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"Your sister," said Sherlock, rubbing at his jaw, "has a very impressive left hook."
John, who had escaped with only a slap in the ear, hummed noncommittally.
"Clearly the kickboxing's been paying off," Sherlock continued, now flexing his jaw carefully.
At that, John started. "Kickboxing? Harry doesn't kickbox. That would most certainly count as exercise."
"Private lessons," said Sherlock, sounding almost as though he were talking to himself. "Probably fancies the instructor. Interesting."
"Why?" asked John, not really caring. His ear rang faintly.
Sherlock shrugged. "Her instructor's a man."
John raised an eyebrow.
"Incidentally, what was it like to grow up with your younger sister bullying you?"
"What?" snapped John a little too defensively. He straightened to his full five-ten and glared. "She did not bully me. She's four years younger! And five inches shorter!"
Sherlock tilted his head shrewdly. "And yet, when she came at you, you cowered like a little girl. With the ease of long practice."
"Christ, I hate you."
***
"That stack of post you chucked behind the sofa, besides containing all of this month's bills, had a wedding invitation in it," said John as he wandered into the kitchen, a smile tugging at his lips.
Sherlock made a disinterested noise, never looking up from the Erlenmeyer flask he was swirling carefully.
"Your brother's marrying his secretary next month at the Waldorf."
Sherlock nearly spilled the contents of his flask all over the kitchen table. "Fuck off!"
"Apparently her name is Jane," John mused as Sherlock stormed past him into the living room. The front door slammed a second later.
"I don't believe for a minute that's her actual name," said John to the empty flat.
***
"Fancy some flowers, sir?"
John and Sherlock slowed; the girl looked up at John earnestly from behind a box of newspaper-wrapped carnations.
"Er," said John.
She grinned. "How about for your other half, there?" She indicated Sherlock with her chin.
"Oh, it's not like--" John started, and then he faltered. He shot a glance at Sherlock, who was standing with his hands shoved in his coat pockets, watching John calmly. Actually, it was like that, wasn't it?
In the end, he gave the girl a fiver and thrust a posy of multicoloured flowers at Sherlock as they continued along the street.
"There appeared to be a gratuity for awkwardness included in that transaction," Sherlock noted as he ran a finger over the carnation petals. Any whimsy that might have otherwise been in the action was cancelled out by the look of concentration on his face as he did it. Probably thinking about pollen transfer onto skin or something.
"Yes, well," said John, not sure what else to add. After another half a block, he asked, "Do you even like flowers?"
Sherlock shrugged. "I'll give them to Lestrade when we see him."
"That's a touching gesture," John agreed.
"This is why I never suggested we purchase rings," said Sherlock as they rounded a corner.
John had lost the plot by then. "Why's that?"
Sherlock let the flowers hang down at his side as he walked. "No one seems to need them, with us."
***
"You'll have to go back to hers," said Sherlock before taking a sip of his pint.
"Sorry?" said John.
Sherlock tilted his head a little, indicating the redhead in a booth across the pub. Of course he'd seen John looking at her. "You can't bring her round ours if you're planning to try and pull her," he said. "Mrs. Hudson will have kittens."
John stared wistfully at the first woman who'd fluttered her eyelashes at him in months. It was true. He'd never hear the end of it. She'd try to send them to a marriage counselor. There would be wounded looks for him and tea with biscuits for Sherlock. John sighed.
"On the other hand, her flat will be quite nice. You like dogs, right?" Sherlock was squinting at her now. Luckily she was distracted by a conversation with the other woman at the booth.
John spent a moment blinking at the back of Sherlock's head, and then shrugged and drained his beer, signalling for another. "Is it a very large dog?"
"No, one of those...." Sherlock made a compacting motion with his hands. "Either a toy poodle or a bichon, I can't quite tell from here."
"Not a deal-breaker," mused John. "Think she's a sure thing, then, do you?"
