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I.
John had been laboring under the notion that he and Sherlock were both quite static in their relationships, or lack thereof. He hadn’t had a girlfriend in months and Sherlock was well…Sherlock.
So the STI result sheet on the kitchen table was a bit of a shock.
John was cleaning the damn thing, trying against all logical evidence to get it back to living order when he stumbled across the strip of paper. He skimmed it, doctor instincts taking over, and it wasn’t until his brain had processed the fact that Sherlock, it seemed, had a clean bill of health that he started and dropped the paper.
“Jesus,” he muttered and god, it was so wrong what that tidbit of information was doing in his brain right then. Sure, he’d thought about his incredibly vexing and equally mind-blowing flatmate sexually before; he’d have to have been a bit less heterosexual not to. But for some reason, this little factoid, personal and not his business as it was, was now undressing a Sherlock in his mind and slamming her violently into a wall. With his dick. Jesus.
“Oi, Sherlock!” he called into the living room, striding in with the paper in his hand. The woman in question was lounged out carefully in her armchair, a newspaper held casually in her hands. She didn’t even bother looking up, the prat.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to read it but um-“ John was suddenly aware of just of awkward it was to know your flatmate’s sexual viability. Especially when at least one of you still believed all feelings between both parties were platonic. “You left your test results on the table.”
Sherlock flipped a page, nonplused. “Oh, did I?” she asked, eyes skimming the news. “Sorry, must have forgotten. You can just leave them there.”
John flushed instinctively; immensely grateful the observant genius was not paying attention. “Sherlock, I’m not leaving your STI results on the table,” he demanded and Sherlock finally looked up, a faint smile playing at the corner of her lips. She looked like she always did on days when she didn’t plan on leaving the house; her black hair up in a mess of a bun, pyjama bottoms and tee-shirt hanging loose and unflatteringly on her thin frame. And yet all John could imagine was rawdogging the woman. Christ, get a hold of yourself, Watson.
“Just put them in my room if you must,” she sighed finally, going back to her newspaper and John fled the room as fast as he could without being entirely too suspicious.
He suspected he failed, if only from the laugh that followed him out.
II.
It was a good two weeks before John found the next present on their kitchen table.
The surgery had been a fucking nightmare, flu season was in bloody swing, and he’d had to pick up milk on the way back after Sherlock texted him to. So it took him a good two minutes to notice Sherlock’s birth control sitting in its circular container in the middle of the mess that was their table.
He’d seen Sherlock’s birth control before. It sat, non-threateningly and unassumingly in their medicine cabinet in the upstairs bathroom, never uttering a peep. But now it seemed to scream at him; reminding him violently that Sherlock was a human, that she ovulated like a human, and maybe, like a human, she might possible have sex sometimes. With him. Watson…
“Sherlock, your meds are on the table!” he shouted into the flat and wasn’t that a bit pathetic, that the doctor couldn’t even say the words ‘birth control’ because of all the lovely images it prompted and god, birth control was not sexy. There was absolutely nothing sexy about safe sex practices and god, he needed to get laid.
“Must have left them,” Sherlock’s voice shouted back from upstairs. She sounded a bit out of breath and that prompted a whole fresh wave of unwanted images. “Put them in the bathroom if you have a chance.”
“Sure,” he called back before he had a chance to think about it. And then a thought hit him, later than it should have damn his sex-crazed mind. Although it wasn’t really his fault, what with the way Sherlock had been walking around lately in that ridiculous dressing gown that did nothing to hide her legs and her…legs. Yeah, legs were safe.
“What were you doing with your meds anyway?” he asked, before he simply forgot.
“Experiment,” she answered, the obviously unspoken but understood nevertheless.
He could have shook her. “Don’t experiment on your meds; you need them!” he sighed, picking up the little container with careful fingers.
He could have sworn he heard the mad woman mutter “not currently” as he passed by her room but that could have been just a trick of the wind.
III.
When John walked down in the morning a good month after the last present to find a box of condoms on the kitchen table, he actually gave up.
They weren’t even shy condoms either but extra large like a fucking taunt and John would go insane if he did not get to the bottom of this (and did not get the thought of Sherlock needing those condoms out of his head).
