceiling in harnesses, he found that the atmosphere was more civilised than he’d initially given them credit for. Sherlock hadn’t overdressed them in the slightest, considering almost every person John saw had some sort of suit on or was dressed in a smart-casual way, and the people themselves were smiling, conversing in small groups and around what Sherlock described as ‘art’. Submissive men and women who were bound, gagged or both, all in various ways in several states of undress, all straining to be admired by their Masters and the Dominants that also viewed them.
Although the colour was just what John expected; almost everything he could see was a shade of red or completely black. He guessed some things were more traditional than others and colour was no exception, with the owners of the club going as far as polishing the wood of the bar to a shade more reminiscent of the black cherry so it matched the rest of the décor, rather than the pale oak that the wood would have been originally (or so he was reliably informed by Sherlock).
Sherlock’s choice of colour for their own clothes also appeared to hold special significance for these people. Most of the subs that weren’t on display were dressed in much the same way as their Masters, but it looked like the colours were generally lighter with a few exceptions. Pastel shades in comparison to the black decorating their owners. John wondered if it was a reflection of the Master’s taste in partner’s or in the colours themselves and decided he really didn’t want to know the answer to that.
As they proceeded to a corner of the very large room, John had to keep reminding himself to keep his eyes averted from any people that they passed, playing the role of the passive, obedient sub the way Sherlock had told him to, and having to rely on Sherlock’s sense of direction with only one of Sherlock’s hands on the small of his back to guide him. The club itself wasn’t busy; it was still early, just gone six in the evening, but that didn’t mean it was deserted, and already the noises of the room began to filter their way through the fog in John’s head. The sounds were coming from the centre of the room specifically, the place where a small stage had been set up, and, before John had averted his eyes, he’d seen a young woman being tied up by a much older man to a large wooden X, a man who seemed to have the single-minded intent in showing off his prize.
Though his methods of showing her off certainly weren’t ways that John would have considered treating any partners that he’d had previously.
The rhythmic sounds of bare flesh being paddled seemed much louder now, with every other snap of the leather-covered item being accompanied by the cry of the woman enduring it. No, ‘enduring’ was the wrong word, John decided when he’d been given permission by Sherlock to look at the stage. ‘Enjoying’ was far more apt a word to describe the look the woman had on her face, although it was streaked with black tears from where her mascara had run and the cheeks of her arse were a bright red, making John wince with every strike even though the woman was begging her Dom for more by the end of it.
In short, the whole experience had left John feeling rather out of his depth, but when he risked a glance at Sherlock, the other man looked as composed as ever, completely unflustered by the activity going on around them.
“It’s always nice to see new faces,” John heard another man say, and saw it when the person’s shoes came into his line of sight. “Is this your man?” The question had been directed at Sherlock.
John felt Sherlock’s hand sweep across his back to his opposite shoulder, placing his fingers where the other man would be able to see them. “Can there be any doubt?” Sherlock said, leaning close so that when he spoke John could feel the breath coming from Sherlock’s mouth against the nape of his neck. He struggled not to shiver with the sensation of it, but had the niggling thought that that was the exact reaction Sherlock was going for.
It’s just an act, it’s just an act. John repeated the lines over and over in his head while he gave himself permission to respond to Sherlock’s voice, his frame trembling slightly under Sherlock’s fingers, and felt more than saw Sherlock smile in response.
“Hmmm, yes,” the other Dom said with his appreciation evident from his tone. “He knows the sound of his Master’s voice.”
“Yes. He does.” Sherlock sounded totally assured of that fact, despite it being a blatant lie, but the confidence Sherlock was displaying was enough to convince the other Dom of their relationship together.
“Is this your first time to a social event?” the man asked Sherlock, his own sub coming by to kneel at his Master’s feet and giving John a small smile when they made brief eye contact before he dutifully lowered his eyes to the floor. John kept half an ear open so he would hear when Sherlock gave him a command, but while he was being ignored he decided to pay closer attention to the only other submissive he’d seen up close since they arrived.
The submissive was a young man with the kind of look that you would see on a surfer in the States; the expensive cut on his blond hair and faint tan on his body made him look more mature than he actually was, for he couldn’t have been older than twenty-five, but his demeanour was so meek and pleasant to watch that John found himself wondering how he could have found such a state of mind while being dominated by another man. Obviously, it could just be that he was gay and enjoyed the attention that his Dom showered him with, but from looking at him John guessed that there was something more, but for the life of him he couldn’t pinpoint exactly what it was.
“May I take a look at him?” The other Dom’s voice rang sharp in his ears, and John fought to remain still and calm while Sherlock seemed to take forever in answering.
“I’m afraid he’s not quite ready for showing off,” Sherlock replied, rubbing his fingers into John’s shoulder in what was meant to be a soothing gesture as the detective automatically picked up the signals of John’s feelings towards being handled by another Dom. “We’re both relatively new to this game, you see. There are some areas which we’re still under the process of discovering about each other and I need to know how he reacts in every way until I can show him at his best.”
The Dom chuckled. “Of course. It would be a shame to see him at any less than his full potential. Perhaps, when you are both ready, you would be willing to share your relationship with the people here? It would be marvellous to watch.” Before Sherlock could respond to the other man’s suggestion, the Dom carried on speaking. “In fact, my boy here is due to have a private showing in one of the smaller booths of this club. I’m sure it would please him greatly to show your man a thing or two of how it’s done. You said it yourself, you’re both relatively new to this lifestyle. Maybe some of the things he can show you will make the transitions easier.”
John felt Sherlock’s fingers slide from his shoulder to underneath his chin, tilting his head up marginally until he could see Sherlock’s eyes. The intimate touch to his jaw was threatening to become too much for him, having only ever done the move himself with a woman he was intimate with, but somehow he kept it together. Remember the case. Remember the lives you’ll be saving.
“Well, John? What do you think? Would you like to see them do a show for us?” Sherlock’s voice was deceptively curious, but when John looked at the other man’s eyes, he could see that Sherlock was giving him the opportunity to back out from it. He said he didn’t want to put John in any situation that he couldn’t handle and he meant it. Yet, at the same time, John could see it in Sherlock’s eyes that this could be the make or break that they’d been searching for since they arrived. They needed to find out everything they could about this club while they were here, the private rooms being no exception, and it seemed that invites were very rare. They wouldn’t get this opportunity again.
Something inside of John steeled itself, and in the calmest voice he could muster, he said his first words of the evening. “Yes, Sherlock.”
To be continued