Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

"No. No way in hell, Sherlock," Joan hisses flatly - she would be yelling, but with this stupid bug, her voice isn't quite up to the task.

"Watson," he says, in that over-enunciated, public-school-boy way that he gets when she's being extra plebeian and annoying. She doesn't understand how he makes her name sound so long - its all of two syllables.

"Watson, you are being ridiculous. You are obviously experiencing flu-like symptoms, along with half the God-forsaken populous, and need to be evaluated at periodic intervals in order to determine the rate at which your health is deteriorating. This should not be new information to you, seeing as you are the doctor, but I am attempting to be overly-solicitous in deference to your - no doubt - addled state."

"You're still not getting anywhere near me with that thing," she refuses point blank, flopping back down into her pillow-mountain and burying herself in goose-down and satin. Its almost worth feeling like death for the moments of decadent indulgence she allows herself.

Sherlock does that lip twist - the one with the nose-wrinkle, which means "You are infuriating, why do I put up with you?", not the one with the eye-twitch, which means "I hate everything because the world is stupid", which is much more serious - and plops himself down at the edge of her bed, surprising Joan. No one in the world would believe her if she said that Sherlock has boundaries, and for good reason. He has no qualms about sitting in her room while she sleeps - or about being in her room at all, really. He has on more than one occasion entered the bathroom while she is using the shower. He considers clothing optional, and shares far too much about his sexual proclivities for Joan's peace of mind.

Even so, he treats the things that are unequivocally hers - her glasses, her red cardigan, her bed - with the kind of deference one usually gives to sleeping babies and bombs. She tested it once, during one of their slow periods, when all Sherlock had to work on was a cold case from Ukraine and a lost diamond. She tossed her sweater over the file he had spread on the couch cushions, seemingly by accident, and then slunk into the dining room to sip a mug of tea and 'read' one of her medical journals.

She watched for hours as Sherlock minced around the sweater, tugging the edges of his papers out from under tentatively, and staring at it as though he could read the notes and see the pictures with the force of his x-ray vision, before finally daring to nudge it with the very tip of one finger. He stalks away from it like an angry cat, and circles it restlessly. She finally takes pity on him, going to re-collect her sweater. Joan stays and lets him talk over the case (read: insult her for not making the right connections fast enough) with her to make up for it.

So, this uninvited bed-sitting is unprecedented, and finally communicates to Joan's (admittedly) fever-addled brain that Sherlock is experiencing concern for her welfare. Interesting. Still, she's -

"Really, really not letting you stick that in me," Joan says again. She will keep saying it again.

"Watson, I need to take your temperature, because the most dangerous symptom of any infection is a fever, and so you must allow me to determine whether yours is severe enough to warrant a trip to A&E-"

"Emergency," she mutters into the pillow, amused by his unwitting Briticisms - it's unlike him to slip.

"So let me," he continues as though she hasn't interrupted (it's possible he didn't hear her, her voice is very weak), "Take. Your. Temperature!" He whisper-yells that last bit, and she could tell he would like to be shouting right now, but he doesn't, because it would distress her. The tingly, squishy feeling in her chest is almost enough to convince her to do whatever he would like, except…

"I know what you did to that thermometer, Holmes. Let me say again, it is not getting anywhere near me."

Sherlock sighs, bitterly aggrieved, so massively misunderstood. "I sanitized it, Watson, I assure you, it's perfectly safe."

"You last used it to determine the temperature of fecal matter for one of your experiments. I don't care how much you washed it, it's soul has been sullied, and it's not going in me."

He sets the offensive object aside so that he can flail his arms with suitable melodrama. "Watson, you are being deliberately infuriating! You would not stand for these sorts of protestations were I in your position, nor would I even voice them in the first place! You are being needlessly belligerent, and I will not stand for it! You will allow me to-"

Sherlock blusters on, as though she's the least bit intimidated by the ultimatum he's delivering. Joan allows him his small delusions. Eventually, however, his long-windedness begins to exceed even her infinite patience - she really would like to be asleep now. She has to convince him to leave first though, because she doesn't trust him not to stick her with the defiled thermometer as she sleeps in order to assuage his fears.