"I think it's unlikely you'll cock it up, especially if you wait until she's finished that drink and order her a refill."
Such confidence. John gratefully accepted his fresh drink and sipped away the head from it. "What about you, then?"
Sherlock turned fully to face him, looking confused for once. "What about me?"
"She's got a friend." John grinned. "Want to be my wingman?"
Sherlock turned back to brace his forearms on the bar. "I'll pass, thanks."
"Why? She's not bad, either!"
"I suppose she's all right, but I'm not interested."
John turned a little on his stool. "I have lived with you for nearly two years," he said. "Your plural marriage to your job and me does not appear to get you much action, unless Donovan was right and solving mysteries is more of a fetish for you than I thought."
Sherlock gave him an unimpressed look. "Donovan is never right. About anything. And while I understand that many people, you included, seem to require sex as plants require water, I do not share that impulse. Sex doesn't hold the same interest for me as intellectual pursuits, or even chocolate digestives, for that matter."
John had perhaps had one beer too many, because he pointed at Sherlock and declared, "I understand. You are a sexual cactus."
There was a long moment of silence.
"I can't formulate a response to that," said Sherlock; he appeared to settle for a very long drink of his beer instead.
John felt slightly smug at leaving Sherlock speechless with his insights for a change. Perhaps it was time to stop drinking. Dinner had been a long time ago.
"She's leaving," Sherlock said after a few more minutes of comfortable silence.
John craned a look over his bony shoulder at the booth. The redhead and her friend were indeed arranging themselves to leave.
"Are you going to act?"
"No," said John, following them out with his eyes before turning back to the bar and Sherlock. "I think I'm all right."
He could have sworn he saw a smile right before Sherlock picked up his glass.
***
It was a difficult case; they'd been on the trail of a serial murderer for two weeks and five victims. Sherlock's initial excitement over the prospect of catching a serial killer had waned into frustration by victim number four. The killer hadn't made any mistakes yet, and things were very tense between Sherlock and Lestrade. John, of course, was perpetually caught in the crossfire.
And so they sat in the living room at half-three in the morning, staring moodily at the mirror over the fireplace and its shaggy covering of bits of paper and photographs. John was just thinking about either falling asleep where he sat or making a pot of very strong tea when Sherlock got up in a huff and stalked off to rummage for his nicotine patches. He was already wearing three, one of them fresh, and John would feel obligated to check his blood pressure soon. He frowned up at the wall while Sherlock banged about in the kitchen, his eyes skipping over every aggravatingly familiar image and scribbled clue; it was what he imagined hamsters in wheels must feel like, trapped and going round and round.
Then his gaze caught on an image from the first murder scene.
Slowly, carefully, as though the idea might scare off if he moved too suddenly, John eased himself to his feet and wandered over to the fireplace, pulling the photo down and looking at it more closely. Then, mind racing, he scoured the rest of the photos until he found the most recent scene.
"Sherlock," he called.
Sherlock was peeling the backing off of his newest patch when he stomped back into the room. "I promise my blood pressure can't be higher than 130 over--what?" he interrupted himself, stopping in his tracks.
John turned around, holding up both photos and likely looking a bit demented. Well, it was nice for Sherlock to get a taste of his own medicine. "The blood," he said.
Sherlock glanced absently at the photos as he slapped the nicotine patch onto his forearm. "What about it?"
"There isn't as much at these scenes," said John, offering the photos for inspection. "Where did it go?"
Sherlock's eyes widened minutely before he snatched the photos away, poring over them. "Where indeed," he said after a moment. His head snapped back up and he locked eyes with John. "Brilliant. Just brilliant! You've just solved the case!"
John would beg to differ, as he had no idea what was going on beyond the lack of blood, but he beamed back anyway.
"Let's go," said Sherlock, lunging for his coat and scarf.
"What? But it's the middle of the bloody night!" John protested.
