Nouns! Sometimes, verbs. Adjectives on request.

love I know your body can be just as wrong as mine but I know between the two of us we can make them almost right and if you take my hand then I'll take yours

  so don't please don't listen to your sisters and I won't listen to my brothers we are a different kind of men go a little slower and don't worry I'll scream if you hurt me

Three fingers is for girls my darling so get the vaseline and use it cold three years four fingers I want so much more of you than this so coat your wrist with my greed

and push against the hardest parts that I have left in me I will give against you god my love oh please the ridges of your hand in me please do not apologize

for the stability of your bones while I am frantic under you I can feel you in my lungs expanding ribs and pushing in through all the spaces that my hipbones leave

lean your warm face against my thigh the only cool and steady place that I have left and darling if you like then I will beg for you to push your unsharp edges harder 

against mine because I know you will or won't and I  know nothing I do not remember ways to move that do not  push you further into me or how to move at all without

From the ACD canon—the original stories—I will be examining “A Scandal in Belgravia,” one of the earlier works. The story, as usual, centers around Holmes and is narrated by Watson, his partner-in-crime-solving. Unlike many of the other stories, there is no particular mystery to solve; instead, Holmes is hired by the King of Bohemia to obtain a damning letter from a previous lover. The woman, Irene Adler, is a retired opera singer who wishes to retain the photo for protection; though the King initially leads Sherlock to believe she is still in love with him, she is actually disinterested, and marries a different man during the course of the story. Though Holmes manages to initially outwit Adler and discover the location of the photo, she works out his plan and disappears with the evidence, leaving behind a letter. The King is still satisfied, however, as Adler’s marriage means that his own impending nuptials are under no threat.

The first episode of the second season of Sherlock, “A Scandal in Belgravia,” centers around a very similar outline.  Because the main characters are the same in each work, for the sake of clarity, I will follow the naming conventions used in each piece: Characters as seen in the ACD canon will be referred to by their last names, and first names will indicate the character as seen in the Sherlock update. John, here, is unmarried, and still living with Sherlock; they are contacted not by a foreign King, but Mycroft, Sherlock’s brother, on behalf of the British government. Irene—here a professional dominatrix—has a number of compromising photos of a young female client with some connection to the royal family, and Sherlock is charged with retrieving them. Notably, his initial attempt to fool Irene (by dressing up as a priest, as he did in the ACD canon) is not a success; she is aware of his approach, and greets him in the nude, stumping his observational powers. Though he successfully discerns the location of the photos, Americans arrive and ruin everything, and she drugs him and escapes with the phone on which the photos are held. She later sends him the phone for safekeeping, and though he is initially unable to crack the code, at the last minute he works out that it is a pun on his own name. She admits that much of her scheming was actually done by Jim Moriarty, and the last we see of her is Sherlock saving her from an execution.

The Scandal stories are notable for being some of the few Sherlock narratives in which a woman features as a main character and not a victim. This makes them the most obvious choice when exploring the role of gender and hegemony; the central figure of a “powerful woman” brings up themes around gender and power that may otherwise not be visible. In general, hegemony means the methods which a ruling class uses to keep their power by voluntary consent of the masses (Conley 92); gender is the construction by which a society assigns traits to one of two sexes, thus linking physical traits with an assumed identity (Conley 268). The intersection of hegemony and gender construction, here, is the process by which media inscribes belief in gendered roles—and specifically in the dominance of masculine gender—on an audience. 

The original story interacts with the gender hegemony in some fairly predictable ways, given the period it was written in. Women are addressed as automatically weaker than men—“she has the face of the most beautiful of women, and the mind of the most resolute of men” (Doyle)—and as objects—when looking Adler up for Holmes, Watson remarks that “For many years he had adopted a system of docketing all paragraphs concerning men and things” (Doyle); women apparently fit into the category of either men, or things. Examining the character of Adler herself, however, offers a surprising contrast to the dismissive tone Holmes typically takes. She is one of the very few people to ever outwit him and successfully thwart his plans; he considers her, if not an intellectual equal, at least an elevated mind—he tells the King that ““From what I have seen of the lady, she seems, indeed, to be on a very different [higher] level to your Majesty” (Doyle). Adler leaves a lasting impression on Holmes, and at the end of the story, Watson remarks “the best plans of Mr. Sherlock Holmes were beaten by a woman’s wit. He used to make merry over the cleverness of women, but I have not heard him do it of late” (Doyle).

