Archive of Our Own ^beta

Sherlock was like a pair of pants.

A pair of high quality, expensive, silk pants, like those indigo ones he saw in shops on the high street that were shipped directly from Rome, with intricate stitching and delicate folds.

“I cannot believe you, Sherlock Holmes,” John flopped down onto his chair at exactly 4:46 in the morning. “Honestly.”

“Shush, John, it’s not like you didn’t enjoy the rush of adrenaline running through those alleyways,” Sherlock said, peeling off a pair of gloves stained with blood among other various liquids.

“That,” John rested one elbow on the armchair arm and pointed up at the other man walking around the room, “is not the point.”

“Oh? And what you do suppose the point is, then?” Sherlock straightened himself up in front of the mirror, looking mildly bored.

“Oh, I don’t know, maybe the fact that you just spent over six hours running around after a suicide bomber who, it turns out, had more than just a bomb strapped onto him?” John glared at Sherlock as the man settled down in the chair in front of John’s laptop and flicked it open.

Sherlock began typing away. “Yes, and the fact also is that no one got hurt, not to mention-“

John suddenly appeared in Sherlock’s optical view. “No, Sherlock, you’re not listening.”

Sherlock looked up to be met with a dead serious look on John’s face. John was looking Sherlock in the eyes, so he was definitely serious. There was a slight crease in his brow and he had only just suppressed a sigh. John was frustrated. With Sherlock, most likely.

The object of John’s frustrations leaned back in the chair and interlocked his fingers over the keyboard. “Oh?” he said, eyebrow raised. “I heard everything you said, John, you said-”

“No, you aren’t listening. You, Sherlock. You went out searching for a suicide bomber for 6 hours. You, as in, by yourself. On your own.”

“Yes, John, I am aware of the definition of the word ‘you’, and now if you’d just let me-“

“Listen to me, Sherlock,” John said in and irked tone. He closed his eyes momentarily and took a deep breath. “It was you out there. By yourself. For 6 hours. Against a bloody suicide bomber.”

A pause.

“John, if your objective was to stand and to state the obvious well then I should tell you you’re doing an absolutely fantastic job,” Sherlock stopped paying attention to John and turned back to the laptop screen.

Within seconds John forced the screen down with his palm. Sherlock turned back to John with raised eyebrows.

“My point is that that is never going to happen again,” John said firmly.

“Excuse me?” John heard Sherlock ask.

“You heard me perfectly well,” John stared back at Sherlock.

“And why would that be?” Sherlock asked, not breaking eye contact. “If I work alone there’s a much lower chance of causalities to othe-“

“That’s my point,” John cut off. “What if you had gotten hurt? While working alone, without anyone knowing where you were, much less who had hurt you?”

“I had my phone on me, John, if I needed-“

“And if you didn’t Sherlock? If you didn’t have your phone, if you couldn’t contact Lestrade, or Mycroft, or me, Sherlock? What would have happened then? Should I just constantly expect to walk through the door and find you wounded, on the couch, babbling on about one thing or another while you slowly bleed to death?”

“John I can assure you I am perfectly capable of-“

“No, Sherlock, you can’t! You can’t assure me of anything! You’re only thinking about yourself, you don’t think about the people around you. What if it were worse than a wound? What would that have done to Mrs. Hudson or to Mycroft or to-“

“Yes, I’m sure Sergeant Donovan and Anderson would be crying into their pillows-”

“-me. What would have that done to me?”

The room went quiet.

Sherlock and John kept eye contact. After what seemed like a small eternity, John turned away and began walking towards the stairs.

“I’m going to bed,” he sighed.

Useless.

- - - - -

“Good morning!” Sherlock trilled, pulling the covers off John’s body and leaning over him eagerly. “Come on, John, do hurry up! We have a serial killer on our hands!”

It was early in the morning. Too early. Yesterday, John had woken up, found out that Sherlock had used the tea pot for ‘temporary storage’, and had also used John’s towel to wipe up an extremely acidic experiment gone wrong. This was a perfect example of what John would most definitely not consider a ‘good morning’.

An example of an even less ‘good morning’ was being woken up at 3:13 about a quadruple homicide, with the only common clue being a tattoo of the same quote tattooed on all the victims’ upper arms, and having his flatmate drag him out of bed.

Sherlock, on the hand, was of course completely ecstatic about the murders. Ecstatic, at 3:13? Bugger off, John internally scowled. So when the blankets were pulled off John’s back, he could only respond in one way:

“Get the bloody hell out of my room and let me sleep.”