Sherlock gave the ends of his scarf a smart tug as he looked imperiously at John. "Never mind that, we've work to do. Do you want a nicotine patch?"
John reached wearily for his own jacket. "I'll just pick up some coffee at the first opportunity," he said.
"Suit yourself." Sherlock strode to the door and flung it open. "Onwards!" he shouted before marching through it onto the landing. Mrs. Hudson was going to have a conniption.
***
"Do you know what day it is?"
"It's Tuesday."
"It's actually Thursday, but that's not what I was driving at." John swept grandly into the kitchen and halted next to the table, where Sherlock seemed to be making a sandwich, of all things. "Three years ago today, I foolishly signed my life away to you."
Sherlock looked up, his gaze fixing somewhere over the sink. He was holding up a butter knife with mayonnaise on it. "Ah, yes. Romantic, that."
John smirked and set down a shoebox with a ribbon tied round it, next to the bread. "Happy anniversary."
Sherlock blinked at him. "We did ignore the first two."
John just shrugged. "Celebrating it seemed entertaining. Go on, open it."
Sherlock brushed his hands clean on his trousers and neatly plucked the end of the ribbon, causing the bow to collapse. When he flipped the lid off of the box, it revealed a red knit scarf (eight feet long, nearly as tall as Sherlock) and a box of nicotine patches.
"Well, that's very sweet."
John beamed.
"Your gift's on the coffee table," Sherlock continued, looping his new scarf round his neck and going back to his sandwich construction.
John stared. "You.... How did you...."
Sherlock just slapped the bread on top of his sandwich and made a shooing motion at John; John sighed and wandered back into the living room.
The gift on the coffee table was a Blackberry, still in its packaging. He held the box up and stared at it vacantly for a moment.
"Your phone is ready for the rubbish heap, and I knew you'd never spend actual money on a decent replacement," Sherlock called, and then he appeared in the kitchen doorway and leaned on it, taking an enormous bite of his sandwich. "I really can't abide your having a shit phone when I need to use it for some reason."
John found himself at a loss for words.
Sherlock winked. "Happy anniversary."
***
John had always been faintly aware that the idea of Sherlock someday being shot by some lunatic he'd pissed off was not really a possibility, but an eventuality. John himself sometimes looked at his gun with longing, for that matter.
But didn't it just bloody figure that it would happen on a day when not only was John not with Sherlock, but at work at a respectable job for once?
As it was, when he got the call from Lestrade that Sherlock was currently in A&E in a different hospital across the city, John more or less abandoned the patient exam he was conducting, passing it off to his colleague next door with frantic, distracted apologies. He nearly ran outside with his stethoscope still around his neck.
The cab couldn't drive fast enough for him and he flung probably far too much money at the cabbie as he leapt out onto the sidewalk.
"Sherlock Holmes," he blurted when he reached the desk in A&E. "He was just admitted. Where is he?"
The woman at the desk leaned back in her chair a little. "And you are...?"
"John Watson. I'm his physician. And his partner," he added belatedly.
She kept a wary eye on him as she looked up the information in her computer. "He's in surgery," she said. "They'll assign him a room and come collect you when he's out. Take a seat, please. Over there." She pointed across the waiting room.
John wearily took a seat next to some hoodie with a minor head wound and dug out his phone to text Lestrade and Mycroft.
It was half an hour before the nurses' station paged him, by which point Mycroft was on his way and Lestrade was on his way back from the crime scene; John hauled himself to his feet to follow the nurse to Sherlock's tiny, private room and nicked the chart from the door before taking the visitor's chair. The nurse made some noises of protest but appeared to give up after a moment and get on with her rounds.
Sherlock was lying pale and prone in the bed, his eyes closed against the harsh overhead lights. John flipped over the first page on his chart.
"You were fucking shot in the thigh. You complete arse."
"Thanks for coming so quickly."
"You could have bled to death in minutes," John hissed. "It was," he held up his fingers a centimetre apart, in front of Sherlock's nose, "this close to nicking your femoral artery."