Though Adler may not be the equal of Holmes, it can hardly be held against her character; she is one of the few in the book to even come close. What message, then, is her character delivering regarding the role of women and power? In many ways, the message is the same as most media: men have the power. Adler is remarkable enough among those of her sex that her presence effectively erases them: she is referred to exclusively as “The Woman” (Doyle) by Holmes after their run-in. This is, of course, a double-edged sword: the title could also be considered to indicate an idea that Adler—quick-witted, knowledgeable, and in control of her own body—is a sort of “ultimate woman.” Though her primary motivation through much of the story is to get married—a priority many would consider not the mark of a particularly empowered woman—it is something done clearly on her own terms.  

Because of this combination—her own actions and representation set against the standards for women of her time—Adler does not directly support hegemonic gender ideals; the emphasis on her as an exceptional woman, however, mean that her character does not directly contradict them either.

Irene, at first glance, seems simply a modified version of Adler; the slightly risqué sexuality of a performer translated into a dominatrix, the newer, “sexier” aesthetic demanding some sexual tension between her and Sherlock (with whom, in the original text, she had not a hint of chemistry with). An examination of her actual character and actions, however, reveal a great deal of ambivalence around women and power that the original text lacked.

Our first glimpse of Irene is professional, presumably right before or after she takes the incriminating photos: she speaks while entering a room where another woman is partially visible, tied to the bed. Our next view of her is a series of intercut scenes, in which she is silently riding in a cab and going into her house while her occupation is discussed by Sherlock and Mycroft. She speaks again during the following scenes, her own and Sherlock’s preparations for meeting each other; she and her attendant Kate (updated, again, from “an elderly woman” (Doyle)) discuss her sartorial choices.

The high point of Irene’s power is undeniably the following scene; nude, she effortlessly disconcerts Sherlock, leaving him spluttering, before leaving with his coat and the phone. From there, however, it seems to be a downhill slide; she gradually loses more and more control over the situation, and the episode ends with her in disgrace and helpless, relying on Sherlock to save her life (a nice call-back to the beginning of the episode, when her phone call to Moriarty unwittingly saves Sherlock’s and John’s lives).

To summarize: Irene’s greatest power lies in the scene in which she is presented as most sexually desirable. That power continues to hold for some time after she puts on Sherlock’s coat—a slight call-back to the Doyle story: “Male costume is nothing new to me. I often take advantage of the freedom which it gives” (Doyle)—a disappointingly subtle interpretation for those of us who like seeing ladies in drag. With this taken as true—that to put on a male “costume” is to assume the masculine role—it hardly seems surprising that she would maintain control: “girls gain status by moving into ‘boy’ space, while boys are tainted by the slightest whiff of femininity” (Padawer).

Throughout the episode, we are told over and over the source of Irene’s power and information: “I know what he likes” (Moffat). The constant use of male pronoun seems interesting, especially considering that the key initial information she had is regarding what a woman likes. This framing—that men do the “liking,” and that women’s power is dependent on catering to those likes—continues through the rest of the episode. This value—an extremely common one in hegemonic gender roles, with women as desirable and passive, and men as desiring and active—is strong enough that the show upholds it at the cost of Irene, and the original ending: rather than sailing triumphantly into the sunset, Sherlock finally outwits her. The way he does this is particularly chilling, when keeping in mind this restrictive structure: he uses Irene’s desire for him against her, cracking the code on her conveniently pun-supportive phone. The debate of whether it’s possible to have a gay woman suddenly fall in love with a man as a representation of fluid sexuality rather than erasive or dismissive in popular media today aside—particularly in light of Moffat’s history of queer baiting and using queer identities specifically as humor in his writing of Doctor Who (Cate)—this is a problematic scene. It’s a fairly explicit punishment for stepping out of her role as desired, and into desirer, and thus an upholding of gender hegemony.