Sherlock leaned against the door frame and sighed dramatically. “Oh, John. Sleep, overrated that is, is not necessary. Sleep is boring. Homicide, however, is fun, exciting even! Well, I’m just assuming that homicide isn’t fun what you’re the victim, but homicide, John!” He was positively bubbling.

John glared at Sherlock over his shoulder. “No.” Scowling, John curled up into the fetal position facing away from Sherlock.

The detective just rolled his eyes and strode over to John’s bed and planted himself on the edge. “A human works on two hours of REM sleep per day, it takes a minimum of half an hour to get into that state and the world record for staying awake is almost two weeks. The least you could you is stay awake for two days. Through banking on sleep, you could just stay awake for two days in a row then just recover with four and a half hours of sleep minimum, which, looking at your sleeping hours, is a lot less than you sleep per day, much less per every other day. So, let’s go, John.”

A moment of silence.

“Sherlock, honestly, I couldn’t care less about what some studies say and all that REM stuff,” John turned onto his other side to look at Sherlock. “I am going to sleep.”

Sherlock sighed melodramatically once more. “John, you are aware that as we sit in your room the body we should be inspecting is decaying and is probably being misinterpreted by idiots, right?”

John stuffed his face into the pillow and groaned loudly. “Oh, hell, I’m not going to get any sleep as long as you’re still here and the case isn’t solved, am I?”

“Now you’re starting to see some sense,” Sherlock smiles and stoop up with a flourish of his signature coat. “I’ll be downstairs with a cab waiting, though if you’re not down within ten minutes I’m afraid you’ll have to find your own. If that does occur, I’ll text you the address.” And out walked Sherlock leaving John in a silently emptiness.

John sighed.

- - - - -

As they arrived to the scene of the crime, Sherlock and John were already discussing theories about the killers and his patters. It was no surprise that even before Sherlock arrived on the scene, he had come up with exactly 13 different ideas on who the killer could be.

It was even less a surprise that as soon as Sherlock entered the indoors room where the body was his idea had already been narrowed down to 7. Had to be a desk worker, last 30s, most likely a hospital receptionist.

John managed to see some of the clues that Sherlock used to figure it out, bruise locations, unnoticed hair strands, but honestly the rest a mystery to him. John didn’t really bother asking anymore. He had come to terms with the fact that Sherlock was be able to piece things together faster and be more observant than himself, or anyone, long ago. Sherlock was just better.

So, as Sherlock spent his time explaining everything to Lestrade standing in the doorway, John spent him time watching Sherlock as he talked. John watched as Sherlock flailed his arms as he gestured towards clues, watched as he pointed out exactly how the victim’s clothes and hair were ruffled, watched the manic smile that spread across the detective’s face that could have scared any young child, but made John laugh inside.

Sherlock got off on the cases he was given, but John? John got off on watching Sherlock.

Got off on watching Sherlock be able to fully use his genius mind, watching Sherlock prove that he was more than just ordinary, watching Sherlock be himself to the fullest extent.

He enjoyed watching Sherlock’s emotions so much that he didn’t even notice that Sherlock had stopped talking entirely and had focused his attention on John.

“John?” He faintly heard in the background. “John!”

John snapped out of his trance and stood straight up, subconsciously in the military stance. “Oh, yes, I’m sorry. What were we talking about?”

Lestrade began to speak. “Well, Sherlock’s just been explaining about how the murder must have had some sort of gru-“

“Why are you smiling like that?” Sherlock interrupted, clearly delivering the question to John.

“Like what?” Upon asking that question, John had found that, yes, he had indeed been smiling, and he apparently wasn’t planning on stopping.

“Er, gentlemen,” Lestrade said. “Shouldn’t we be-“

“You’ve been smiling at me like that for the past 16 seconds,” Sherlock frowned, “why?”

Lestrade sighed and left the room. “I just think that-“ John started.

“John, you’ve already told me how ‘amazing’ and ‘fantastic’ my deduction skills are,” Sherlock said almost deadpan.

“-you’re brilliant,” John smiled a little wider, “as in, you. Yourself.”

Sherlock stared at John for a few moments before a small grin of his own bloomed on his face.

A few moments of smiling at each other later and Sherlock spoke up again. “We should go and, er…” Sherlock subtly nodded his head to the doorway.

“Oh, yes,” John cleared his throat. “Yes, we should, shouldn’t we?”

And they both walked out the door, both still smiling.

- - - - -

John actually enjoyed those rare days off where he wasn’t chasing, or being chased, by criminal masterminds all over London. John truly wished he could say the same for his flat mate.

Sherlock was pacing around the flat, waving in and out of furniture, complaining about how bored he was and about how Molly was off work for the next week so he couldn’t ‘borrow’ any dead corpses.

