Psycho-somatic Sex Junkies

 

by

Shadow

 

 

Sherlock has been spending a ridiculous amount of time with his legs over John’s shoulders of recent. 

 

Well, along with other variations on a similar theme.

 

Sex, Sherlock has learned, to his great surprise, is a kind of inverse cocaine.  Cocaine brought his body up to the speed of his brain.  Sex shuts his brain up long enough to do a sort of system reboot.  Not particularly productive, one would think, but what surprises Sherlock is that impression would be entirely mistaken.  True, his body is relaxed and languid after sex, but what’s really amazing is the clarity of his thoughts.  It’s as if a massive physical catharsis has blown away all the clutter, letting all the synapses of his brain fire more efficiently.  Perhaps it doesn’t improve the science of deduction itself, but rather the synergistic process of making data connections that the uninformed call intuition, which seems to improve exponentially after sex.  It’s utterly illogical, inefficient and compellingly, distractingly, perhaps dangerously addictive.  And it works.

 

Sometimes he doesn’t even touch a nicotine patch for the entire day afterwards.

 

And the cathartic properties of physical release seem more pronounced when John does the fucking (most likely because John is just so damnably good at it), so that’s how it normally goes.  Not always; Sherlock has found a possibly less productive, but equally satisfying physical catharsis after a hard case, or when he’s bored, or when somebody has him utterly frustrated (which is rather often, come to think of it) in venting his excess energy on John’s more than willing body.  John seems to appreciate it too, or perhaps he just finds it a preferable alternative to Sherlock shooting holes in the walls.

 

So, sex.

 

And yes, he’s using John, and yes, he knows it and John knows it as well, but then of course John is also using him, and Sherlock is certain to an 88.7 percent probability that John hasn’t realized that.  Only 88.7 percent because (a) Sherlock still hasn’t managed to deduce the entirety of Mycroft’s initial conversation with John, during which Sherlock suspects that Mycroft made a number of disclosures not regarding Sherlock, but regarding John, that Sherlock would much rather he hadn’t, resulting in John confronting the issues prematurely and, considering the stressful circumstances and the source, either discounting Mycroft’s conclusions altogether or merely sublimating them; and (b) because if John realized he was using Sherlock, John, being John, would become so overcome by guilt that most likely they’d have to have a row about it, followed by John feeling obliged to confess what Sherlock already knows and has known from the beginning.

 

Rather insulting, that.

 

So yes, they are using each other, and it works out nicely.  John tops for the most part because he has a slight preference for it, which also works out nicely for Sherlock as well; and if pressed, Sherlock would have to admit – to his chagrin – that sex is one area in which John’s expertise exceeds his own anyway.  Possibly due to the fact that Sherlock tries to substitute exhaustive theoretical knowledge for experience and ends up making an overanalytical process of it, mentally calculating optimal positions and angles and bell curves of efficacy for various types and durations of foreplay and so on.  Whereas John just knows how to make Sherlock feel good, although possibly his knowledge of anatomy gives him some slight advantage too; the end result being utterly imperfect, illogical and amazingly gratifying sex.

 

But then, nobody really understands what a junkie needs like another junkie.

 

John’s addiction, which both Sherlock and, most likely, Mycroft, diagnosed from the start, is adrenaline.  John is a danger junkie.  Sherlock, a creature of many and varied addictions, including a disturbing joy in other people’s homicides, can respect that.

 

Sherlock suspects that Mycroft made an easy and obvious mistaken assumption on first meeting John.  He suspects that, as Sherlock himself stated to John, Mycroft diagnosed John’s limp as purely psychosomatic, and the tremor of his hand as something similar.  Not so.  After weeks of observing John closely – at times quite closely – Sherlock has come to the conclusion that the limp is only partly psychosomatic but mostly sciatic, and the hand tremor is in fact due to nerve damage from the gunshot wound in John’s shoulder.  Yes, yes, Sherlock told John the limp was entirely psychosomatic, and he did so for the same reason that Mycroft made his mistaken assumption:  It’s not the limp and the tremor that are psychosomatic, but the lack thereof.  To put it in simple terms, when John is high on his drug of choice, sheer adrenaline overcomes and negates the limp, the tremor.  Thus rendering them, at least as far as Sherlock is concerned, irrelevant and therefore to be disregarded.  They certainly didn’t stop John from making all speed and taking an incredible shot to save Sherlock’s life.

