Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/
works/933339.
  Rating:
      Explicit
  Archive Warning:
      Underage
  Category:
      M/M
  Fandom:
      Sherlock_(TV)
  Relationship:
      Sherlock_Holmes/John_Watson
  Character:
      Sherlock_Holmes, John_Watson, Mycroft_Holmes, Mummy_(Sherlock)
  Additional Tags:
      Teenlock, Alternate_Universe_-_Boarding_School, Alpha/Beta/Omega
      Dynamics, Omega_Verse, Mating_Cycles/In_Heat, Omega_John, Anal_Sex, WIP
  Stats:
      Published: 2013-08-19 Chapters: 2/4 Words: 7288
****** Heat Transfer ******
by orithea
Summary
     When Sherlock Holmes is ten years old his brother goes into his first
     heat as an omega. Sherlock is determined that he'll do whatever he
     can to not have the same happen to him.
     Until John Watson.
Notes
     When this story takes a turn for the explicit, Sherlock and John are
     both 17 years old, hence the underage warning.
     Thanks to wiggleofjudas for the beta, and daleked for the
     encouragement!
***** Chapter 1 *****
It is the middle of the night when the noises start in Mycroft’s bedroom.
They’ve adjoining rooms, naturally, with their headboards both pushed against
the shared wall. It was a necessary measure when Sherlock was a child with a
rather vivid imagination, for whom every creak and groan of the Holmes manor’s
settling floorboards was a potential threat. Mycroft taught him the tap code
(“It’s been used since Ancient Greece,” Mycroft told him loftily. “And by
pirates?” “Most pirates were illiterate, so I hardly think—” Mycroft stopped,
seeing Sherlock’s glare, and sighed heavily. “Fine, then—yes. Used by pirates
as well.”) Three quick taps, a short pause, four more taps against the wall by
Sherlock’s head, another pause—slightly longer this time, then one tap followed
by three more: “OK”—question implied. Always the same series of taps and pauses
in response, spelling out “YES”, then, rather more firmly “GN”. The tap code
wasn’t entirely necessary—Sherlock could certainly hear his brother biting out
“good night, Sherlock” after being disturbed one too many times during the
night—but it became something of a ritual between them, one that still occurs
now that they’re older (Sherlock is a very mature ten year old who no longer
believes that there are things roaming the halls at night, thank you) but with
far less frequency.
The taps go unanswered tonight, and Sherlock could swear that Mycroft is
groaning, except... it doesn’t really sound anything like him at all, though
logic says that it must be. It sounds inhuman, like an animal in pain.
“Mycroft?”
No answer. Sherlock grabs the torch that he keeps tucked into his bedside
table, switches it on, and pads cautiously from his bedroom into the hallway;
he hesitates just a moment outside of Mycroft’s door, but when he hears that
sound again, he musters up his considerable courage and pushes the door open
and sweeps the torch light in an arc across the bedroom, searching.
Mycroft is lying in bed, where he should be, but it’s immediately obvious that
all is not well. The duvet and sheets have been kicked aside and are hanging
down  to the floor, and Mycroft is curled tightly into himself, knees clutched
against his chest. He’s naked—Sherlock noticed the exposure of pale, freckled
limbs as the light passed quickly over his brother to settle on his face, which
is set in a grimace, eyes screwed up and jaw clenched tight. It is obvious that
the sound—now a low, pained whine—is coming from Mycroft.
“Are you ill?” Sherlock asks, torn somewhere between curiosity and concern.
Mycroft shakes his head furiously. “I don’t—” he begins, and is interrupted by
a gasp.
Sherlock steps closer to the bed. “What’s wrong?”
“I need you to go get Mummy.”
“But why, what is—”
“Sherlock!” Mycroft snaps. “Now!”
Mycroft is never short with him. Sherlock would be hurt, go off and have
himself a sulk, if it weren’t obvious from the way that Mycroft shakes, from
the way that he sounds—nothing like his usual controlled self—that something is
truly wrong. He scurries down the hall, wakes Mummy, and all but drags him back
to Mycroft’s bedroom. Mummy flicks on the light, takes one look at Mycroft, and
his face melts with concern.
“Sherlock, love, I need some time with Mycroft alone. Just for a while.”
“Is he okay?”
“He will be.”
---
It’s hours later—the sun is up, and Sherlock’s had a few fitful hours of
sleep—before Mummy slips into his bedroom and into the bed beside him. Sherlock
wastes no time in letting his head fall into Mummy’s lap, and he is stroking
curls away from Sherlock’s face within moments.
“What was wrong with Mycroft?” Sherlock asks through a yawn.
“You understand what presenting is?”
Sherlock nods—they’ve spoken about it at school, to prepare the children for
its inevitability. Some alphas and omegas present as young as twelve years, and
it’s typically considered better for everyone if they’re aware of the impending
signs. “No one said that it was painful.”