"I appreciate both your concern and your abuse of medical privilege to be here, I want that known," Sherlock rasped.
"This is what happens when you piss people off, you know. You were overdue for some extreme physical violence."
"I have no regrets regarding our civil partnership and its outcome, and in the event of my death in this room, I would like to communicate how relieved I am that you have replaced Mycroft as my next-of-kin. I would also remind you that this circumstance would be null if you murdered me."
"I could use this pillow, right here," John observed. "No one would be the wiser and I'm confident you've had time to irritate at least three or four nurses in this wing already. It's nearly a victimless crime."
Sherlock rolled his head toward John, so as to properly display his arched eyebrow. "Really, John? I was sure I'd given you a more thorough grounding in the law than that."
John got up in a huff to go replace the chart at the door.
When Mycroft arrived, it was to the sight of John giving Sherlock ice chips with a plastic spoon.
"Ah," said Mycroft. "I see you've found a way to silence him that doesn't require the use of tranquilizers."
Sherlock, crunching on ice, gave his brother the finger.
***
Christmases with Sherlock's family made John perversely glad that both of his parents were gone and Harry couldn't be arsed with holidays. Sherlock's mum was both unbelievably sweet and unnervingly canny (which only seemed to compound the general effects of Sherlock and Mycroft); there was a great deal of food and hobnobbing-type parties in the evenings with the sort of people who tried to give Sherlock important government jobs he didn't want, and gave John uncomfortable looks when they realized he was the new Baroness Chesterford; and there was a gift exchange where invariably someone gave John a cabled jumper and Sherlock a scarf.
He also had to spend extended periods of time in Mycroft's company.
"How's, er, Mrs. Mycroft?" John asked one year, when they found themselves standing together near the tree with the eggnog Sherlock had spiked.
Mycroft merely arched an eyebrow at him. "I regret my initial impressions that Sherlock had at least married someone approaching intelligence. You've been married, what, four years and you still don't know your own sister-in-law's name?"
John glared back. "I may have strong doubts as to the veracity of her supposed name."
Mycroft turned on his heel to go rejoin Jane--if that was her name--near the fireplace.
John escaped outside via the nearest garden door and nearly tripped over Sherlock's feet; he was leaning heavily on the wall of the house, smoking a cigarette.
"Where did you get that?" John demanded.
"Bummed it from one of the cooks." Sherlock's breath puffed out in a mix of smoke and water vapour as he answered.
"You told me you'd quit for good after you were shot!" John was making an effort not to shout and give away their position, and resorted to sort of an angry stage whisper.
Sherlock held up the cigarette between two of his fingers, his eyes following the wisp of smoke curling up from it. His cheeks had dots of pink from the cold. "Why would I quit? I love smoking. You should never quit doing things you love, John."
"You'll make a nice consulting detective with cancer," John retorted. "I can't stand here and watch you pollute yourself."
"Go inside, then. I think I'll stay out here a while. It's quieter. Well," he amended, "it was."
John shot a look at the french door behind him and then crossed his arms, feeling the snap of chill through his latest Christmas jumper.
Sherlock studied him for a moment with no expression on his face. Then he proffered the cigarette.
John looked back and forth between Sherlock's face and the cigarette several times before finally snatching it. He spent a split second contemplating whether to just pitch it in a snowbank but relented and took a short puff of it instead, before handing it back.
Sherlock kept watching him. Finally John's lungs, no doubt traumatized by all the chemicals he'd just filled them with, clutched frantically in his chest and he began to cough. Smoke puffed from his nose and mouth as he doubled over and wheezed.
Sherlock was laughing when John could stand upright again.
"How's your own cancer feeling?" he asked between chuckles. "Settling in nicely?"
"I used to smoke weed in uni," John complained, bracing one hand on the wall beside Sherlock's shoulder as he tried to clear his throat.