 

So John craves the physical high of adrenaline to feel whole, and Sherlock craves the mental high of a challenging puzzle to feel alive.  And their drug of choice will perhaps always be their first love; but sex has quickly become, for both of them, a secondary and related, beloved drug where John can feel potent and skilled, and where Sherlock can experience the hitherto unknown rush of a more carnal and visceral feeling of aliveness – and, not incidentally, clear his head for improved deductive efficiency.

 

And like any other drug, sex is pervasive, finding its way into an increasingly broad scope in their domestic lives, creeping into new situations.

 

Relief:  “Thank God that’s over.  I’m too bloody tired to stop for a pint.  Let’s just go home, fuck and pass out.”

 

Entertainment:  “John, there’s nothing interesting on the telly.  What say we make it an early night?”

 

Dining:  “Good grief, this gravy tastes remarkably similar to your semen.  A bit more, please.”

 

Mathematics:  “By my calculations, the back of the davenport is exactly the optimal height to bend you over.  Let’s see, shall we?”

 

Insomnia:  “I can’t make my bloody brain shut up so I can sleep.  Just suck me off, will you?”

 

Negotiation:  “Sherlock, if you’d stop putting body parts in the microwave, I could use it to melt chocolate, drizzle it on you and lick it off.  On the other hand, I’m not licking anything that has the slightest chance of containing microwaved eyeball detritus.”

 

Experimentation:  “John, I found your copy of the Gay Kama Sutra – the ventilation duct is a remarkably pathetic hiding place, by the way – and I’m wondering if your shoulder is up for Page 106.  Oh, and I noticed by the way the book falls open that you’ve spent a lot of time wanking to Page 77.  That’s for tomorrow.”

 

Family values:  “Oh, good, another love bite on my neck.  I positively adore the remarkable shade of puce Mycroft turns when he sees them.”

 

Boredom:  “Sherlock, I promise I’ll suck you till you scream if you’ll just put.  Down.  The.  Gun.

 

What’s more, sex seems, remarkably, to be a never ending series of revelations.  Not only are there a wide range of acts and positions, those acts and positions can be combined, particularly when accessorized with sex toys, locations and varying surfaces, into a near infinite variety of experiences, but to Sherlock’s amazement there are numerous moods of sex.  Really, Sherlock always imagined sex, at least for him, would be not much different than the masturbation he’d always practiced in the past when the clamour of his bodily needs became too distracting:  A passingly pleasurable, efficient physical release, happily devoid of any messy emotional implications.

 

He couldn’t have been more wrong.  There’s relieved, almost desperate “thank God you’re/I’m/we’re alive” sex.  There’s fumbling, awkward, embarrassing “how the bloody hell does this work” sex (and they actually had quite a bit of this back at the beginning, most, humiliatingly, due to Sherlock’s inexperience).  There’s angry, hard “having a row” sex and gentle, tentative “post-row” sex.  There’s hasty, hot “just want to get off” sex and drowsy, languid “just want to get off” sex as well.  There’s hot, panting, passionate “God, I need it” sex, and there’s light-hearted, laughing sex.  So many kinds, so many disturbing emotions.

 

And then there’s that sex, the most disturbing of all, the kind Sherlock tries not to think too hard about because this is just sex, just physical catharsis, just two junkies who happen to be friends using each other to get what they need, and that arrangement has no category for that trembling, holding, breath-sharing, falling-asleep-in-each-other’s-arms type of sex that just keeps somehow happening and is certainly a warning sign that this particular addiction is more advanced and more dangerous than the other addictions that have marked various stages of Sherlock’s life.