“It isn’t painful for everyone. It is, unfortunately, for omegas.”
“Mycroft is an omega, then.” Sherlock frowns. The Holmes family did tend
towards producing omega males, or so he’d been told. Still, he knew that
Mycroft had hoped otherwise.
“He is, love.”
“And I probably will be as well?”
Mummy’s hand pauses in stroking his hair, and he sighs heavily. “There’s no way
to be certain, but it does seem likely. But Sherlock, I promise that it’s not
as terrible as you might think.”
---
Sherlock’s not blind. He’s young; he may not understand why people look at
Mycroft the way that they do (why anyone would want to be bothered with all of
the unpleasant business of heats and breeding the way the textbooks describe
it, Sherlock can’t imagine), but he observes. Sees the stares that increase
exponentially after it’s revealed that Mycroft is an omega—eyes following him
everywhere that they go together, so that suddenly Sherlock is no longer the
Holmes child that grabs everyone’s attention. Sees the way they lean in closer
to him, ostensibly attempting to catch a deeper inhalation of Mycroft’s matured
scent (he smells the same as always to Sherlock—whether that’s due to his own
immaturity or the fact that omegas never smell particularly strongly to each
other, Sherlock does not wish to dwell upon). Sees the way that Mycroft shies
away from the attention.
It’s Mycroft’s actions that weigh with Sherlock the most. In the wake of his
first heat he’s done everything that he can to deflect this newfound interest.
He takes scissors to his hair one evening, to Mummy’s horror, and never lets it
grow long enough to curl again. He trades jeans and jumpers for suits worn like
armor, even whilst finishing his studies at home with only tutors and family
for company, commanding to be taken seriously. The way he loses
weight—attributed to a late growth spurt by their parents, but Sherlock always
has noticed more than they do—and takes care to carry himself carefully,
poised, slimmed hips never swaying the way everyone says an omega’s ought.
“They called me such a pretty omega,” Sherlock heard Mycroft shout the evening
that he cut his hair, and Sherlock fingered the hair curling over his own ears
where Mycroft’s no longer did. After these careful affectations, the catcalls
become rarer and rarer.
---
Sherlock fights tooth and nail with Mummy and Father to be sent away to school.
Reminds them that Mycroft presented relatively late, so he is likely to do the
same; that boarding schools are used to dealing with their teenaged charges and
all that their hormones entailed; that the local teachers and tutors are,
frankly, rather tired of him already; that it would be an utter waste not to
send him somewhere that will make the most of his mind before it’s all derailed
by biology. The last argument is perhaps the one that won over Mummy in the
end.
The truth of the matter is that it would be next to impossible to hide his real
plan if he remained at home. Too many keen noses and watchful eyes trained on
him to miss the signs. He’ll need to be somewhere with more freedom—and he’ll
need Mycroft’s help.
“I know about your suppressants,” Sherlock says. It didn’t take a genius to
figure that one out. Mycroft is twenty years old, and after three years as an
omega he remains unbonded and alone. He tells their parents that he’s being
courted, but after a week of staying with him in his London flat, Sherlock can
find no evidence to support that. Only one logical conclusion.
Mycroft narrows his eyes, sets aside the notebook he was writing in in order to
give Sherlock his attention. “Not that it’s any of your business, but I did
think that you might.”
“I won’t tell anyone.”
“And what do you want from me in return?”
“A supply.” Hormonal suppressants are difficult enough for an unbonded adult
omega to obtain. For a thirteen year old who has yet to present, it’s nigh
impossible.
Mycroft’s face twists into a grimace. “Sherlock, you can’t possibly expect to
suppress yourself from ever presenting.”
“Why not? Just because no one’s done it?”
“Because you don’t even know if you’ll be an omega, for one, and because
there’s no telling what it might do to your body. The hormones could easily
have the opposite effect and shock your system. Cause a heat even earlier than
it may have occurred naturally. If you are not an omega—” Mycroft shrugs
helplessly. “Who even knows?”
“Mycroft,” Sherlock says his brother’s name with deadly seriousness, “if you
had thought that you could possibly stop everything, all of this messy
business, before it ever happened to you, wouldn’t you have taken the chance?”
Mycroft’s face hardens and Sherlock knows that he’s won; any further objections
will simply be attempts to absolve himself from guilt. “If it does something to
harm you—”
“It will be my own fault, not yours. Besides, what’s the worst that could
possibly happen—either it speeds the process along, or it breaks something that
I don’t want anyway.” When Mycroft does not respond, Sherlock presses further.
“You know that I need to be somewhere else. Without you there I don’t have
anyone; they all hate me.” In truth, Sherlock doesn’t care at all about that,
but he knows that Mycroft does on his behalf.
“Don’t think that I can’t recognise when I’m being manipulated,” Mycroft says
coolly. “But I’ll do it. On the condition that you keep me informed.”