"Oh, for God's sake!" she finally shouts, surging up out of her nest in a shower of blankets and tangled hair. She seizes Sherlock's face, tugging him towards her, but with the momentum of both her leap and his flailing, and her currently-abysmal balance, their collision course ends up slightly off center - she'd meant to touch his lips with her forehead. Not, perhaps, the most scientifically precise method of measuring her temperature, but hopefully enough that Sherlock will consent to leave her to die in peace once he's ascertained that her brain is not in immediate danger of melting out her ears.

Instead of the innocent, entirely platonic, meeting of lips and forehead, however, Joan somehow manages to mash their mouths together, and, well. Sherlock's got a very nice mouth, and it's still slightly parted from his interrupted diatribe, and she doesn't feel the least bit guilty about making him sick as punishment for even suggesting that thermometer continue to serve its God-given purpose. She sweeps her tongue out delicately, tasting the soft inner curve of his lower lip. Sherlock makes a broken sort of sound into her mouth, but remains frozen. Joan dares to intrude just a little further, nothing more than the gentlest, inquisitive touch of the very tip of her tongue to his before curling back, this time tasting the edge of his upper lip. He's gasping rather harshly, sharp breaths painting her cheekbones, and she grins, unbelievably smug. One last journey, this time circling the tip of her tongue around the tip of his, drawing the muscle helplessly out of his mouth, until it is just pillowed against the swell of her lower lip-

And then she pulls away. This is really not the kind of relationship she and Sherlock have, and it isn't nice of her to ambush him like this, it's just… He's got a very nice mouth, and this isn't the first time she'd wondered if making out would make him shut up.

He pulls back further to stare at her, and she feels a blush she can't entirely blame on her fever crawling up her neck. She should probably apologize for her appalling imposition of boundaries - boundaries are important, she likes boundaries, she has composed monologues to rival Sherlock's on the subject of boundaries - but all the half-sentences spiraling through her brain make it sound like she didn't like kissing Sherlock (she did), that kissing Sherlock is a bad idea (in context: yes; in perpetuity: not at all), that it was a mistake (yes, but not the kind he'll assume it was). Joan knows better than anyone that Sherlock has feelings to hurt, and nothing brings out the mama bear in her like someone threatening to stomp all over those feelings, even herself.

So she settles for blushing furiously and fidgeting; Sherlock will read her anxiety as 'I made a mistake, woops', and her lack-of-apology as 'I'm kind of glad I did'. The idea of verbalizing either of those thoughts is mortifying.

Sherlock stares at her, wide-eyed and adorable, and Joan's heart throbs, because of-freaking-course Sherlock is using the kicked-puppy eyes on her right now. Again, he almost succeeds in guilting her into accepting the desecrated thing into her body, but Joan holds firm.

"Just, please, give me your hands?" she finally sighs, extending her own for him to place his in. When he does, she lifts both, one to her forehead, and one to his. "Warmer than you?" she asks softly. He nods silently. She shifts both of their hands to their stomachs, maneuvering the one on hers underneath her shirt, and waiting until he follows suit. "Still warmer?"

He swallows a bit thickly. "Yes, but not by much."

"And my hands?" she asks finally, pulling his hands away from bellies, but not releasing his wrists just yet. He swallows again.

"Significantly warmer than mine, but they always are." His voice is very husky, and if Joan were healthy, she would be all over him like white on rice.

"Then I'm not worried," she whispers, smiling at him, holding his gaze, and hands, until he nods. She lets him go, lying back down.

Sherlock clears his throat, and rises, shuffling around a bit, but never moving farther than three feet from her bed, clearly unwilling to leave her vicinity. This doesn't surprise Joan either - the more unwell she is, the more gravity she exerts on Sherlock. She hates shortening his tether, but she can't in good conscience banish him from her sight.

Joan invites him to sit, and Sherlock does (but in his chair).

Joan invites him to stay, and can only hope that Sherlock does, because she is asleep almost immediately.

In fact, she will look back on the entire thing after her fever breaks, and wonder if she really woke up at all.

Chapter Text

It is not Bradstreet’s first day on the job, no matter what the guys keep saying, nor is it her first crime scene - she was a beat cop, not a mall cop, she’s seen dead bodies before. She’s just understandably nervous, and therefore understandably belligerent with the rude English dude that tries to invite himself onto the crime scene.

It’s a mistake, obviously, but an understandable one.  

After he’s finished tearing her a new one - she’d really rather not know how he knew about the thing with the bicycle - one of the guys sees fit to warn her that this is Sherlock Holmes, NYPD consultant extraordinaire. She’d figured that out for herself, funnily enough.