 

No wonder Mycroft turns puce.  Sherlock himself would probably turn puce if he allowed himself to think too hard about it.  Therefore, he doesn’t think about it.  He has a disciplined and well-ordered mind, and like the fact that the Earth orbits the sun, some ideas simply have no place in Sherlock Holmes’ brain.

 

And really, he has nobody to blame but himself for his blatant self-deception in believing that he could actually cohabitate with Dr. John Watson platonically in the first place.  The man had gotten under Sherlock’s skin from their first meeting, and the purely physical reaction had been equally immediate.  Just as humiliating is the memory of how persistently he’d clung to the illusion of detachment in the face of John’s obvious reciprocation of his attraction.  Worst of all, Sherlock had been so taken off balance that he’d given the game away entirely with that ham-handed, ludicrous “married to my work” exchange.  Sherlock can only be thankful that John was likewise too off-balance at the moment to realize that Sherlock would never have made the comment in the first place if he hadn’t deduced, and wasn’t bloody acknowledging, the sexual tension between them.

 

So no surprise, really, that it hadn’t taken long for that tension to peak – and break.  And once again, Sherlock has nobody to blame but himself.  There was no excuse.  Of course it was a stressful situation – his confrontation with the Cabbie, the poison pill in his hand, John’s amazing, really astonishing shot – but Sherlock Holmes has always prided himself on the ability to greet stressful situations with logical sangfroid.

 

But apparently, if Sherlock Holmes was the immovable object, then John Watson was apparently the irresistible force.  Because even though it was John who had called Sherlock an idiot and scowled and lectured him all through their meal, still, the instant Sherlock walked through the door of 221B Baker Street, John had grabbed Sherlock, divested him of coat and jacket with remarkable efficiency, pushed him onto the sofa, and proceeded to give him the most thorough examination Sherlock had ever endured, notwithstanding the fact that Sherlock was, in fact, still fully dressed.

 

“John, I assure you, I’m completely unharmed.”

 

“You’ve been abducted, held at gunpoint and nearly poisoned, you’re probably in shock, you’re not bloody unharmed.”

 

“Well, to be precise, I was held at lighter-point.”

 

“What the hell are you talking about?”

 

“His gun was, in fact, a lighter.”

 

And Sherlock had actually been quite surprised when that revelation didn’t cause John to immediately suffer a monumental attack of guilt at learning he’d shot a man holding a lighter rather than a gun.  In retrospect, Sherlock now understands that that revelation made no difference at all.  The Cabbie himself was almost irrelevant to John.  What mattered was that pill on its way to Sherlock’s mouth, and John would have done anything, anything necessary to stop it.  Hence the lack of guilt.  It’s entirely probable that John would have fired if the Cabbie had been armed with a turnip.

 

“Then why were you putting that pill in your mouth, you bloody idiot?” John demanded, leaning down, almost in Sherlock’s face, to listen to Sherlock’s heart again.

 

“I – “

 

And there he’d stopped, not only because he wasn’t entirely certain that he had a satisfactory answer to that question (and in fact he and John would have no less than half a dozen rows over that one later), but because his attention had been seized – no, stolen – by John, his dilated pupils, his flared nostrils, his violent angry trembling and rapid breath and the incredible intensity of his gaze.

 

And finding himself in the rare, almost unheard-of position of being at a loss for words, Sherlock had engaged in an unthinkably impulsive act:  He’d gently removed the earpieces of the stethoscope from John’s ears, wound his fingers into John’s hair, pulled him forward and crushed their lips together in an awkward, fumbling but extremely passionate kiss.

 

Sherlock had been so gobsmacked at his own actions that it was actually several seconds before he realized that John was returning his kiss.

 

With interest, so to speak.