Sherlock can’t suppress a sneer.
“I’ll stop sending them if you don’t.”
“Blackmail? I would have thought that you were above that.”
“I will be when you are,” Mycroft says, eyebrow raised in challenge.
They stare at each other for a tense moment, but Sherlock is, for once, not
fully committed to antagonizing his brother and breaks into a sincere grin. “I
learned it from you.”
“Amongst other things that I sometimes regret having taught you,” Mycroft
teases.
And, well, despite all insistence to the contrary Sherlock does care about
Mycroft a great deal, misses how close they used to be before... before. A
sudden surge of fierce protectiveness makes him ask, “Was it really that bad?”
Having heats?”
“It’s enough that I’m willing to do this for you.”
Sherlock wants to ask more, ask what specifically made them unbearable, why
Mycroft—always more conventional and worried about fitting in in ways that
Sherlock simply can’t bring himself to care about—would do something so frowned
upon, but Mycroft has picked up his notebook and pen again and Sherlock knows
that’s the end of this conversation.
It must be terrible, and that knowledge only strengthens Sherlock’s resolve to
never experience it himself.
---
Boarding school isn’t quite everything that Sherlock hoped it would be. It
turns out that other people are mostly the same everywhere: boring, tedious,
criminally stupid, and too conventional to appreciate his particular intellect.
He spends two years feeling increasingly alone, but not bothered enough by it
to change his ways.
Until John Watson.
Sherlock leans across the aisle on the first day of their shared Chemistry
class, where John’s sat beside him for half an hour and spoken all of twice.
It’s enough to make a deduction, and the fact that Sherlock’s caught the other
boy glancing over at him several times compels him to share it. “Afghanistan or
Iraq?” he asks, just loud enough to get his attention.
“What?” John says, startled and loud enough that the professor sends a sharp
look in his direction that makes John sink down in his chair until he turns his
back again.
Sherlock, who had immediately snapped back into place at his own desk after
asking the first time, leans over again. “Your father—Afghanistan or Iraq?”
John shoots a surreptitious glance towards the front of the room before leaning
towards Sherlock. “Afghanistan. How did you know?”
“Your accent is a muddle, which says you’ve frequently moved from area to area.
Your haircut and posture, combined with your obsessively neat dress—which could
be chalked up to it being your first day here, but point towards something else
when considering the whole package of your appearance—suggest a military
upbringing. You’ve only just started here this year, which means that something
has happened to necessitate a change in schools. Those facts together, it’s
likely that your father deployed; Afghanistan and Iraq were the most likely
options.”
Sherlock smirks when he sees John look down at himself and compare his
clothes—neatly pressed shirt tucked into his pants, tie knotted with care and
pulled snug, jacket mostly buttoned—with those of the other boys, who’ve had
two years to grow tired of uniforms and become increasingly rumpled and as far
off regulation as they can be without receiving demerits. Sherlock himself
didn’t bother with his school tie at all today.
Experience says that will be the end of the conversation. John surprises him by
defying expectations. “That’s amazing,” Johns says, and he actually sounds as
though he means it.
“Watson!” the professor barks out. “Something you need to share with the
class?”
“No, sir,” John mumbles, and keeps his face firmly trained on his notebook for
the remainder of the class period.
So begins a long tradition of Sherlock causing trouble and John being caught
for it.
---
Three hours after meeting each other, John’s gone and punched someone who
walked by and called Sherlock a freak whilst they ate lunch together, and
Sherlock knows they’ve just become friends. He brings John an ice pack for his
knuckles when he’s let out of detention that evening, and they stay up talking
together most of the night, so that John oversleeps and is nearly late for his
first class the next morning.
They make a striking pair, Sherlock knows. He’s all long, gangly limbs; pale
skin and dark curls he can’t be bothered to do much with. When they met, he and
John were nearly the same height, but Sherlock gets taller whilst John stays
the same. Well, not exactly the same—John may be small, but rugby and football
give him plenty of compact muscle (and leave him more tanned and sun lighten
the dark blond of his hair). People notice them together.
Their friendship is a funny thing, something unusual that Sherlock feels the
need to push the boundaries of, run experiments on to see what makes it tick
and how far he can go. John is remarkably patient with everything that Sherlock
throws his way, including sneaking into John’s bedroom and waking him at three
in the morning to make him join in a card game with a group of boys that
Sherlock suspects are stealing from Mrs Hudson, the housemistress of the girls’
dormitory; smoking cigarettes whilst hanging partially out of John’s bedroom
window; using John’s bed when he finally decides to give into the all too human
need for sleep, whether John happens to be occupying it at the time or not; and
other general violations of John’s personal space. Not that John is a complete
pushover; he has a spectacular temper when it’s been set off, and Sherlock is
very slow to learn what it actually takes to provoke him.