Doyle’s presentation of an unusually powerful woman as an exception to a group of relatively passive females may not have done much from a feminist perspective, but Irene’s role as Sherlock’s near-equal—certainly a great deal closer than Watson, at least—actually works to undermine the gender hegemony that places solely men in positions of power. The message is that “women” as a whole may not be a particularly worthwhile group, but that individual women can rise above them and make an impression. Moffat’s rewrite, on the other hand, has a rather different message: women who try to rise above society’s expectations get punished.

  Works Cited

Cate. "Bisexuality in Doctor Who and the Queerbaiting Antics of Stephen Moffat." Web log post. Orbiting a Supernova. Tumblr, June 2012. Web. Sept. 2012. <http://orbitingasupernova.tumblr.com/post/23649154029/bisexuality-in-doctor-who-and-the-queerbaiting-antics>.

Conley, Dalton. You May Ask Yourself: An Introduction to Thinking like a Sociologist. New York: W.W. Norton &, 2011. Print.

Doyle, Arthur Conan. A Scandal in Bohemia. Harlow, Essex, Eng.: Pearson Education, 1999. Electronic.

Moffat, Stephen. "A Scandal in Belgravia." Sherlock. BBC. London, England, 1 Jan. 2012. Netflix.com. Netflix. Web. June 2012.

After a moment she turns a page of her book, a muscle in her arm near the shoulder jumping. “I don’t care what you think about her,” and her voice is all wrong, sharp when it should be blank and ugly where it should be sharp, clean as her father’s knives, and she isn’t done and she won’t look at him. “I don’t care, Tommy, because she is my girlfriend, and as you are neither her partner nor mine, it is precisely none of your business.”

It is all wrong, and Tommy has to fight the urge to simply step back and let Siobhan take care of it, because that is what she does, she takes care of things, and he takes care of her, and. “Yes I am.”

She tears a page out of her book, slow and precise, and the noise is loud and overwhelming. For a moment while it surrounds him, Tommy wonders if this is how it always is for her, and for Moriarty, this terrible pull of almost too much, of not knowing what too much will be, and he is blind with the clarity of complete sensation.

Then the page is out, and she’s stroking her fingers over the rough edge, slow and precise.

“Oh? Do you and Amy have something to tell me?” Her voice is mocking in a way it never is with Tommy—she has been cruel to him, made him cry a few times as children, has called him thick and hopeless and been harsh and scornful and dismissive and a thousand other things he thinks would be terrible, from anyone else, but she has never mocked him. She won’t look at him.

“No! No, god. I—you are. I’m your partner, Siobhan.”

“No, you’re not.”

“Yes I am,” he says, furious in a way that feels familiar and ancient, the years before Siobhan and feeling constantly cheated and not quite there and not good enough and not useful or worthwhile or anything, a choked-off kind of boredom that made him lash out—but one that kept him strong. Stronger than anyone in the class, and he was larger, too, and he had fewer and fewer people to lash out at until there was no one left who didn’t flinch away, no one who rose to him, and he pushed it down and pushed it down and could feel it building under his teeth,  the line of his gums.

Then Siobhan came, and watched him, and he ignored her—because she was a year and two feet below him, because he wanted someone who could push back—and then she showed up on his doorstep. And for almost a full week he thought that here, finally, was someone who would rise to him, would push back—and then she took him into the woods and broke two of his fingers and he tore her shirt and she pushed him into the dirt and knelt on his throat and he realized. And he rose.

They told his parents that she had fallen out of a tree and he had broken the fingers trying to catch her, and his mother clucked and his father swore again that he would take the dead branches down. They told her parents the same thing, and her father rolled his eyes and her mother spent twenty minutes lecturing them on bone structure and the differences between torsion and shock breaks.  Mr. Moran resplinted his fingers and told him he expected a better story next time, and Tommy went home.

“I’m your partner,” he says again, voice too loud, and she slams the book shut.

“No,” she says, staring at the wall in front of her desk, “You are not, Tommy.”

