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“Spanking,” John said, as if he’d never heard the word before. “Huh. Really?”
Sherlock shrugged, already turning away. “Well, if you’re not interested...”
“I didn’t say that. No, it’s just...seems a bit tame, for you, doesn’t it?” They’d run through a lot of things, in Sherlock’s never-ending quest for erotic pain; John had nixed a lot more things as too damn dangerous. Spanking, oddly, had never come up. It seemed like child’s play somehow.
“Never mind.” Sherlock began typing briskly away at his keyboard again. “I can see it’s not your thing. Just a suggestion.”
“I don’t know, I just got home, I’m tired, I wasn’t planning on-- Can I have five minutes, Sherlock, five minutes to myself? I haven’t even got my jacket off, and you’re--”
“Fine, fine.” Sherlock sounded annoyed. “I really don’t care.”
“Fine.” John threw himself down on the sofa, arm over his eyes.
There was a huffy sort of silence in the room.
“I bet Lestrade would be willing to help me out,” Sherlock said meditatively. “Gladly, in fact. He’s--”
“Oh, for God’s sake, all right, go up to my room and get your trousers off. Just your trousers,” John called after him, as Sherlock vaulted over the desk chair, grinning insanely, and bounded out of the room.
*
John sat on the edge of the bed. “So,” he said, feeling ridiculous as Sherlock arranged himself across his lap, absurdly long, still wearing his dress shirt and a pair of navy boxers. It was always weird doing things like this with no lead-up, he thought, but Sherlock never seemed to mind. He could go directly from “I had to shave a corpse today and used up all your disposable razors, put them on the shopping list, will you?” to “I need you to bite me, right here, hard as you can without breaking the skin, until I beg you to stop,” in absolutely nothing flat.
John needed a little more time. Also, seeing (and feeling) Sherlock squirm with frustration definitely did something for him--especially in this particular position. In fact it was almost too arousing, John realised. Much more of this and he wouldn’t be able to remain in control. “Stop it,” he said, and gave Sherlock a warning pinch on the back of his neck. Sherlock let out a shuddering breath and went still.
“Better,” John said approvingly. He pushed up the tail of Sherlock’s shirt. “You are awfully spankable-looking,” John admitted, running his hand over the curves of him, still covered by the thin cotton of his underwear. “How’d a stick figure like you wind up with a bum like this?”
“Less talk, more hitting,” Sherlock said through gritted teeth.
John was in no hurry, though. He slid his hand up inside the shirt and rubbed light circles over Sherlock’s lower back, feeling gooseflesh rise beneath his fingers. He couldn’t see Sherlock’s face, but he could tell from the tension in his body and the hitch in his breathing that he’d be biting his lip, probably half in anticipation and half to keep from shouting at John to get on with it already. It was always difficult for him to relinquish his authority, at first--good for him, though, ultimately, John thought. Hoped.
He took pity and withdrew his hand, then brought it down on Sherlock’s arse with a sharp smack. Sherlock sighed, the muscles in his back easing up instantly. “More,” he commanded. “I want--”
“Quiet,” John said, and gave him another warning pinch on the nape. “You know, if I really wanted to punish you it’d be incredibly easy; I’d just get up right now and leave you like this. Make you wait for an hour.”
“No,” Sherlock whined, and gave another impatient wriggle, then stopped and held himself still. “I mean--please. I’ll stop. Please, John?”
“God, you’re such an actor.” John couldn’t help admiring it, and couldn’t help wanting to strip all the pretense right off from him, too. All right, he decided. He was ready now. “Take your pants down, then.”
Sherlock got his thumbs into his waistband, a little awkwardly, and slid the boxers down, exposing himself and then settling back down onto John’s lap. He was half-hard already; John could feel it against his leg.
“Count,” he said, because it was an easy, obvious order to give, and because he liked to be able to hear Sherlock’s voice when he was doing things like this, liked to gauge the effect it was having on him. They’d done floggings before, on Sherlock’s back or legs, with belts, with the riding crop, but something about this was more...immediate. More intimate. Sexier, too: bare hand against bared bottom, the contact warming them both, making them tingle and sting.
Sherlock’s voice was confident and nearly bored-sounding up until the count of five, so John quit holding back and gave him a really hard smack at last. “Six--oh,” Sherlock said, sounding surprised and pleased. “Yes, more like that, yes.” John hesitated, made him wait for it. The next few strokes made Sherlock’s voice go high and tight, not from pain but from arousal, apparently. His erection was poking John in the upper thigh very insistently now. “John, this is--I’m--”
John understood; he didn’t want this too be over too soon, either. He shifted, widening his legs so Sherlock wasn’t getting so much friction. His own trousers had got much too tight and constricting, too. Usually, when he hurt Sherlock, they didn’t reach this stage until much later in the game.
“You’re getting very red,” John told him, pausing after fifteen, fingers lightly tracing the marks he’d made. “Still want more?”
Sherlock’s face was buried in the crook of his own arm; he nodded slowly.
“All right, then.” John administered another stinging smack, and another, harder. Sherlock’s voice finally began to warble and crack around twenty-seven; he was trembling now, flinching with every stroke. John paused again, parted Sherlock’s legs, slid his hand up between them to find him straining-hard and wet with precome.
“Don’t,” Sherlock gasped, but his hips rocked, pressing him into John’s hand, and he groaned.
“Nope, not yet.” John withdrew and gave him another hard spank. “I’m liking this part, still. Keep counting.”
They made it, somehow, to forty, and then fifty, though by the end Sherlock was slurring the numbers nearly inaudibly, squirming uncontrollably across John’s lap. John rested his hand lightly on his arse, and Sherlock hissed.
“All right, get up,” John told him, because if he didn’t get out of his own trousers soon, he thought he might explode. “Get your clothes off, everything, and kneel up by the headboard.” Sherlock obeyed, and John caught a look at his face while he did so--he was clearly already floating in subspace, his eyes dreamy and unfocused. No need to hurt him any more, then, and John felt, as always, that mixed confusing twinge of relief and regret.
Then he focused on the sight of Sherlock’s body, the bowed head, the long, narrow length of him, so vulnerably pale except for the shocking redness where John had marked him with his hand.
John got undressed very quickly and found the lube.
They didn’t speak much, after that; there was no need. Just quiet gasps and moans as John opened Sherlock up, gently as he knew how, first with his fingers and then with his cock, slowly pushing into that beautifully marked arse. No matter what other kind of damage he’d been inflicting on Sherlock’s body, John refused to ever be rough when he entered him. Anyway, the mere contact against his over-sensitive skin was enough to give Sherlock the edge he seemed to need. He pushed back against John greedily, but pulled away with another hiss after every stroke, seeking out the pain and the pleasure equally.
John still wasn’t sure which one he needed more, though he wouldn’t lie to himself, the pain was certainly a part of it, the knowledge that Sherlock had relinquished his control up so thoroughly to him. “Mine,” he murmured, and got a hand in between their sweat-slick bodies to cup Sherlock’s arse, pressing on the tender skin. Sherlock made a high-pitched broken sound and arched his back, thrusting down hard onto him, and John was suddenly breathlessly near to the edge. He moved his hand around to Sherlock’s cock and began to stroke him, fast and slick and rough. “All right,” John said, low, right in his ear. “Good, you can come now.” And that was all Sherlock needed, all either of them needed, for at least the next few moments of perfect whited-out time.