Usually—usually—an explanation is enough to garner forgiveness, but the few
occasions when John’s effectively locked him out of the room with a chair
wedged under the door handle, Sherlock stands in the hallway and plays his
violin until John relents and lets him into the room, muttering about everyone
in the bloody building getting the wrong idea.
(Is it the wrong idea? Sherlock never asks.)
They mostly don’t talk about gender—unusual when it’s sometimes all their peers
seem capable of talking about, and every time someone presents it’s gossip for
weeks. They get the basics out of the way early on, because the first time John
hears about a boy going into heat he’s a strange mix of curious and horrified,
and Sherlock realises that he’s not used to the concepts at all.
“Both of your parents are betas? God, I thought betas were lucky to have one
child, let alone two.”
“Oi, don’t let my sister hear you—she’s punched people for less.”
Sherlock snorts. He’s never met Harry Watson, but he’s heard enough stories
about her crusade for beta equality (a response to all the rudeness and
outright hatred she experiences as a female beta in a relationship with a
female omega) to believe it. “That’s what they always tell us, though. That
alphas and omegas have the best hope for producing children, whilst betas seem
to simply stumble into reproduction.”
“You lot have a really twisted idea of what betas are like, you know. Not
everything in the world revolves around alphas, omegas, and... heats.” John
pulls a face of distaste. “We’re actually the majority of the population, these
days. Maybe not in the circles you’re used to,”—in this school is implicit in
his tone—“but in most of the world.”
We. John assumes he’ll be a beta like his parents, his sister, the majority of
his family for generations. He doesn’t live with the threat of presenting and
having his body rebel against him completely hanging over his head, not like
Sherlock. For that reason, Sherlock doesn’t confide in him about the
suppressants—he has the feeling that John, who thinks he takes poor enough care
of himself as it is, wouldn’t quite understand the dread that Sherlock feels at
the thought. John seems rather indifferent to the gender of others, anyway.
Sherlock’s seen him chat up people all across the spectrum: mostly beta
females, though there was Victor Trevor, whom John had to be well aware was
omega, and even Sarah Sawyer once. (“She’s an alpha,” Sherlock told him,
because she had presented before John came to school and Sherlock didn’t always
trust him to figure these things out for himself. “I know—i—it’s not like that,
I mean,” John stammered, and Sherlock could have sworn that he was blushing.)
If Sherlock sometimes stops to consider that if he had to choose someone for
all of this messy biological business it would be John—John who actually values
Sherlock’s ability to observe, who accepts his flaws with minimal complaint,
who would never force him to become some sort of brood omega—he doesn’t dwell
on it. It’s a moot point. He’ll continue with his suppressants, because that’s
worked for Mycroft, and John can take care of all those... other things with
someone else.
Sherlock doesn’t think of how much imagining John doing those things with
someone else twists him up inside.
 
***** Chapter 2 *****
The first indication that something is wrong is when John returns from rugby
practice, flops down onto his bed, then immediately rolls over to his side to
face Sherlock, who sits on his floor attempting to study for A-levels (a
process that mostly involves making faces at the textbook for being full of
such unnecessary information). “Biscuits,” John demands.
“Which ones?” Sherlock asks, feeling blindly for the desk drawer.
“The chocolate ones.”
“Think I ate those...”
“Oh, you complete wanker. Fine. What’ve we got?”
Sherlock finds a pack of HobNobs that have been languishing away for ages
because Mrs. Hudson gifted them to Sherlock, and neither of the boys are
particularly fond of them. Not that you’d know it to look at John, who tears
into the package as soon as Sherlock tosses it into his hands and eats like he
hasn’t in days.
“Rough practice?” Sherlock deadpans.
“You’ve no idea,” John says around a mouthful. “The lads were piling on me like
you wouldn’t believe—damned near crushed me more than once. Why d’you ask?”
“Because you seem to have worked up an appetite, and you reek.” Sherlock can
smell him across the room. Not an unpleasant smell, exactly, but far stronger
than typical for John.
“Do I?” John pauses his eating, ducks his head down to sniff himself, then
shrugs. “I took a shower before I came back.”
Obviously true; his hair is still damp. Strange, then. Sherlock shrugs it off.
John wads up the now-empty packaging and lobs it towards the trash. “Christ,
I’m still starving. Dinner early tonight?”
Sherlock considers. He’s not particularly hungry, but he’s also not interested
in sitting here on the razor’s edge of boredom either. “Fine.”
John gives him a hand up and they walk to the dining hall together, where John
proceeds to eat three plates piled high with a bit of everything from tonight's
menu whilst Sherlock pokes at his pasta. He’s not entirely disinterested in the
food, but he’s far more interested in what’s happening to John at the moment.
