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It feels wrong.
That's all Barok can think as he lets himself be pushed against the wall of his London townhouse, hands searching for the familiar shape of a bottle or chalice but having to settle for tangled blond hair that feels coarse between his fingers. The wine he tastes in the kiss is marred by the foul flavour of burnt tobacco, clinging to the chapped lips pressed sloppily against his own.
“Don't take this the wrong way, my lord.” It's a whispered grin against his mouth, teeth bared into a grin as hands clumsily undo Barok’s waistcoat. “I am not doing this for crime scene access or money, or because I have some sort of romantic feelings for you. I simply want to.”
“The thought hadn't crossed my mind, Sholmes,” Barok replies, honestly, before the detective's mouth once again occupies his own.
He's too intoxicated – they're both too intoxicated – for any of this to feel real, for the other man's touch to register correctly until his shirt has been undone and the warmth of his calloused fingertips presses against his chest and pushes him down onto the floor with his back against the wall. Skin on skin, mouth on his neck, body heat radiating against his own as his tongue traces the healing scar left by last month's assassination attempt. Groans fill the silence, filth is muttered in his ear that he only partly comprehends as his belt leaves his hips and joins the clothes from the upper half of body flung across the room.
Even if he hadn't made it abundantly clear, there's absolutely nothing romantic about it. Sholmes only seems particularly concerned with himself, grabbing Barok’s wrists to pour oil onto his fingers before he roughly guides them round his waist, under the soft flesh of his arse as he mutters instructions into his ear of how to properly penetrate him with his fingers.
It's an awkward angle and even drunk there's a part of Barok that thinks he should stop. But there's just something about… this. The closeness. The warmth of another's skin pressed against his own. The way Sholmes scolds him like a dog when it isn't satisfactory and moans in delight when it is.
He's thought about how this might happen. Has thought about marriage, consummation, about starting a family like his entire lineage has before him. Has thought about the rumours of his university's rowing team's hazing rituals that had put him off joining; not for fear of what might happen, but for fear of enjoying it – always equal parts relieved and sad that he'd opted to focus on his studies.
He had not, of course, thought it might happen on the cold floor of the London townhouse he'd inherited from his deceased brother, drunk, with another man straddling his hips and telling him ‘I know it's your first time, but there's no need to be so shy about it’. Let alone a man who had spent half the evening talking his ear off about a “partner” who, if Barok didn't know better, one would assume was a recently-deceased lover and not his housemate.
It feels wrong. He's breaking the law; a prosecutor, going against the very thing he's supposed to stand for. But Sholmes’ body is slender and they're both very, very drunk, so he's able to close his eyes and force himself to picture a woman in his place until he's too lost in the sensation of the man fucking himself on his cock to care.
—
A month later, Barok is still reeling from it. Still spending night after lonely night considering the events of the evening in his mind, attempting to recreate it with his hands. He's bumped into Sholmes a handful of times, though always in public so it could only be acknowledged through glances that linger just too long to be anything else. Not that he wants to talk about it. Not with Sholmes and certainly not with anyone else (although he had prayed for the first time since Genshin Asougi's execution; he's unsure if anyone is listening, but he figures it's better to be safe than sorry.)
It's been almost five weeks to the day when Barok is next attacked; accosted by a group of six armed men in a dingy side street a half mile from the Bailey following a not guilty verdict. By some cruel stroke of luck, who should be in the area but the self-proclaimed Great Detective himself – overhearing the scuffle and disposing of the attackers Barok hadn't managed to deal with using his pistol. He tries to convince him to go to a hospital (St. Synner’s is only a ten minute walk away, apparently) as he presses a handkerchief to the bloody, cross-shaped wound between his eyes. Barok declines his offer, telling him his own lodgings in the city are far closer.
(They are not, but the route back would avoid any main roads or busy streets where his injury or company might attract attention.)
Barok does not invite the detective in but he joins him anyway, starting to look around the house.
"If you're looking for medical supplies," Barok tells him, "They're in the bathroom cabinet."
"Hmm?" the detective raises his brow as he speaks. "Oh, no. I'm looking for the kitchen to get the kettle going. I'm surprised a man of your social standing doesn’t have a maid here, you know– ah, here it is!"
Barok tries to narrow his eyes, only to wince as the movement agitates the injury on his brow. "Please forgive the discourtesy of questioning your actions after you saved my life," he says, "But is now really the time for a cup of tea, detective?"
