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Looking back on it from the perspective of years and years after the fact, John was pretty sure it started just because he was trying to be thoughtful. Courteous to his new flatmate. Something he would have tried to do had the man been a beta, a fellow alpha, or even an alien from Tau Ceti.
“Heading to the shop – d’you need anything?” a question that John had asked three times that first week, the first three of what ended up being innumerable instances of variations on that same theme.
Sherlock’s first three answers were – in no particular order – “Thinking, do be quiet,” “At least sixteen grams of finely-ground bonemeal, species irrelevant,” and “Dull.”
That last was the most common reply.
Really, John was just trying to be nice. It was his nature.
Resultantly, he wound up bringing home odd things – nothing quite on the Sherlockian-scale of weirdness, just odd bits and whatnot. In doing so, he learned that his flatmate: 1.) was allergic to strawberries. 2.) loathed banana-flavored anything. 3.) had an unnatural fondness for crunchy peanut butter. 4.) could drink an entire jug of semi-skimmed in less than half an hour. 5.) and could actually be bribed to do a little tidying if ginger biscuits were on offer.
John tried not to take advantage of number five too often. It might lose its effectiveness.
At first, small requests were all Sherlock dared make. He finally had a flatmate – And really, when is Mycroft going to release my trust account? – that he could actually tolerate. The fact that his alpha instincts were so easy to tug in the direction Sherlock wanted them to go was just icing on the cake. Sherlock didn’t dare make too many demands too early on – trustworthy housekeepers were hard to find, particularly ones who didn’t know that’s what they were (and so actually paid for half of all the bills, rather than being paid).
Small things, to start with.
“I said, ‘could you pass me a pen’,” or “We’re out of milk.”
After a few weeks of not hearing any complaints – Nor of seeing any signs that such behavior was wearing thin – Sherlock edged in a couple of slightly larger bits. He didn’t really come right out and ask, though.
His own socks tucked into John’s laundry basket.
Purposefully stubbing a toe against a box of paperwork he’d never bothered sorting.
Lounging around in his pajamas for a week, then idly mentioning his suits were at the dry-cleaner.
John always managed to pick up on the cues and performed admirably. Doesn’t seem to notice what I'm doing, either. I would be concerned for his apparent blindness were it not that I don’t want to search for someone else. What other housekeeper will willingly shoot someone for me?
But there was always something.
In the end, it was Harry who noticed.
Everyone else, even Mycroft, saw John and Sherlock often enough that the bit-by-bit escalation went unnoticed.
But John only saw Harry a couple of times a month, for lunch.
It was during one of these rare meetings, roughly six months after he moved in to Baker Street, that she asked, “So, little brother – when are you gonna introduce him to our parents?”
John nearly choked on a chip. “What?”
Harry leveled a look at him that could peel paint. “You heard me. When are you gonna take that idiot of yours home so Mum and Dad can make him feel about two inches tall?”
“Why would I do that?” John asked. “We’re just –”
“If you end that sentence with ‘friends’,” Harry interrupted, pointing her half-sandwich at him like a gun, “I'm gonna smack you.” John blinked slowly. Harry sighed and sat her sandwich on her plate. “Come on, you two are not just friends. You don’t wash another bloke’s dirty underwear because you’re friends, Johnny. You’ve been courting him for going on half a year now, and you’re the one who insisted I take Clara home to Mum’n’Dad when we’d only been dating three months.”
John shook his head. “I have not been…” the words trailed off. Memories of bringing home little treats – jars of vanilla curd, ginger biscuits – and of wordlessly assuming the brunt of all the housework played out before his eyes. He buried his face in his hands and slumped against the table. “I have been courting him, haven’t I?” came out a bit muffled, but still perfectly understandable.
Harry let out a bray of laughter. “Oh. My. God,” she gasped. “You didn’t know!” John shook his head. Harry laughed harder. “That’s priceless! You didn’t know!”
John dropped his hands from his face and threw a ketchup-covered chip at her. It landed with a wet splat against her forehead. It didn’t stop her laughing, however.
Later, when she finally stopped laughing, when lunch was over and done with, when Harry had headed back to her own flat, John started walking. He paid no attention to where his feet were taking him. His brain was stuck on one thought and one thought only:
What the hell do I do now?