Because Sherlock has not spent the past seven years since his older brother’s
first heat, living in fear of his own, without learning to recognise the signs
of oncoming oestrus. The slight increase in scent and ravenous appetite are
suggestive, but not certain, until—
“My skin feels like it’s on fire,” John complains once they’re back in his room
again. “I’ve never noticed the tag on this shirt before, but it’s driving me
mad.” He strips his uniform shirt off and pulls his pajama top out of the
wardrobe. It’s just a thin cotton tee shirt, worn soft from countless washings,
but John almost immediately strips it off again. “This is odd,” he says,
looking at it in confusion. “It’s like I’ve got a rash or something.”
“John.” Sherlock says his friend’s name with low gravitas that makes John look
at him with concern.
“Yeah?”
“You might want to sit down, because this is going to sound strange.”
John frowns at him, but sinks down onto the mattress. The action pulls a groan
from his lips, and then he’s on his back, stretched out on the sheets. “God,
this feels amazing.”
“Focus,” Sherlock says sharply.
John sounds distant, distracted. “What?”
Better to get it out before he’s completely incapable of paying any attention.
“You’re going into heat.”
“What?” John repeats, but he’s snapped back upright and is staring at Sherlock,
open mouthed.
“Presenting,” Sherlock clarifies. “As an omega.”
“Yeah, I fucking know what heat means, ta. But I’m not—” John lets out a
nervous laugh. “That’s impossible. I’m a beta; I’m not—”
“You are. Apparently.”
“How can you tell?”
Sherlock gives him a look that he hopes fully articulates what a stupid
question that is. “The eating—that’s your body trying to store up energy before
it properly starts. You said that they kept piling on you in the rugby scrum,
which was undoubtedly due to that smell you’re starting to put off, even if it
wasn’t quite strong enough for any of you to realise just yet. Your skin’s
becoming more sensitised; there’s no rash, but fabrics that you did find
acceptable will become increasingly grating.”
“But I haven’t—it’s not...” John flushes with embarrassment.
“The lubrication comes later. With increasingly painful contractions.”
As if to reinforce Sherlock’s words, the first pain hits John’s guts and he
falls to his back again and curls into a ball waiting for it to pass. When he
can speak again, John’s voice is small and tired. “What do I do?”
“Ah, well—” Sherlock’s knowledge didn’t quite cover this point. He knew the
options, but how to present them to his best friend, for whom the whole thing
was entirely unexpected, and have him choose was another matter. “You could do
it alone. That’s mostly a waiting game—your first heat, shouldn’t be more than
a day or two. Frustrating, but there’s no complications. Or you could,”
Sherlock’s chest feels tight and he has trouble getting out the words, “you
could spend it with someone. You’ve got plenty of beta friends. Alphas too.”
“No,” John insists. “No, I’m not getting knotted in my first bloody heat, so
that’s right out.” John sighs deeply and squeezes his eyes shut, face screwed
up in intense displeasure, and just for a moment Sherlock thinks he might begin
to cry—he’s seen John do it before, hot tears of frustration sliding down his
cheeks at his angriest. Instead, John takes another deep breath and clenches
his hands, before pounding a balled up fist against the mattress. “Fuck, I
can’t believe this is even happening at all.”
“I’m sorry,” Sherlock says, and he means it. As much as he’s never wanted this
for himself, he’d never wish it on John either, never thought it was even a
possibility that he might present omega. “There’s still the option of a beta.
I’m sure one of your rugby mates would be happy—”
John cuts him off. “I don’t want any of them to see me like this. I don’t want
anyoneto see me like this. I’m going to be vulnerable and I’ll be panting for
it, and I don’t trust anyone to see me like that and not think differently of
me.”
Sherlock nods, because that’s it, that’s it exactly. If it were him, if he were
the one going into heat, the only person he would trust in that moment would be
John.
“Except—” John sits up and reaches out to Sherlock, who’s been keeping careful
distance under the assumption that the last thing John would like right now is
to be touched, and grabs his wrist to pull him close. “There’s you. If I trust
anyone in the world, it’s you, Sherlock.”
Sherlock stares at him, speechless.
“I know it’s a lot to ask and I completely understand if you don’t want to
because we’re not... you’re not even interested in that sort of thing, but if
it’s going to be anyone, it’s you. I’ll take care of it by myself, otherwise.”
John looks up at Sherlock imploringly, still seated on the bed so that Sherlock
towers over him.
It’s not exactly true that Sherlock isn’t interested. Just that the desire to
do something messy involving genitals and mouths and feelings with anyone—with
John—is overridden by an even stronger desire to not go through the very thing
John is at the moment. But if their situations were reversed, John would take
care of him, and Sherlock knows it. There’s nothing that he wouldn’t do for
John in turn—not even this. “Okay,” Sherlock says, and John’s relief is
instant, leaving him smiling for the first time since the conversation began.
“I just need to get some things from my room.” Sherlock takes a step towards
the door.