The hum of schoolyard dirt in his ears. Rise. “Yes I am. I’m your partner, yours—Mr. Moran—“

“Shut up,” she says, her voice echoing oddly and after a moment he realizes it is because he thought it was a shout, thought it would move through the small room like one and instead it falls, too quiet. “Just shut up, Tommy, for once, about my father—you’re not him, stop trying to be him, it’s stupid and it’s pathetic and I am not my mother.”

Her shoulders are bowed out and back so hard that she is taking gasping breaths, and Tommy rocks in the doorway, trying to hear her, trying to move closer and smooth hands over her bones and trying to move away and leave, rise, leave so he can unhear and not know these things.

“I am not my mother,” she repeats, and laughs, and it runs all wrong over Tommy’s skin. “I’m not a Moriarty, Tommy, do you hear me?” She stands up, and the chair almost tips over before she catches it, and then she is moving around the room, almost cleaning, like an imitated behavior—picking things up and moving them somewhere else, looping back to put them in a third one, and Tommy feels the tendons in his palms pop and pull. She won’t look at him.

“I don’t care what you think, and I am not a Moriarty,” her voice like something moving very quickly when you are too far away to see the motion. “Do you know why, Tommy?”

“Why?” he says, dreading the answer, knowing he does not have a choice, that he will rise to the question every time.

She spins towards him, arms held away from her body, legs slightly spread, balancing on the balls of her toes. “Because,” she says, and meets his eyes, and he has never been able to read anyone’s eyes, most of all hers, because they are just eyes and they are dark and the pupils are too wide and that is all he knows from them but he knows they are wrong, and she is not quite laughing anymore but her throat is working as though she is, “I love her, Tommy.”

He can feel himself flush, for no reason, can feel all the blood leave his face and then twist back in, raw and ugly under his skin.

“Remember, Tommy,” she says, and she is moving like Moriarty now, a slow twisting prowl that he has never found unsettling in her skin before, “Moriartys don’t fall in love,” and she speaks like Moriarty, a perfect echo of his mocking, “you can’t expect them to be like other people.” She doesn’t have the proper space to stalk in this room and it’s all slowed down, and she’s coming closer and closer and it is one of the only times Tommy can remember being afraid of what she was going to do. “They feel things differently,” she recites, and her voice is Seb’s now, higher, but the tone and the diction are there and Tommy can feel the blood spread through the rest of his face, “Keep an eye on her, Tommy—they can get unpredictable, sometimes. I don’t know how she’ll take to uni. Jim—well. She’s a Moriarty, Tommy. Keep her safe.”

She’s close enough that he can smell her familiar scent, jasmine and the dark heaviness that always floats around Moriarty, and when she draws a breath her skin brushes against his shirt. It’s no closer than they’ve been before; less close, even, because they have been skin-to-skin or skin-to-shirt often enough, but it is a terrible thing now, a threat and a promise and he does not know which is worse. She leans up against him and laughs, low, into his ear, back in Jim’s skin, and runs her hand down his chest. He takes a breath to speak—rise—and then:

“I’m not a Moriarty,” she says, and slips into Sebastian’s almost-drawl,“Thomas Moran,” and presses her cold lips against his cheek.

His back is already at the door and he scrambles for the handle without thinking about it, without thinking of the fact that he has never wanted to flee from her before and what that means, that it is now, and as he grasps the handle she pulls back, a quick toss of her head that sends black hair into his eyes and mouth and leaves a scent behind thick on his tongue as she says, “She’s coming over tonight. Go away, Tommy, and don’t come back at least until tomorrow morning. Go stay with Derek, or Ken, or whoever it is this week—I don’t care. Just get out.”

She isn’t looking at him, again, but Tommy finds he does not care.

“Siobhan,” and he does not have anything else to say but it does not matter.

“Chevonne,” she says, stone-calm. “That’s how Amy pronounces it.”

“Siobhán,” he says, the pronunciation thick and awkward on his tongue. She shuts the door on him and he stares at it, thinking, rise.

The word follows him, down the hall and across campus to Kyle’s room, is on the tip of his tongue the whole night, so that he has to bite it back when he comes, jerks awake at three from a half-doze, the taste of the harsh sibilant on his lips, Kyle’s face pressed into the skin of his shoulder. It must have been aloud, because Kyle is already half-awake, complacent and cranky and for a moment Tommy thinks he might be able to forget it, just roll Kyle over and—rise.