 

Less than six seconds later, John had been on the sofa with Sherlock and kissing had turned to snogging and John had to be very dexterous if he could undo clothing that efficiently, hip and shoulder notwithstanding, while simultaneously inspecting Sherlock’s molars with his tongue.  Whereas Sherlock was excellent at multitasking, thank you very much, but having decidedly lost the element of surprise, and having no experience with undressing anybody but himself (well, and the odd cadaver, but that was scarcely applicable to the situation) and never while snogging, found himself somewhat at a disadvantage on the clothing front; he’d gotten John’s jumper pushed up and his shirt only partially unbuttoned when John’s incredibly dexterous (yes, that had already been established, but it was worth noting nonetheless) hand into Sherlock’s already-opened trousers and into his briefs and closed unhesitatingly around his cock.  And that was most decidedly that – three strokes, no more, no less, before Sherlock had the most mortifyingly quick orgasm of his entire life.

 

Sherlock was, in fact, so utterly perplexed, mortified, and otherwise scrambled that he found himself entirely at a loss for words, still shaking with residual pleasure, John half on top of him and panting into Sherlock’s neck – and then he realized that yes, he could indeed be even more humiliated, because not only had he just orgasmed in less than three seconds of direct stimulation, but he hadn’t made the slightest effort to reciprocate in any way.

 

“John,” he panted, his cheeks burning, “I’m – “

 

“Shut it,” John rasped against his neck.  “Just shut it, and if you ever in the future so much as allude to the fact that I just came in my knickers like a bloody teenager, I will kill you.  Just so you know.”

 

Sherlock blinked, belatedly becoming aware of the damp spot in John’s trousers pressing against his leg.

 

“Very well,” he said quickly.  “No allusions whatsoever, present or future.”  Then he quickly added, “If you will similarly ignore my own embarrassing performance just now.”

 

“Absolutely,” John agreed without hesitation.  He released Sherlock’s softening cock with what felt like reluctance.  “Well . . . I suppose we should tidy up a bit.”

 

“Er, yes,” Sherlock agreed awkwardly.  He really had no idea how to proceed from this point.  Was John intimating that they should just get on with being flatmates and try to forget what had just happened?  Did he think Sherlock meant that?

 

“And then . . . “  John moved carefully away, not meeting Sherlock’s eyes.

 

“Yes?”  Sherlock fought to make his voice light, casual.

 

There was a long pause, so long that Sherlock felt a knot tightening in his stomach.

 

“Then . . . well, my bed’s the larger,” John said awkwardly.  “And it’s got fresh linens on.”  He still wasn’t looking at Sherlock, obviously expecting rejection.

 

“Yes?  Well.”  Sherlock chose to ignore the not entirely mistaken implication that Sherlock didn’t always remember to change his bed linens frequently; he was too overcome with relief that at least John had some idea how this whole business worked.  “Your bed is the larger, so that’s . . . logical.”

 

And it had seemed entirely logical to stretch out on John’s cool clean sheets after they’d mopped off and tossed their clothes in the laundry bin, and then it had gotten awkward for a bit, but not for long, because sheer naked physical proximity had given rise to remarkably rapid recovery of tumescence on both their parts.  And John, apparently emboldened by Sherlock’s perfectly understandable physical response, had rolled over on top of Sherlock with rather surprising assertiveness.

 

“Well, now that we’ve gotten the quick one out of the way – “ he began.

 

“I thought we weren’t alluding to that,” Sherlock said, raising one eyebrow, a little taken aback by the immediacy of a naked, hard and rather decisive John Watson on top of him.

 

“You aren’t to allude to my shameful performance; I’m not to allude to yours,” John said.  “I’m perfectly entitled to refer to my own.”

 

“Is that what you’re doing?” Sherlock said archly.

 

“What I’m doing is trying to get around to fucking you,” John said mildly, “and if you’d just shut up, Sherlock, I’d be about it.”

 

“Oh.”  And yet again Sherlock’s verbal faculties simply shut down, and the thought flashed through his head that this was all moving rather quickly, but by some arcane concatenation of factors, probably involving penile engorgement depriving his higher cognitive faculties of crucial blood flow, John’s suggestion seemed perfectly rational at the moment, so it was quite all right, really, that Sherlock couldn’t think of anything to say, because after all John had told him to shut up, and at any rate, John’s tongue in Sherlock’s mouth more or less precluded intelligible speech anyway.