“Wait, where—” John’s grip tightens on Sherlock’s wrist, hard enough to bruise
as he tries to prevent his friend from leaving.
“For God’s sake, I’ll be right back. We’re not doing this without supplies.”
John looks sheepish and lets go of his wrist. “Sorry. Hormones. Making me
needy, you know.”
“I know. I promise, I will come straight back. Just... try to take a nap or
something.”
“Sleep is the furthest thing from my mind right now,” John says with a wry bark
of laughter. It turns into a groan as another spasm hits him. Sherlock winces
in sympathy, but takes the opportunity of John’s distraction to slip from the
room.
---
When Sherlock returns two hours later, John is in bed, but he’s not managed to
fall asleep, as predicted. Instead he’s removed the rest of his clothing and
he’s stretched naked over the sheets. He’s on his back and his hand—his left
hand, Sherlock’s brain supplies helpfully—is between his legs. The rumpled
sheets obscure John’s fingers from view, but the wet sound that follows when he
jerks his hand away from himself as Sherlock enters the room hardly requires
Sherlock’s keen observational skills to identify.
“Sorry, it’s just—” John’s voice is low and full of shame, and he looks away
from Sherlock as he yanks the sheet over himself. “It’s started. The...
leaking.”
If it were anyone else, Sherlock would probably be disgusted. It is disgusting,
isn’t it? But it’s John, and John has a tendency to be interesting where other
people aren’t. Sherlock drops his bag by the door and takes a seat in his
customary spot on the floor by John’s bed. “Don’t be sorry. You can’t help it.”
John ignores that he’s spoken and continues to talk over him, though he does
sit up, hugging his knees to his chest, to look down at Sherlock. “Christ—you
know, Murray told me that he was with an omega girl once and that the slickness
was amazing, and I was always thought I would love to try that, but it’s an
entirely different thing when it’s happening to you and coming out of your
arse. And I’m burning up. Everything is too hot. I’d open the window, but...”
“Yes, best that you don’t,” Sherlock agrees. He can smell the scent that’s
rolling of John in waves now, rich and sweet like skin musk and spiced honey,
and not at all unappealing for all that it doesn’t drive him to pin John to the
mattress and climb inside him the way it might do for any alpha who caught a
whiff of it right now.
“The worst thing is that I’d probably welcome whatever happened,” John mutters.
“Of course you would,” Sherlock says. “It’s biology. We’re designed that way.
But you don’t have to worry about it.” He motions towards the bag that he
brought back from his room. “Toys. They’re my brother’s,” Sherlock explains.
“He gave them to me in case—” In case his experiment in forever rejecting the
possibility of being an omega happened to fail, which is not something that he
wants to confide in John just yet.
“In case this happened to you,” John finishes for him.
“Yes. You don’t have to use them, but they’re there. It’s an option.”
“It’s—” John pauses, licks his lips, and Sherlock can see that he’s started to
tremble. “If it’s all right with you, I don’t think I want anything like that.
Not just yet.”
“Ignoring what your body wants isn’t going to make this any less awkward.”
“I know that,” John snaps. “I just want to retain some fucking dignity until I
can’t ignore it any more, okay? You don’t know what it feels like, losing
control like this.”
Sherlock scowls and pulls a textbook into his lap to bury his face into and
ignore John until he feels like being reasonable again.
The room grows quiet. John must be resolutely gritting his teeth through his
pains—his breathing speeds up, becomes harsh pants at irregular intervals
before growing calm again. There is the occasional sound of the sheets rustling
as John stirs restlessly against them, but he doesn’t cry out. The near-silence
is finally interrupted by a soft whimper, followed by a long gasp. When
Sherlock looks up to investigate, John is on his stomach, arm contorted behind
him to slip the tips of two fingers inside himself.
“I can’t—I need it,” John whispers, and he whimpers again.
Sherlock gets up and approaches the bed cautiously. “What do you need?”
“More. This isn’t enough. I need more.” The words tumble out and Sherlock knows
John’s far gone if he’s willing to beg. And Sherlock doesn’t think he’s exactly
interested physically—his body isn’t responding to seeing John splayed open and
wanting across the bed the way that it would if he were an alpha, or even a
beta—but intellectually, he’s fascinated by seeing omega’s heat first hand.
It’s a preview of what he’s likely in for if he ever stops the suppressants,
and he’ll know for sure if it’s possible for an omega to be satisfied through
heat without being knotted. Because if he and John could do this together—
Sherlock’s pulse is thundering when he kneels on the bed over John and shoves
John’s hand out of the way to replace John’s fingers with one of his own.
“Oh,” John says through a long, shaky exhale. “Oh fuck.”