He gives up. There is nothing she can do to him, realistically, that she hasn’t done before, no matter how angry she is, and when he tries to gently extricate himself Kyle wakes up more completely and says “What—oh. Tell her hello for me.”

“I will,” Tommy lies, and the word is pounding in his head, now, the pressure of a headache without the pain, keeping rhythm with his footsteps across campus and louder in the too-silent hall. Rise. Rise. Rise, and he slams open the door, his pulse pounding in his ears.

          Sebastian’s first thought when he hears the bell over the door jingle gently is, damn, thought that bastard wouldn’t be in for at least an hour. It’s not official, but after the first couple of frantic months, Sherlock had mostly taken the hint, and Sebastian is left alone in his bakery from four to six every morning.

            But after the bell there are no loud footsteps, no sounds of chair being slammed around or the register banging open and shut, and Sebastian has just written it off to his imagination—the three am alarm feels normal now but it will never be natural—when he feels a hand light on the back  of his neck.

            He spins around, reflexes a bit slowed since he left the army but still solid, and there is a frantic moment of tussling before he finds himself with his hands full of a small dark man—immobilized, yes, his arm pinned at a bad angle behind his back, short, and raised onto his toes by Sebastian’s grip; but he looks unruffled and Sebastian is somehow pinned against the counter, dough breathing warm at his back.

            “We don’t open for another three hours,” Sebastian says, because if the man was here to rob the place he’d probably have stayed upstairs, and if he was here to buy anything he’d probably still be upstairs, but, well.

            The small man just smiles brightly at him and writhes in a highly inappropriate way that leaves Sebastian grasping air. Instead, he watches as the man prowls around the kitchen.

            “I’m surprised you’re bothering to open at all, with this kind of product.”

            Sebastian bristles, lays a flour-encrusted hand protectively over the brioche he’s just started.

            “Sorry?”

            “It is, isn’t it,” says the man, and looks up. “Oh, not your work, darling, don’t give me that look. I’m talking about your material. You’re wasted on this swill.” He reaches out and scoops up a handful of the best white flour they stock, and Sebastian cringes.

            “There are regulations, you know—“

            “Trust me, anything on my hands can only improve the quality. Who’s your supplier?”

            “None of your business,” Sebastian says, wary.

            Jim makes an exasperated noise. “I know it’s terribly early but try to keep up. This is exactly my business. Supply and demand, darling, it’s what I do.” He takes a few steps closer, and Sebastian shifts to block the dough—just in case—which unfortunately puts his back against the counter again. So he has nowhere left to go when the man leans up to whisper into his ear, body pressed almost full length against Sebastian, “So give me a call, darling, with any demands you might have.”

            He slips away and up the stairs, leaving behind a rich scent of clean cotton, and, standing upright in the dough, a business card. Just a number, and a word: Supply.

Sebastian wakes, sweating, from a dream about blood and Jim’s eyes and hands and mouth, all three dark and hot on his skin. It’s far enough along in the year that he is barely sweating, and he takes a moment to be grateful that the sheets aren’t drenched and Johnny won’t ask questions—or that Johnny won’t pointedly not ask questions. Worse, the fucker.

                But the sheets are dry enough and Johnny is asleep, warm and heavy against Sebastian’s side, one leg just barely over his, calf to calf. He’s breathing a little heavy, thick; when he’s pretending to be asleep he breathes more quietly. He murmurs in his sleep, sometimes, when Sebastian wakes up from a nightmare—soothing things, meaningless, so automatic that Seb is not sure he knows he does it. But they help, in a stupid way that Sebastian will not ever admit in the light. Some of it’s pure comfort, like Johnny’s body against his, mumbles of shh, you’re alright, Sebastian, I’ve got you—and some of it is the distraction of irritation, that the bastard actually thinks he can make it alright by saying it. Arsehole. Like no one had ever thought to just say “it’s alright” and that could suddenly fix it.