"Not to drink, my lord," Sholmes calls back from the kitchen, "To sterilise a needle. You're going to need stitches if you want that to heal properly, and since somebody was too stubborn to go to a hospital–"
"Alright, I think I get the picture."
"Wonderful. Could you lay down on the sofa for me?”
Sholmes either willingly ignores or is wholly unaware of the tension between them, humming jovially to himself as he returns with a bowl of steaming water and begins rummaging through his bag for medical supplies. Barok hates it. Hates that he's now so vulnerable, lying injured and waiting for his care. Hates that the shock of the attack is slowly being replaced with a sense of anticipation as the detective kneels down beside him to tend to his wound. He's overwhelmed with a feeling of déjà vu; his face close enough to his own that he can see the freckles dispersed across his cheeks, can smell the perfume of cheap coffee and tobacco on his lips as he bites the bottom one in concentration.
Thankfully, the pain of antiseptic applied to his injury soon provides him with something else to focus on. He shuts his eyes and hisses through his teeth in pain as the antiseptic burns against the wound. It doesn’t help that the detective isn't being particularly gentle either, his touch just as heavy-handed as it had been last month scrambling to unfasten Barok’s clothes. The smell of the chemical, sharp and unpleasantly clinical, pervades the air of his living room and burns his nostrils as he inhales.
“Do you think it will scar?” he asks quietly.
"Most likely," the detective replies – rather nonchalantly, all things considered. Barok watches as he takes a needle from the bowl of boiled water, unravelling a spool of thread and using his teeth to cut it down to length. It's a crude method, though there is a certain grace and fluidity in his actions that suggests he’s done this many times before. Or at least learned from someone who had. "You'll need to stay still. It will be far easier for me.”
Once again, Barok obeys: something he seems to be rather good at.
He'd received stitches once as a child but he'd been too young to remember how much it had hurt. He can still recall the injury itself, though; he'd gone out one summer afternoon with his then-teenage brother to the grounds of the family estate, content to paddle in the stream that ran through it while Klint had studied until a particularly slippery rock resulted in a now-faded scar that had decorated his right leg until his late teens. His memories of it now were mostly in the debates he'd had with Klint following it: friendly but heated discussions over completely unrelated subjects that had ended when Barok had (rather unfairly, looking back) reminded him of his failure to look out for him in retaliation.
I could have died that day, Klint, he used to say. Some brother you are, unable to stop such a thing.
It feels sickening to look back on such a jest now that Klint is gone. It's been a few years since that trial, since that monster got what he deserved. But the wound it caused is as fresh as the one dripping blood and antiseptic down his face. He dreads the moment he’s left alone again, but knows it’s inevitable. So he decides that once Sholmes is gone he'll have a drink. Or two. Or as many as he can get through to numb the multitudes of pain he currently feels.
Thankfully, Sholmes' needle breaches his skin the second the tears start to form in his eyes. It hurts enough to make him wince and flinch, jerking away from the detective who lets out an exasperated groan.
"Goodness, I barely even nicked you!" he says. "Do you want me to tear the wound open further?"
Barok gives him his best glare through tear-blurred eyes. "Give me a warning next time," he mutters, before lying back in his original position and bracing himself for the needle to re-enter the skin. Sholmes doesn't, but this time Barok is more prepared for it, biting down on the inside of his cheek to stop himself from making any noise.
Despite his reprimands, the detective applies the suture gently and carefully; there's an odd softness to each stitch he makes and a kindness in the focused knit of his brow. He talks as he works: a soft ramble about the attack, the legend of the so-called ‘Reaper’, his ‘partner’ whose medical supplies he still uses the last of. (Barok feels a pang of… something when he speaks so fondly of the man at such length. Perhaps due to the man’s nationality. Perhaps not. Whatever the feeling is, he doesn't like it.)
Barok never gets used to the sting of the needle as it pierces the already-sensitive skin and draws the injury shut, but it fortunately doesn’t take too long for the detective to complete the stitches and finish cleaning up the wound. But he does miss the contact when he pulls away, opening his eyes to meet Sholmes’ gaze for a few seconds too long to seem accidental.
"You'll want to keep it clean and dry," the detective eventually tells him, standing up to clear his medical supplies spread out on the coffee table. "Try to avoid picking at them, and get the stitches changed within the week. At a hospital, if you can help it."