Even if Sherlock were entirely unfamiliar with omega anatomy, he would be sure
to unerringly slip in just where John needs him. The lubrication trickling out
of John is warm and slick and it eases the passage of his finger as it slides
inside, but it’s nothing compared to the feeling that lights up his nerve
endings as he pushes further into John, exploring the anterior wall until his
fingertip grazes John’s prostate and breaches into his vaginal aperture. It’s
like finding the secret, molten core of him, and there is a hot and liquid
squeeze around Sherlock as John arches his back and cries out at the intrusion.
“Your fingers weren’t long enough to reach,” Sherlock deduces.
“No,” John says unsteadily. “No, not like yours.” There is a short pause as
though John is still too shy to keep asking, but need wins out. “Another.”
Sherlock pulls out, then pushes two fingers back in together. It’s a tight
squeeze and John’s body is clenching around him so hard that Sherlock can’t
really imagine how more could possibly fit, but the backwards cant of John’s
hips can be instinctually read as a plea for just that. So Sherlock curls them
in and out, dipping teasingly into the spot where John wants the pressure the
most, then adds a third and a fourth finger as well.
With three fingers dipping into his hidden entrance and a fourth just brushing
over his prostate below, John starts to writhe. His mouth falls open, his eyes
are screwed shut, and the sounds falling from his mouth could easily be
mistaken for agony by anyone who couldn’t feel him needily grasping around
their hand. The way that he wants this, wants Sherlock, is gorgeous. Just
completely fucking gorgeous.
Sherlock’s prick is throbbing where it’s still trapped inside his clothes.
“John”—Sherlock’s voice is breathless, reverent—“did you know it would be like
this?” Part of his brain protests that it’s a stupid question—of course John
didn’t, because he had no reason to expect that he’d have to know the first
thing about omega heats, wouldn’t have done the research. Sherlock was under
the impression that the whole thing was a horrible business, because why would
Mycroft suppress his heats if they were anything but intolerable? This is
beyond his expectations. He’s never responded to anyone, anything, like this
before.
John can’t speak; he just shakes his head furiously, and a broken whine escapes
him as he presses back on Sherlock’s fingers.
“Good, though?”
“It’s—” John trails off, panting, as he tries to find the words. “It’s amazing,
and not enough at the same time. Like nothing could never be enough.”
Sherlock is slow to respond as he considers. “Nothing? Or just not my fingers?
Because I could—”
Before he can finish his sentence, John cuts him off. “Please,” John keens.
“Please, Sherlock. God. Just... please.”
The toys are right there waiting, in the bag by the door. Sherlock should get
them. He doesn’t want to.
What he wants, like he’s never wanted anything before, is to shed his clothes
so that he can press his own skin against every heated inch of John’s, to kiss
him, to rut against him, to slide his erection inside of the tight heat now
enveloping his fingers and fill John up the way he’s begging to be filled. He
hasn’t felt this way since he was thirteen years old and felt the first
stirrings of something inside himself and took the only measure he could
conceive of to put a stop to it, and even then it wasn’t directed towards
another person. Now he wonders what he was so afraid of. John is fine; this is
good, and they will be so good together.
Sherlock works his fingers free—it will have to be done no matter what comes
next—which pulls a string of unhappy and desperate noises from John. “No,” he
says, half sob. “No, no you can’t take them out, not yet.”
“Shh,” Sherlock tells him with a gentling stroke of his free hand across the
small of John’s back. He wipes his wet fingers on the sheets, already sodden
with the fluid leaking slowly and steadily down John’s thighs. “I’m not
stopping. Just turn over.”
John scowls, perhaps the most like himself he’s acted in hours, and looks as
though he’d like to protest the necessity of having to do anything like
moving—anything other than having this incessant need to be full satisfied. To
coax him, Sherlock bends down and lets his lips brush along John’s neck and up
to his ear, and employs the rumble of his deep voice—something he’s only
beginning to understand the full power of—to his advantage. “It will be worth
your while.”
There’s just a momentary hesitation; John licks his lips, shudders, then rolls
over.
Sherlock moves between John’s legs as soon as he’s on his back. It presses
John’s arse into his trousers, sure to leave a wet patch on the fabric, and as
Sherlock leans forward and traps John’s cock between their bellies it drools
precome onto his shirt.
“You’re getting it all over your clothes. Everyone’s going to know what we did.
People will talk.”
“They’d know anyway. Let them.” That’s all the patience that Sherlock has left.
He cups John’s chin in his hand to tilt his mouth up and press their lips
together. John’s mouth falls open instantly, and Sherlock goes on instinct,
tongue darting out to trace John’s thin bottom lip before slipping inside his
mouth. John tastes like he smells, sweet and complex, and he’s moaning into the
kiss, arching up against Sherlock to rub wantonly against him.
“I need—”
“Will you let me fuck you?” It’s hardly a fair question, given the
circumstances, and John’s already said that he wants to spend his heat with
him, whatever that entails, but Sherlock needs to ask.
“Yes,” John says emphatically. “Yes, fucking yes.”