                Johnny doesn’t have nightmares, not anymore. The first few months he would wake Seb up, sometimes, with the screaming—once Seb woke up with John’s hands at his throat and it was a long moment before either of them knew what was happening. But John sees Ella every week, now, and he has not woken screaming in months.

                Sebastian still has nightmares. Still wakes up not knowing where he is, arching off the bed in pain, sweat dripping—sometimes he even remembers them, shattered bits of things he may or may not have lived through, dust in his mouth and sand gritty in his wounds, the sound of a growl in darkness and a figure in a suit sliding a knife slowly under his skin.

                Sebastian has had nightmares for years and, if he thinks about it, he supposes he always will. He doesn’t mind, though he could do without Johnny’s daylight pity.

                This was not a nightmare. He does not wake up from nightmares aching, already mostly hard, his mouth dry and his throat tight and desperate. This is another kind of dream entirely; one he has—often enough, and he wakes up to Johnny’s smirk and a wet patch. Sometimes he wakes up to Johnny heavy-eyed and still smirking, the bastard, and then the sheets—well.

He’s had this kind of dream before. But usually it’s about no one in particular, really; scraps of things that mostly haven’t happened, big-titted models from telly ads and men he saw at the market and people he half-remembers from Afghanistan. John’s there, often enough, fragments of him that blur into waking without Seb ever really knowing when the switch is made.

Not Jim, though. Sebastian does not have this kind of dream about Jim, does not remember this kind of thing. Jim drowned the sex out with violence, and that is how Seb remembers it, sucking Moriarty off with his mouth full of copper and salt, dripping down his throat. He doesn’t remember very often the other kind of sex, after, when Sebastian was trembling and spent in almost every way, and Jim was limp and sated, warmer even than Johnny against him, crooning in his ear, Good boy, Sebby, Tiger, gentler and more dangerous and complete than Johnny ever is, his hand gentle and teeth not quite sharp against—

This isn’t helping. Sebastian is still hard, harder, and he shifts his hips, pushes up against blankets. John’s leg shifts against his, and he goes still, waits for Johnny’s breath to go slow again before he slides his body out, a few careful inches away from him. John’s face twitches, not quite disgruntled or confused, and his right hand clenches familiarly before releasing.

Sebastian pushes his hand under the blanket, and wonders if he should feel guilty. Maybe, he thinks, palming himself through his pants, maybe this is a kind of betrayal—not because he is thinking of another man with Johnny sleep-innocent beside him, but because he is thinking of Jim. Jim, who wanted John on a leash, who wanted John broken and weeping and helpless in ways Sebastian cannot quite bring himself to want of anyone. Jim who barely knew John’s name, who only wanted him because fucking Sherlock did.

Sebastian had not cared, then. He wouldn’t say he cared now—not about John, not like that, something stupid and pointless; but he cared what happened, now. He’s heard the noises Johnny makes when he’s practically helpless, the thready breathless beg of him, body arching.

Seb wanted what Jim wanted, two years ago. Wanted it automatically in a way that had nothing to do with desire, everything to do with loyalty and faith and dependence.  

Now Seb wants—he still wants it now. He still wants Johnny’s voice hoarse with pain, unmade and weeping, desperate and pleading and—fuck. He slides his hand inside his boxers, biting the inside of his mouth, and his hand is too dry, rough, and it’s chafing and he remembers—

Jim taking him like this, dry, no slide to his cock as he pushed into Sebastian’s arse and it must have hurt him, too, but he laughed. Seb grunted instead of screaming and Jim giggled, slapped the area of Seb’s thigh right below the rope, and it tingled more than it should have, blood fighting through. “Going to bleed for me, Tiger? Slick me up with your blood to make it easier, make it hurt less?” After Seb comes Jim leaves him tied there, muscles cramping. When he finally cuts the ropes, Seb cannot twist away from the knife.

John’s hands shaking slightly in a way neither of them will mention, later, and his finger is slick and sticky and careful, doctor precise and knowledgeable. He’s good at this in a way that would say practice if it weren’t for med school, and Sebastian makes a startled noise as John brushes his prostate, gently, rhythmically.  “Good?” John asks, a little cocky and a little scared, like he knows the answer but he has to hear it to be sure. “Yeah,” Sebastian replies, breathless, and it’s not nearly fucking enough.