The man's tenderness is sickening, but even more so is Barok's own response. The warmth of his face, the aggressive pound of his heart in his chest, the fact that, despite everything, he is so unbelievably turned on by it all.
It's all too much for him to stay silent about.
“... We had sex,” he eventually says. Quietly and plainly, yet it feels dangerously loud in the quiet of his living room. Part of him wants the detective to refute his claim. The other part of him has no idea what he wants.
When Sholmes speaks, the smirk on his face is apparent even with his back turned. “Yes,” he says, “In this exact room, a little over a month ago.” He spins around to face the prosecutor, his gaze trailing over his form as if analysing a piece of evidence and – ah, there it is. That grin, the same one from their night spent together; expectant and wild with hunger. “Why?” he continues, “Were you hoping for a repeat performance?”
Yes.
No.
I don't know.
“I couldn't possibly ask that of you, detective.”
The detective laughs, the bastard, and it's as vexing as it is arousing. “Couldn't you?” he asks as he approaches him again. “I would have no qualms; you’re unbetrothed, rather well-endowed and have no issue with sharing your very expensive alcohol with me. I suppose you could last a little longer, but that’s nothing a little practice can’t fix.”
“I am not… some sort of invert.” Barok hates saying it out loud. His denial feels like a confession in and of itself; if that were true, there would be no need to insist upon it.
“I never suggested you were.” Sholmes says as he stops in front of him and places his hands on his shoulders, applying the slightest amount of pressure. It's by no means a push, but Barok sits back down on the settee nonetheless and lets Sholmes straddle his lap, his body a familiar weight against his own. “All I meant was that as long as you are willing, I see no downsides. So, I'll ask you again. Were you hoping for a repeat performance?”
Barok doesn’t answer him verbally, instead nodding before cupping his face and pulling him in to kiss him.
Kissing Sholmes sober somehow feels no different to kissing him drunk, just as sloppy and dizzying. He kisses deeply, greedily, with no hesitancy as he pushes his tongue into his mouth and reaches for the fastenings of his clothes. His confidence is maddening, with little care for build-up as he grinds roughly against him, grinning against his mouth as he lets out an undignified groan.
“Have you thought about this,” he asks into his teeth, “Since we last saw each other properly?”
Barok shakes his head. “I’ve been too busy to even consider it,” he lies.
“A pity.” Sholmes pulls away, a thin line of spit connecting their mouths as he all but tears the prosecutor’s shirt off his shoulders. “How thrilling would that have been? To know the Reaper of the Bailey gets off to the mere thought of me…”
Barok wants to protest, wants to confront his use of the moniker he’s unwillingly taken on as of late. It’s bad enough to read it in the papers, to hear it hurled at him on the street or from the public gallery, to hear murmurs through the judiciary. But hearing it like this, uttered in private against his lips as if it’s something he should derive pleasure from is another thing entirely. However Sholmes moves first, pulling him back in to shove his tongue in his mouth and press his body closer to rub his clothed erection against him with a low moan. And Barok allows himself to relax into the embrace, the movement of his hips creating an absolutely delicious friction that he silently scolds himself for enjoying as he grinds back against him and lets out an undignified whine into their kiss.
Just like last time, Sholmes grabs his wrists and leads them to where he wants them to be (“Are you going to just sit there, or are you going to undress me?”) and Barok watches through heavy-lidded eyes as the detective’s clothes join his own in various piles scattered across his living room floor. His body isn’t as slender or effeminate as his drunk mind had made it out to be; not overly broad but still pleasantly muscular with the odd freckle and scar decorating his skin, and as the detective repositions him to be on his back on the settee, he can’t help but wonder if his ‘partner’ – Mikotoba, if he remembers correctly – had been the one to patch him up. If he’d laid down for the man, if he’d been obedient and vulnerable, if the doctor had been both as tender and demanding with Sholmes as he was with him today. Wonders if lingering touches and eye contact had driven him to the same hopeless want Barok feels now. Wonders if he’d acted on it, if they’d ever made the same use of their Baker Street home…
No, don’t go there. It’s one thing to reflect on what you know to be true, another entirely to… fantasise.
Thankfully, Sholmes’ touch finds its way back to his own nude body, now fully erect under his gaze. Barok tries to avoid doing the same – looking at him too hard or, God forbid, admiring him – but it’s hard not to pay attention when there’s a naked man straddling him, spitting in his hand before reaching for his dick.
“May I?”