Now both their hands are scrabbling at Sherlock’s clothing, jerking at the
buttons of his shirt and fastenings of his trousers until everything is undone
and his shirt is pushed off of his shoulders and thrown across the room.
Sherlock needs to stand in order to remove the rest of it, but as much as John
recognises that particular obstacle, he’s reluctant to release Sherlock from
his grip. It takes another kiss, this one more desperate and full of possessive
nips—how had Sherlock ever thought that kissing would be boring?—before he can
pull himself away from John and shove his clothing down. When he clambers back
onto the bed, they’re both gloriously naked, and John feels feverish against
him, burning up with the flush of heat on his skin, as Sherlock pulls John’s
legs up to wrap them around his waist.
He doesn’t have to tell John to tilt his hips up; John does it instinctually,
arching his back and grinding down before Sherlock even has his cock positioned
against his entrance. It slides in the considerable slickness between John’s
arsecheeks, and, for the first time since this started, Sherlock is the one
left gasping.
“C’mon,” John is repeating through every quickening breath, “c’mon, c’mon,
now.”
Sherlock holds John’s hips steady with one hand and guides his cock with the
other. Despite how many fingers he had buried inside of John only moments ago,
he meets resistance when he tries to nudge inside and it takes a slow push to
work against it.
“Fuck,” John huffs. “Fuck, you’re big, I—”
Is he? He’s never considered it before and—
And his thoughts stop dead because he’s pressed inside; John is parting around
him with a relieved cry, and for all that Sherlock is no alpha, his response is
all animal craving and need for more, more, nothing else but this. The head of
his cock drags against John’s prostate on the slow and steady push towards the
place where John needs him most. It rips a startled noise from John’s lips; his
back bows and thighs clamp down over the crests of Sherlock’s hips, and then
Sherlock’s there, sinking into clenching, searing heat.
When his pelvis is flush against John he stills, overwhelmed. He’s never—he’s
never even comebefore, and suddenly he’s inside of an omega in heat—John in
heat; extraordinary, wonderful, brilliant John—
It all goes in a bit of a blur after that. John is panting, mumbling under his
breath, “Fuck me, fuck, fuck” and staring at Sherlock wide-eyed like he’s done
something fantastic. John’s legs find their way to Sherlock’s shoulders and his
hips tilt up; Sherlock’s going deeper and John is shaking now, sounds like he
might even be sobbing, so Sherlock soothes him by catching his face in his
hands, stroking his thumbs over his cheeks, and pulling him into a kiss.
Impossible to tell exactly how long it goes on like this—Sherlock’s never been
so incapable of thought or awareness, never—but it feels like an unfathomable
age and mere minutes at the same time when John shudders and cries out and
Sherlock can feel him spurting between them along with the desperate clamp of
John’s internal muscles around him. It explodes something inside of Sherlock,
shakes loose a feeling he didn’t even realise was possible, and his brain
grasps that he’s coming as well, buried as far inside of John as he can reach.
Sherlock’s nervous system is on fire, tingling through every inch of his skin.
He wants nothing more than to roll away and process all of it, but when he
tries, John grabs him hard enough to bruise.
“No, you can’t. Your knot—” John sounds frantic. “You don’t have a knot, oh
hell; there’s nothing to keep it in—” Sherlock is just about to ask what he’s
going on about when John’s fingers move clumsily between them to the rim of his
entrance where it’s still stretched around Sherlock’s cock and press in
alongside. Just the tips, because that’s as far as John can reach, but it’s
enough to make both of them moan. Sherlock can feel his come leaking down the
curve of John’s arse and onto his own thighs and it’s filthy. Filthy and hot
and yet another thing he hadn’t considered at all before today.
“John,” Sherlock gasps, “it’s an irrational response. I couldn’t even—I’m not
an alpha.”
John jerks his fingers away, and even through the sex-flush on John’s face
Sherlock can see that he’s coloured, embarrassed about letting his instincts
take over. “Yeah—yeah, I know. It’s all irrational and a fucking mess.” He lets
his legs slip from Sherlock’s shoulders, winces when they pull apart. “My brain
is yelling at me, telling me to push a bunch of spunk inside myself so I can
get knocked up, and having you see this—all of this—is humiliating.” John bites
his lip and looks away.
“I’m not judging you for it.”
“No, I don’t think you would.” John frowns, looks down at himself with disgust.
He’s a mess; they both are. “I can’t believe I asked you to do that. You’ve
never even—”
“Don’t,” Sherlock cuts him off. “I wanted to. You didn’t trick me or take
advantage of me, or any of the awful things some people say about omegas. I did
this because you are my friend.” If they were still in the throes of heat
Sherlock might kiss him again to reassure him. Might kiss him again just to
feel it. He’s not sure if it’s acceptable to John when his mind is clear, so he
refrains.
“It’s all fine?” John asks quietly.
“It’s all fine.”
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