“Sherlock?” he called out hesitantly, padding into the living room. The genius was on the couch, face turned into the back with her legs curled up against her chest. Her hair was out, a black curtain blocking her pale face, but she hummed in response. “Can we talk?”
“Listening,” the blob on the couch answered and John tried not to sigh.
“Can you look at me while we talk?” he tried again and with an ever suffering sigh, Sherlock turned to rest her head on the armrest, blinking up at him lazily.
“Yes?” she teased, all hard angles and soft skin and god, he wanted to eat her, wanted to consumer her until they melded but that was assuredly not on.
He took a necessary breath. “Are you…seeing someone?” he asked finally and he could have sworn he saw Sherlock’s face fall. “Not that you have to tell me if you are, or that I care, or that it’s my business…” he stammered, unsure of himself suddenly. “I mean, you’re perfectly welcome to see people and not tell me, I only wondered, since we’re flatmates and all-“
“John-“ Sherlock tried but fuck it, he was rambling and he intended to finish.
“I only worry, I should walk in and find you two, so warnings would be nice-“
“John!” Sherlock demanded, louder, and he finally shut up. “I spend around 80% of my time with you, solving cases, and the other 20% having, what you call, ‘a sulk,’” she pointed out plainly and John could feel his cheeks flush involuntarily. “Just when would I even have time to see someone else?”
John swallowed. “Right, yeah,” he said a bit lamely, trying to maintain eye contact through the haze of awkwardness. “If you’ll excuse me, I’m just going to bash my head against a wall in mortification. As you were,” he prompted and then spun on his heels and left, condoms forgotten on the table.
If his shower took an extra ten minutes that night as he slammed his head against the tile and shoved a fist in his mouth as he tried not to think about Sherlock and condoms…well no one said anything about it.
IV.
It was the bottle of lube, sitting innocently on the table a week later, that finally blew John Watson to pieces.
“Sherlock, what the hell is going on here?” he shouted, charging into the living room. Sherlock stood by the window, violin balanced beneath her chin, but she lowered her bow at the sound of his voice.
“If this some sort of experiment to see how long it takes to drive your flatmate actually insane, then congratulations, you have succeeded,” he raged, throwing his hands up in the air. “I have now lost control of any moral impulses.”
He expected the woman to look shocked, or surprised. If he was honest with himself, he was hoping for a little frightened. He was not expecting Sherlock to arch one eyebrow and smirk.
“That was rather the point,” she explained without explaining at all and John could only blink at her.
“I don’t-“ he tried and then it all began to come together in his mind. John was not stupid, by any means, but Sherlock did not exactly make her puzzles easy for the people around her and this one had taken so long precisely because John had solved it right off and then dismissed the answer immediately as impossible. “Oh.”
“It’s remarkable,” Sherlock went on, staring at him as though he was fascinating. A look like that could do things to a person. “It’s as though I can actually see the starved hamster in your brain as it starts to run on its little wheel. Amazing.”
“So the condoms…and the lube…and the bloody test results,” John pieced it together out loud as Sherlock set down her violin gently, “that was you propositioning me.”
“Not well, it seems,” she sniffed but John was pulling it all together now and he couldn’t stop himself if he tried.
“Bloody hell, that was nearly the equivalent of you throwing yourself naked at me,” he wondered, eyes bright and Sherlock shrugged, a bit put out.
“I was beginning to lose hope after the birth control failed,” she admitted. “You are lucky I have such faith in you, John.”
John was grinning like an idiot now and he did not care. “So this whole time you…Jesus. Sherlock, why didn’t you say anything?”
Sherlock spared him a look and he laughed out loud. “Right, yeah. Stupid question. Come here,” he begged and Sherlock practically bounded to him. She was taller than him, bloody giant, but he looped one hand around her waist and the other behind her neck, pulling her down for the sweetest kiss of their lives.
It was essentially pure, only a hint of teeth as John nipped at Sherlock’s bottom lip for entrance and then quick, wet slides of tongue against tongue but it was full of such staggering intent it was near pornographic.
Sherlock drew back a moment, only to murmur in his ear, “Condoms are on the table.”
“Oh shut up,” he beamed and then kissed her again.