And Johnny—Johnny who is so careful with Sebastian, so sensitive every time, still, who looked startled and reproachful when Sebastian tried to use spit instead of lube. “Don’t be an idiot, Sebastian—that’s dangerous. You have to be careful with—this kind of thing.” He cannot say fuck or bugger or even arse, not even when it’s happening, not even when Sebastian is knuckle-deep in him and twisting his finger, and he’s pushing up at Seb’s throat, his hands in Seb’s hair—but carefully, so carefully, never too far or too hard, as though John is keeping a count of exactly when Sebastian needs to breathe—and his cock is twitching against Seb’s tongue and he is making those high pitched almost-noises. Not even then. And Sebastian thinks of Johnny under him—tries to think of Johnny wanting it, wanton and desperate, begging for Seb’s cock in him, gagging for it—but all the begging Seb’s ever heard has been stop and don’t, and all he can hear is John saying No, please, god—Sebastian, don’t, I can’t—please, please, oh god, please don’t do this and he can see it, what it would look like, John’s hands straining and purple with blood against the rope, the bitten look of his lips, eyes made wide with fear and not-quite tears, neck straining as he tries to turn his head far enough to see Seb. The solid feel of his ribs under Sebastian’s fist, against his boot. Please, I’ll—I’ll suck you off, Sebastian, please, let—my mouth, please, not—not that. The push of his head against Seb’s hand, hands behind his back, fingers clenching and useless, on his knees as Sebastian holds his neck and pushes his head against the ground, smearing blood and spit on the wooden floor. The helpless movement of his hips trying to cover himself, protect himself. The gasp that is almost but not quite all pain, and, oh but Seb wants that last little piece, the piece of John that will arch and press back and moan.

Because he doesn't just want to hurt Johnny. That's easy, that's nothing he has to work to get, it's a knife or a blow and it's not something he craves. It's not just pain that makes his bones itch, makes his palm burn, pushes against his eyes.

He doesn't want Johnny hurt. He wants him broken. He wants to unmake John, peel him open and see what's inside. Sometimes he almost wants it literally, wants to see what John looks like under his skin. Wants to lick the blood off raw flesh, watch it seep out, press his body against it. Feel it run down him, hotter than his own. His cock is slick with precome, now, and his hand slides easily—still slow, so he won’t shake the bed.

He didn't know he wanted these things, with Jim; he thought they just happened and he bore them. But now it's gone and he wants it. He wants the sharp crack of small bones breaking under his heel, the ripe feel of a lip splitting against his knuckles, white flashing smeared and bloody. He wants to dig things out and push them in and he wants the moment when they stop screaming, the moment where they stop even trying.

He wants to feel John give up. He wants John limp under him. He wants Johnny to mumble his name, slur it out of a bloody mouth, hoarse from screaming, eyes dazed and heavy-lidded. It’s sweet, like that, Sebastian knows—sweet as spun sugar, Jim used to say, watching Seb work himself into a target. Push a man far enough and he stops thinking—stops being able to think. He’s just nerve endings and reactions, then, and Seb learned how to use that from the best. Knows how to fuck a man so that it hurts and burns—and knows how to fuck a man so it doesn’t, so he sees stars, so he comes under Sebastian, every nerve pulled tight and singing. And he could make Johnny sing. He could wring every scrap of sound out of the smaller man—so that when he came it would be silent, arching and thrashing against Sebastian the way he does not quite now. And he could keep going—he could fuck him raw, blood pulsing right under his skin. 

John might come again, from that. When he’s done begging, flinching away, Seb could bring him off a second time, body already sweat-soaked (sweat mixing with blood, salt stinging in bites and scrapes and fuck), face twisting and mouth moving silently, and if John was helpless before it would be nothing to this, he’d be a mewling feeble mess and Seb would have him and—and—fuck.

John stirs as Sebastian comes, rolls closer and drapes an arm over Seb’s stomach. “Wet,” he mumbles, complaining, and then, teasing and sleepy, “Good dream?”