"You didn't keep in practice. Uni was a long time ago, John."
"Are you calling me old?" John accused, no matter that it was true.
Sherlock took a last, heavy drag of his cigarette, his eyes slipping shut for a moment as he inhaled. John watched him blow out a stream of smoke as he dropped the butt and crushed it under his heel on the flagstones. "Come on, then," he said instead of answering, slinging an arm round John's shoulders. The body heat felt a bit nice in the freezing air. "Our people await, milady."
"Shove it up your arse," said John as they walked back indoors.
***
Normally, John didn't miss his cane, lost to the winds of time as it was (or more likely some unknown past experiment of Sherlock's), but he thought, as he shoved his way in the front door of number 221 with both hands full of shopping, that he did somewhat miss the pity and assistance that came with being a semi-invalid. Now and then. In a not-really-but-wouldn't-it-be-nice-for-once sort of way. He craned his neck up at the second floor landing and sighed, readjusting the carrier bags to make his ascent. He could distantly hear Big Brother going on Mrs. Hudson's telly and reassured himself with thoughts of joining her in about five minutes to watch it and drink tea.
As he kicked in the door of the flat, he drew air to shout at Sherlock for a little help, if he wouldn't mind, but the air rushed out of him in a sigh at the sight of Sherlock curled moodily into the corner of the sofa. Sherlock turned his head just slightly to look at John as he dropped the shopping on the floor.
"What is it?" John asked. "Did she take the skull again while I was out?"
Sherlock wordlessly tossed John his mobile; it was lucky John had put down all the shopping. When he caught it and turned the screen right way up, he had to squint at a very small image on the BBC News website.
"This very tiny man looks a bit like Moriarty," he said after a moment, scrolling to skim the accompanying article.
"That would be because it is Moriarty."
John wandered over to the sofa, all of his attention on the page he was reading. "It says he's Stephen James, Labour MP and new Minister for Education." He sank onto the cushion next to Sherlock, squinting again at the picture.
Sherlock pulled his laptop from the floor into John's lap; it was on the same website, only readable. John abandoned the phone to look at a proper image of Stephen James.
"Christ," he breathed. "That's Moriarty." He looked up at Sherlock in a panic. "What's he playing at?"
"I don't know yet. Mycroft sent me the link." There were deep worry creases in Sherlock's forehead.
"Well, he's up to something," John exclaimed, flailing for answers.
"Thank you for stating the perfectly obvious," Sherlock snapped. He'd gone back to staring out the window, his thumbnail in his mouth.
He was the image of nervous tension. Moriarty had turned from a worthy game of cat-and-mouse for Sherlock into something worth fearing. Abruptly John had a crystal-clear memory of that night in the public pool; it had been one of the first times he'd seen Sherlock look afraid of anything.
"Hey," John said, laying a hand gently on Sherlock's shoulder; he could feel the muscles tense under his fingers. "Oy, look at me."
Sherlock obeyed, his face the picture of reluctance.
John squeezed his shoulder. "You'll figure it out. Faster than he thinks you will, because clearly you're the cleverer one. And we'll be ready for whatever he's planning. Stop gnawing your finger off; I can't sew it back on if you've chewed it."
Sherlock snorted, his lips quirking up a little, and let John put an arm round his shoulders to haul him closer until their sides pressed together. He was still humming with tension; it was the most natural thing in the world for John to let his thumb stroke up and down lightly, feeling the seam of Sherlock's shirt against his skin. "Relax. You've got me here, after all. You're not alone. We'll both be just fine."
Sherlock melted into John's shoulder as if there'd been some sort of signal. John felt more than heard the sigh into his neck.
"You're not a bad sidekick, that's true," Sherlock mumbled.
"I put up with your silly arse, don't I?" retorted John, impulsively turning to press a kiss against Sherlock's forehead.
"Thanks, dear," muttered Sherlock.
