Never, in an eternity, would Sherlock have compared himself to a Viking in any way, shape or form, whatsoever. But Sadji’s assessment of these men, these rare examples of a push against the human impulse to avoid certain death was correct. A situation likely ending in maiming or death exhilarated him. There was nothing to get his heart pumping like the notion that it might, very soon stop if he continued down the path he was headed on. He ran towards the flames, he thrived in the heat as he approached it closer, his long limbs seemed somehow natural, even majestic as he made that bold charge to the source of the danger itself… and he also appeared quite stupid and somewhat suicidal to those around him. People couldn’t really understand the fascination unless they experienced it and he took quiet pleasure in the fact that John resisted his own nature in discussions, theoretical conversations of this behavior but underneath his protests and his insistence to the contrary, he was often right at Sherlock’s side ready to cut down whatever specter rose from the shadows. Sherlock assumed he’d insist it was to protect him, but Sherlock also knew him better than that. Sherlock knew people better than they knew themselves a majority of the time, but he knew no one better than the way he knew John Watson. They were both slaves to this ludicrous sprint into the burning house, straight into the lair of a killer, staring down the headlights of a car heading towards them. Nothing could ever come between them and the feeling of free fall for those few, heart pounding seconds until they hit the ground running.
But Sherlock was dealing with an element he hadn’t before. Sadji wasn’t even an element, as far as he was concerned, she was far too unnatural to be one. He didn’t know if there were words for what she was, what to make of her. The most obvious one was vampire, of course, but he wasn’t particularly enamored with that just yet. Saying it out loud. The world-smashing implications those syllables held.
The experience he was having was like the kiss Irene had planted on his cheek on speed (which Sherlock had claimed various and myriad experience with). He could feel himself gasping for air in a perfectly temperate room. This was what… sex did to him when it was more than just a lurid detail that comprised a case or a topic to be blithe about so his brother didn’t taunt him anymore than usual, but what he was feeling now, as Sadji’s hold tightened around him, was no act. He consistently tested the limits of others’ personal space, ignored it, pushed against their resistance just to get an answer from them. It threw them off-kilter, forced their guard down, he knew the tactic well. But he had never employed sex to do that work for him. He found himself incapable of such a thing, both in (imagined) practice and full consideration of the notion itself. He wasn’t sexy. Sherlock could compile a list of things people had called him over the years, a lot of them being words that shouldn’t be said in polite company, but ‘sexy’ wasn’t among them.
Now, he loved power dynamics and found the dominatrices, the CEOs, the extraordinary few that could bend the many to their will but he hadn’t expected to find himself forced to kneel to anything before like this. If Sadji was forcing her power down his throat, he was choking on it like the good boy she’d expected him to be. It was a brief failure to communicated in him, misfirings, false connections, an unknown attacker at the door, something Sherlock never could have prepared for.
In fact, Sherlock hadn’t been paying attention to his breath anymore and wasn't aware how long he’d been holding it until Sadji’s tongue almost swiped across his own and he exhaled sharply while glancing at her lips. He looked disturbed and couldn’t draw his head back any further, it was against the wall. The kiss… the first in his life hadn’t killed him. It hadn’t hurt. it hadn’t wounded him in any way but had she opened her mouth, introduced her tongue to the heat of his mouth, he really didn’t know what he’d do, how he’d react, what could be done. Would it be as harmless as kissing had been? Did only women kiss this way or did men kiss like this too?