 

So Sherlock had shut up – as regards intelligible speech, anyway, although he suspects that there was a great deal of inarticulate noise that came out of his mouth for the next bit – and John had got about it.  And Sherlock is fairly certain in retrospect that the presence of an unopened box of condoms and an equally unopened tube of water-based, condom-friendly lubricant in John’s dresser drawer could be plausibly connected with John’s unexpected assertiveness and possibly even the fresh bed linens, rather than any likelihood that John might bring some other person back to his room and his bed.

 

So Sherlock hadn’t remarked on the presence of the items, and John had neither asked nor speculated on the state of Sherlock’s virginity, which was either a bit insulting, decently astute, and/or remarkably kind on John’s part.

 

Very possibly all three.

 

So John had got about it, very skilfully, in fact, and Sherlock had discovered the amazing physically cathartic properties of sex, although he wouldn’t discover the full benefits for three days, five missed meals, six changes of bed linens (punctuated by an emergency trip to the laundrette) and a mortifying visit from Mrs. Hudson, who came bearing a large box of freshly-baked pastries and a polite request for noise reduction.  In fact, it wasn’t until the fourth day had brought a call from Lestrade, with a case intriguing enough to pull Sherlock back into his brain, that Sherlock discovered that their activities had really amazingly enhanced his deductive abilities.

 

And it never did get awkward, as Sherlock had expected – well, physically awkward, yes, it did from time to time, like the first time he’d fellated John and discovered just how complicated it was, trying to get the angle right and keep his teeth away and suck and lick and make mental note of what John especially liked.  And of course he’d been nowhere near prepared when John came, and despite a choked out “Sherlock – “ he’d still got caught totally unawares and gagged and some even came out his nose, which one day he’d probably find vastly amusing.

 

But that day hasn’t arrived yet.

 

And remarkably, wonderfully, it hadn’t gotten awkward beyond the physical.  John didn’t seem to expect Sherlock to change in any way with this added dimension to their friendship, and that’s what it was, an added bonus which benefited them both in varying ways.  And Sherlock was utterly determined that it would remain so, a pleasant and useful physical catharsis between friends, sort of an exchange of favours, if you will, and nothing more.  He had, in fact, gone to some pains to let John know that.

 

Except.

 

The first time John went out to dinner with one of his seemingly innumerable female acquaintances, Sherlock had found himself scowling at the clock, distinctly out of sorts.  He couldn’t focus on the newspaper, searching for any indications of what might become an interesting case.  He couldn’t enjoy watching a mystery on the telly and smugly solving it in the first ten minutes.  He couldn’t even bring himself to perform some dangerous or messy experiment in the kitchen while John wasn’t there to complain.  Instead, he’d taken a ridiculous amount of satisfaction in shooting an infinity symbol into the wall.  It was a tossup as to who would be more outraged, John or Mrs. Hudson, but he’d enjoyed the gesture nonetheless.

 

The answer was Mrs. Hudson.  John’s reaction had entirely taken Sherlock by surprise.  He’d walked in the door at 11:42 p.m., earlier than Sherlock had anticipated, and immediately stopped, sniffing the air, likely immediately noticing the odour of gunpowder.  Immediately he’d glanced at the wall.  Sherlock had braced himself, almost happily anticipating John’s outburst.  Instead, John had glanced from the wall, to Sherlock, to the wall, to Sherlock again.

 

And slowly smiled, inclined his head briefly at Sherlock, and turned and walked upstairs.

 

And that was it, except that when Sherlock came up later, hesitating in the door, rather unsure of his welcome, John had waved him in, undressed him, and fucked him so thoroughly that Sherlock could barely sit the next day.  And when Sherlock woke the next morning, he’d found himself wrapped tightly, almost desperately around John, his neck cricked from the awkward angle where he’d shoved his face into the bend of John’s throat.