They sat in silence for a while, listening to the traffic outside and the sounds of the telly from downstairs. John spared a vague thought for the milk, sitting in a plastic bag over by the door, but couldn't bring himself to move. He felt secure.
After a while Sherlock shifted and John roused himself from his zen state, thinking that was it for relationship-building and it was time to deal with the food on the floor, but then Sherlock pinned him to the sofa by his good shoulder and began mouthing his neck.
His first thought was Jesus, his second was what, and his third was that of course Sherlock somehow knew his erogenous zones from years of pure observation, the twat. Confused, John let it happen for a moment, not sure how to react. There was a nip of teeth in the soft skin under his jaw that made his breath hitch unwillingly, and then Sherlock moved to kiss him on the lips. It was awkward, possessive, strange, and John kissed back enthusiastically for a second before his brain caught up and he shook a hand free to plant in Sherlock's chest.
They broke apart, John breathing heavily and Sherlock looking a tiny bit ruffled. "Is something wrong?" Sherlock asked, kneeling on the sofa cushion next to John with an arm thrown over the back. He was very close.
John attempted to marshal words to his command. "You," he said, pointing. That was a good start. He tried again. "Sexual cactus. I thought you said you were a sexual cactus. Remember?"
Sherlock dropped back into a seated position, dragging an irritated hand through his hair. "That was your daft analogy. I had nothing to do with it."
John wouldn't be dissuaded. "You don't like sex! Do you?" he accused.
Sherlock shrugged. "You like it."
John stared. Sherlock suddenly found the ceiling extremely engaging.
"You haven't had sex with anyone in a little over five months," he explained, still not looking at John. "I thought.... I thought, you comforted me. I could return the favour."
"You were going to try and have sex with me," John said flatly, "because I'm in a dry spell and you thought it'd be a nice gesture?"
"Well, isn't it?"
John leaned forward, braced his elbows on his knees, and rubbed tiredly at his face. "I tend to prefer when the person I'm sleeping with is also interested in the proceedings."
"Maybe that's why--"
John cut him off with a menacing finger in his face. "Don't finish that thought."
Sherlock obediently did not. How refreshing.
"I do find it strange," Sherlock ventured cautiously after a moment, "that you don't appear to make an effort to pull like you used to. Failures notwithstanding, you seem to have stopped making the attempt."
They didn't even share a bedroom but Sherlock still knew all the private details of John's life. It probably wasn't from a desire to know them, but he knew. Motivations, on the other hand, tended to elude him when they weren't related to a murder. John sighed.
"It's just not as important to me as it used to be," he said, staring across the room at the dark telly and fighting down a flush of embarrassment. "I have work, I have you to babysit... I haven't the time to deal with women. And always having to go back to theirs to avoid my husband and adoptive mum puts a damper on things."
"I see."
John fell back into the sofa cushions. "Perhaps it's time to focus on my marriage."
"Your celibate marriage."
"Yes, that one. What a lot I have to look forward to: a life of stress and danger, I can't have sex with anyone, and sometimes we get shot at." John smirked. "Like Afghanistan without the sand."
"All evidence suggests that you miss it."
"Sounds like heaven to me," agreed John. "But I have one condition if I'm going to devote my life to your brand of lunacy: what is your stance on cuddling?"
"Does it still count as cuddling if I'm texting or reading a book?"
John shrugged.
"Then I'm not averse to the concept."
John threw an arm nonchalantly back around Sherlock's shoulders, and felt a little flutter of satisfaction at the way Sherlock slouched into his side in response.
"We could try sleeping in the same room," suggested John.
"I have a tendency to use all of the blankets."
That was predictable, since Sherlock had no fat to insulate him and seemed to constantly be cold. "I suppose I can bring my own blankets," said John.
"This marriage might work out after all," Sherlock mused.
"Only if you get off your arse and put away the shopping."
Amazingly, Sherlock said, "Yeah, alright."
THE END