“Honestly, Molly could not have picked a worse time to win a week-long cruise,” Sherlock did laps around the coffee table. “Who would even want to go on a cruise? What is there to look at? Water? Who wants to look at boring water for a week?”

“Sherlock, you should be happy for her, winning a week off away from you and all you rambling about how… How blood clots under different temperatures and whatnot, the poor woman,” John said absentmindedly while flicking through channels. “Staying around you for too long isn’t good for a person.”

Sherlock stopped his pacing and whipped his head to look at John from over by the laptop. “But you stay around me for elongated periods of time.”

“Yes, and look at where that’s gotten me,” John said over his shoulder. “I follow the world’s only consulting detective around London and almost get bloody killed on a daily basis.”

Sherlock smirked. “True.”

John settled on a channel and leaned on the arm of the armchair. “Hmm, something that’s not utter crap.”

“Oh? What is it?” Sherlock turned his attention to the TV screen.

“Some reality TV show about cooking, and I know how you love reality telly,”John placed the remote control on the end table and unraveled himself in the chair.

Sherlock stood still for a moment as he watched the characters eat. “Do you see that man with the blue dyed hair?”

John nodded. He didn’t particularly like reality shows, but it kept both of them entertained for a while; Sherlock having something to work on and John watching Sherlock work.

“He’s cheating on his girlfriend with that lady who just assisted in the kitchen,” Sherlock grounded himself on the armchair’s arm. “And the fake blond? The one with the dress? She used to be an alcoholic; she’s recovered but is slowly going back into her old habits.”

John just leaned back into his chair and listened to Sherlock’s commentary, once again marveling in Sherlock’s skills.

“John, you’re doing it again.”

John was dragged back to reality by Sherlock’s sharp tone of voice.

“What?”

John found that during his trance, Sherlock had migrated from the armchair arm into John’s lap and was sitting is that Sherlock was angled so that his legs were hanging off of once side but Sherlock was still able to sit up, sitting so that his head was the same height as John’s.

“The thing where no smile at me for no apparent reason. Why do you keep doing that?”

John focused on Sherlock’s face for a moment, still grinning that idiotic grin. “Oh, shut it, you git.”

John leaned in Sherlock’s direction and kissed him.

…

Wait a minute.

Hold on.

John?

Was kissing Sherlock?

What?

Once John’s brain had caught up on to what the rest of his body was doing, he quickly stood up, inadvertently pushing Sherlock to the floor, and walked across the room to the doorway, facing away from Sherlock and held the door frame for support. He ghosted his hand across his lips.

“What was that?” A moment later Sherlock’s voice came from the floor.

“Oh, shit, Sherlock, I’m sorry. Crap, I didn’t- it wasn’t- oh bloody hell, Sherlock,” John stumbled over his words, “I- I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to…”

“John?” Sherlock’s voice was no longer from the floor, but still across the room.

“Oh hell, Sherlock I’m so bloody sorry, I’m an idiot and d-didn’t mean to,” John took a deep, steadying breath. He didn’t know what unnerved him more, the fact that kissing Sherlock wasn’t reacting in the way John was, or the fact that kissing Sherlock felt really… natural. “Look, Sherlock, I’m sorry, let’s just… Let’s just forget that ever happened and-“

“Why?”

John stopped babbling. “Why what?”

“Why forget that that ever happened?”

“B-because that was bloody awkward and… And…” And suddenly Sherlock was a solid wall of mass behind John, radiating a shockingly large amount of heat, silencing him.

“And?”

“And I think that-“ John turned around but froze when he saw exactly how close Sherlock was. Which was very close, if you’re wondering.

“Yes?” Sherlock’s breath was warm on John’s face.

“I… I think that…” And that’s the thing. John couldn’t think. His brain was malfunctioning; it was slowly shutting down until the only thing running through his mind was Sherlock. And how close he was. And how he still wasn’t close enough. And… “I…”

“John.”

Oh, fuck it.

John grabbed the collar of that ridiculously tight purple shirt Sherlock was wearing and tugged him down with all his might, forcing Sherlock into a kiss. Sherlock tensed up, but John didn’t stop. He couldn’t stop. Soon enough, Sherlock relaxed into it a little, which John took as a good sign and wrapped one of his arms around the taller man’s waist. Sherlock couldn’t do more than be stunned and hold onto John’s horribly colored jumper in a death grip in a desperate attempt to try to bring John closer.

When John and Sherlock finally parted they were both very red in the face and panting.

A few breaths later and Sherlock smirked.

As much as John wanted to give his pants away, he couldn’t and didn’t want to. Because despite it all, he loved them, and they were his.