 

The only other aftermath of the event, besides a lengthy scolding from Mrs. Hudson, was the fact that after that evening, John surprisingly stopped dating.  That was, however, almost certainly coincidental, because both John’s locum hours and Sherlock’s case load simultaneously increased at that time, leaving John little leisure to pursue female companionship.  And it was only logical, really, considering that John could have sexual release with Sherlock anytime he liked, without the wasted time, bother and expense of taxis, dinner dates and movies.

 

And Sherlock got his crime fix and John got his adrenaline fix and both of them got their sex fix, all on a gratifyingly regular basis, and Sherlock’s powers of deduction had never worked better, and as a side bonus, he got to turn Mycroft puce on a regular basis as well.

 

The only problem was that that sex kept happening, mostly at random intervals but more frequently when one of them had gotten hurt or had a near brush with death, or when Sherlock did something particularly risky, or when some woman flirted with John, or . . . there was probably some conclusion to be drawn from that, but really, there was simply no room for some conclusions in Sherlock Holmes’ brain.  And thankfully John didn’t press the issue in any way, so it was easily ignored.

 

“Sherlock.”

 

“Hmmm?”  And if the word “endearing” existed in Sherlock Holmes’ vocabulary, which it didn’t, he would certainly apply it to a drowsy and sleep-mussed John Watson, lying there watching him with those naked eyes full of emotions that Sherlock was far too disciplined to succumb to.  “Why aren’t you asleep?”

 

“You’re thinking too loud.  Woke me right up.”

 

“Sorry.”  Sherlock wasn’t, really; some thoughts were too uncomfortable to be left alone with.  “I can’t get my brain to shut up.”

 

“Really.”

 

And John was moving over him, body warm and languid with sleep, and probably it looked ridiculous, John on top of Sherlock with Sherlock being so much taller, but Sherlock was so flexible that really it rarely posed much of a problem . . .

 

“What sort of things is that pesky brain of yours nattering on about, then?” John murmured, nibbling his way down the side of Sherlock’s throat, which Sherlock arched obligingly for ease of access.

 

“Nothing worth – oh! – mentioning.”  He’d really have to have Mycroft over for tea, as he had no less than four love marks still visible if he left his collar undone, and oh, texts on homosexual sex practices utterly failed to adequately extol the virtues of male nipples, particularly in the hands (or mouth, more accurately) of a skilled and knowledgeable partner . . .

 

“Mention it anyway.”  John reached across Sherlock for the little squeeze bottle of lubricant.  Sherlock had researched twenty-four brands before buying an entire case of the stuff, to replace the initial tube of KY in John’s drawer, which had gotten used up embarrassingly quickly.

 

“Your remarkable – oh – proficiency in sexual matters.”  God, Sherlock loved that first finger, the bizarre and rather uneasy sensation of being entered, not to mention the way John unerringly went straight to --  “Oh, yes, just there – “

 

“Years of extensive research.”

 

I’ve had – ahhhh! – years of extensive research.  You obviously have had years of practice.”

 

“All right, then, years of extensive practice.”  A second finger deliciously joined the first.

 

“At sex or fingering men?  Ohhh – just like that, please – “

 

“Well, I am a doctor.”

 

“Somehow I find myself doubting your medical – oh, oh yes – objectivity in this regard.”

 

“Why, Sherlock, are you jealous?”

 

A third finger, oh, yes.

 

“Absolutely not!”

 

“Of course not.”

 

 “It’s just the mutual – oh, more of that – gratification of physical needs, there’s nothing to be jealous of.  That would be irrational.”

 

“Naturally.”

 

“I don’t have those – those – oh – “

 

“Those?”

 

“Emotional reactions!”

 

“Well, your wholly rational thought process was apparently keeping you awake at – hmm – half three in the morning.”

 

“I was awake because it’s – ohhh – your responsibility to shut my brain up so I can sleep!”

 

“Well, I’ll just get on about it, then, shall I?”

 

Would you, PLEASE!”

 

“Just raise your knees a bit – “

 

Yes, Sherlock has been spending a ridiculous amount of time with his legs over John’s shoulders of recent. 

 

Definitely Page 77 tomorrow . . .

 

 

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