You shouldn’t. “Yes,” Barok tells him, “Please.”
The movements of the detective’s hand at first are slow and languid, sliding up from the base to trace his thumb over the head of his dick, applying just enough pressure that he bucks his hips into the sensation. He bites his lip to suppress a moan, propping himself up on his elbows so he can see his hand wrapped tightly around his cock with still a good inch of space between the point of his middle finger and thumb. It isn’t long before his pace begins to speed up, his grip somehow feeling ten times better than his own ever has. Any trace of tenderness has disappeared, jerking him off faster, and Barok bites down harder to hold back the noises that sit in his throat; a series of low groans but threaten to become something much more.
Sholmes’ hand doesn’t slow as he fucking laughs, grinning down at him. His free hand moves to squeeze his own chest, letting out a satisfied hum as he toys with his nipple. He’s having far too much fun with this. Like an animal playing with its food. “Oh, please, don’t be so coy about it now, Mr Reaper,” he says, voice edged with mock-pity that goes straight to Barok’s dick. “I’ve already heard you be far louder than that.”
Barok would say something about the moniker if he weren’t focused on keeping his voice down; even if he were a woman, there is no way he is giving Herlock Sholmes of all people the satisfaction of hearing him moan like some low-rate rent boy at his touch. Certainly not sober, anyway. (And perhaps, he thinks, staying quiet will encourage another scolding, more cruel laughs and jokes at the expense of his sexual performance.)
Regardless, he’s not going to last much longer like this, with Sholmes jerking him off at such an intense pace. It’s getting harder and harder by the second to keep his voice down, more and more ragged gasps or sudden groans manage to escape his lips. His skin feels hot and his face even hotter, tilting his head back and screwing his eyes shut as he fucks into the man’s hand, muscles tightening and spasming involuntarily as he grows closer and closer to an orgasm-
And then Sholmes’ hand stills around him. Loosens. Lets go. Barok’s eyes fly open and he cries of frustration, his dick still rock hard, hot and slick with a mix of spit and precum.
“What the fuck are you–?”
“As much as I enjoy watching you squirm, my lord,” he says, “I would appreciate some reciprocation. Or at least your cock up my arse again. Besides, I did say it would take practice to get you to last longer – think of this as training.”
Barok narrows his eyes, flinching as it pulls on the fresh stitches that he’d somehow all but forgotten about until now. “I am not a dog,” he hisses, painfully aware of how badly he just wants the man to return to getting him off. “If you’re so desperate for reciprocation, then just do what you did last time.”
“Good God, you’re uncooperative.” Sholmes mutters, rolling his eyes as he reaches for the medical kit on the table next to him. He pulls out a familiar bottle of oil and pours a considerable amount over Barok’s dick; the cold liquid makes him shudder and bite his lip to prevent any embarrassing sounds from leaving it.
“Don’t you need me to… uh…” The prosecutor sits up and offers his hand forward, gesturing to the lubricant. The detective shakes his head, wrapping his hand around his own erection and stroking himself to full hardness again.
“My ward is away at school and investigative work appears to have dried up,” he explains through soft hums of pleasure. “That is to say, I have plenty of spare time on my hands to prepare myself.” He speaks plainly, as if such an obscene confession were the most normal thing in the world, but for the briefest of moments Barok detects a hint of sadness in his voice that feels all too familiar. It's gone as soon as it appeared as Sholmes lines himself up with his dick and lowers himself onto it, bottom lip caught between his teeth as he rests his arms on Barok’s shoulders to steady himself.
It feels wrong. Just like it had last time. But fucking hell, the man feels incredible, tight and hot around his cock as he gradually takes more and more of him in. Barok's already sensitive from being brought to the edge earlier and he groans the loudest he has all afternoon, one hand propping himself up and the other squeezing his thigh. Involuntarily, his hips jerk upwards and the man on top of him lets out a strangled cry of surprise that melts out into a moan, nails digging into his shoulders.
“My word,” Sholmes manages to say as he lifts his hips and lowers himself further down onto Barok's length, torturously slow at first as he adjusts his angle. Each movement draws another choked cry of bliss from the prosecutor, which only spurs him on as he starts to speed up. “You're… ahh… bigger than I remember, I– Oh, fuck, yes…” He cuts himself off mid-sentence with a moan as he angles himself in a way that makes his eyes flutter closed and his kiss- swollen mouth to hang slack. He falls forward against him, tangling his fingers in his hair as his pace quickens until he’s all but bouncing in his lap, holding back nothing as he cries in pleasure.
The pace is fast, punishingly so, and Barok can feel the muscle of his thigh quiver through his skin with each frantic movement. The air around him smells of sweat and antiseptic, and his own cock throbs as he angles his hips to drive deeper into him, mind numb to anything except how fucking amazing the man feels riding him. Each motion overwhelms him completely, brutal rushes of pleasure that take over and deadens his senses to anything except the absolutely delicious heat enveloping his cock. His face feels flushed, his muscles twitching involuntarily as he feels his climax approaching; each thrust bringing him closer and closer to the edge for a second time, more intense than he’s ever felt it before.
Sholmes is babbling against his ear, hands tightly gripping his hair as every slap of his ass hitting Barok’s hips is accompanied by an ‘Oh, yes’ or ‘Right there’ or ‘God, Yujin, please,’ as he grabs the hand placed on his thigh and shoves it towards his cock. Barok is happy to obey his wordless command, wrapping his hand around him and jerking him off the best he can to match the agonising pace the detective has set. He’s not paying attention to anything but himself, holding onto the prosecutor for support with no emotion behind the embrace. This is nothing to him. He’s a toy. Something to fuck himself on and laugh at. Relieve some loneliness.
The realisation pushes him over the edge. “God, Sholmes…” It passes his lips like a desperate prayer despite knowing neither are listening to him. His hand around Sholmes’ cock stutters as his free one grips the fabric of the settee so tightly he fears it may rip until his orgasm hits him like a wave, moaning pathetically loud as he comes inside the detective, filling him up and making him gasp in delight. Sholmes continues to ride him through it, his pace faltering and cries rising in volume as he pulls on his hair. Barok keeps jerking him off, looking up at him through his lashes. He takes in his flushed face, his sweaty skin, the look of sheer ecstasy on his face as he comes over his stomach and chest in thick, white ropes.
There’s silence for a few moments as Sholmes relaxes in his arms, sighing happily as he pulls himself off of Barok’s softening cock and collapses back on the settee with a dazed, self-satisfied grin plastered across his face. He stays there for a few moments as he gets his breath back, before pushing his sweat-slicked hair out of his eyes and getting to his feet. If the cum trickling from his arse down his thigh bothers him as he gathers his clothes, he’s very good at hiding it.
It takes Barok a little longer to come down from the high. Part of him knows he should feel disgusted. At his own actions and lack of self-control, yes but more so for enjoying how cruel it all was. But somehow he doesn’t. Perhaps he will later, but right now simply feels light. Malleable. His body is warm, tingly, and his senses still reel from everything his body and mind have just experienced. He sits up slowly, breathing deeply as he tries to ground himself despite the stench of sex and antiseptic still pervading the air of his living room. He opens his mouth to speak but can’t quite bring himself to do so, only able to give Sholmes a quick nod of thanks as he hands him his shirt. He’s so lost in that strange, post-coital fog that he doesn’t realise that Sholmes has left the room until he returns appearing somewhat cleaner and fully-dressed with a glass of water and a damp cloth.
“This is quite normal,” he muses, sitting down on the settee beside him and wiping the drying cum off his abdomen. (though Barok isn’t sure which part of this he’s referring to), before silence falls between them again.
When that silence is broken it’s Barok who speaks, partway through doing up his crumpled waistcoat and nearly free of the haze that had settled over him.
“Pray forgive my prying,” he asks, “But… have you ever been romantically involved with a man?”
Sholmes – packing up the medical supplies still strewn across the table – lets out a chuckle. “Well, I’ve had my share of male sexual partners, and there have been…” He pauses. “... Feelings. But, no, I’ve never pursued a romantic relationship with another man. Or anyone for that matter. Why do you ask?”
Barok frowns. “So, when you say partner…?”
“Mikotoba?” The detective’s smile falters. “Our relationship is… or rather was, I suppose, extremely close, yes. But entirely platonic. After all, he was in a foreign country grieving his late wife. It wouldn’t have been fair to… impose anything on him.”
It’s bizarre how fast his earlier confidence disappears as he says it. In that moment Barok sees a sadness in the man, a resignation to his fate to so badly want a connection that he can never have. It’s a unique sort of loneliness that is all too familiar.
“I see,” he replies softly, and for some strange reason it’s the most human he’s felt since his brother’s death.