“Sorry,” CSI Hopkins murmurs to her when he passes, the two of them eyeing Holmes warily. He’s yelled at three more people already, and he’s only been here five minutes. If he’s trying to antagonize everyone, he’s doing a really good job. “He’s not usually this bad. His handler must have stayed home today.”

Personally, Bradstreet’s just hoping that Bell finishes speaking with the neighbours really soon. Especially when Holmes realizes she’s been bagging the evidence he’s looking for.

“You! Have you been ‘bagging the evidence’?” Holmes yells, pointing straight at Bradstreet. She grimaces, sighs, opens her mouth- “Give it here! Oh, well, you’ve only missed everything important, but at least you haven’t cocked any of this up.”

Bradstreet can feel her stress headache building behind her left eye.

“Sherlock!” somebody yells from the street outside. Oh, good, he can start yelling at somebody else now. The woman who comes through the doorway smiles beatifically at Hopkins and then levels a murderous glare at Holmes. She might be Bradstreet’s new hero.

“What the hell is all this, Sherlock?” the woman hissed, and Bradstreet just waits for it, almost breathless in anticipation - as awful as it is when Holmes’ lays into someone… Well, it’s never boring.

Except Holmes is… is he smiling? Oh, well. Apparently he doesn’t yell at women who yell at him when they’re gorgeous.

“Watson! Excellent, you’re finally here!” Holmes grins, tucking his hands into the small of his back and bouncing on the balls of his feet like a child.

“Yeah, I’d have been here sooner, except you didn’t text me until I was already at the restaurant,” the woman - Watson - replies, not at all moved by his obvious excitement at seeing her.

He does look momentarily abashed, as he takes in her silk dress, towering shoes and perfectly curled hair. “Ah, yes. My apologies, Watson. I trust that an intellectually stimulating crime scene will be an appropriate substitute for tonight’s previously scheduled activities?”

Watson just stares at him evenly until he starts to fidget. Then she smiles widely, and it’s even more disturbing than the perfectly blank expression.

“No,” is all she says, but she does scoop her hair up into a ponytail and accept a pair of disposable booties from a hovering CSI. Holmes grins, and ferries her around the crime scene, pointing at things and drawing ridiculous conclusions that turn out to be true. Watson trails him, as does the rest of the crime scene team, helping where they can.

Things speed up a bit when Bell returns, because he doesn’t question the ridiculous things that Holmes asks of him, just does them. Turns out he’s got the right idea, when their simple double homicide turns into at least a triple when Holmes opens up a secret compartment embedded in the staircase with a mummified body inside, and happily declares that there must be more.

A mummified body. In a secret compartment. In an old mansion. Christ. Bradstreet couldn’t remember when her life became an episode of a TV drama.

They’re there for hours, regardless of Holmes’ undeniable genius and slightly more questionable ‘help’; He insists on correcting everyone’s work, which will make it easier in the long run when the case goes to court, but at the moment (and Bradstreet is not alone in thinking this, she knows she’s not) she really wishes he would just let her do her fucking job.

The sun has set, everything in the house is lit with floodlights, they’re still digging bodies (and body parts, Jesus Christ) out of the walls, the ceilings, the garden. Watson - who (apparently) used to be a doctor has been conscripted into service by the Chief Medical Examiner, who was (apparently) called in from his vacation, and is Not Happy. They’re putting bodies together as quickly as the parts can be found, trying to match finger to elbows to rib cages to jaws, before wrapping them off and sending them off in yet another ambulance. Bradstreet’s lost count of how many. Holmes keeps muttering the number under his breath.

Bradstreet is a tiny bit comforted to see that Holmes isn’t holding up much better than anyone else. Oh, he’s not disturbed, or disgusted - he hasn’t thrown up or needed to leave or looked away from a corpse even once. but he is pacing in a steadily shrinking circle around the entrance way of the house, spending less and less time circling each new piece of evidence, before returning to his frantic mumbling.

Watson, looking a little grey around the edges, finally peels herself away from the bodies, stretching stiffly before going in search of her partner. She’d taken a minute to change into a pair of scrubs brought by the coroner, but the once cheerful pink is looking significantly more macabre.

Watson lays a hand on Holmes’ arm to get his attention, and his body locks up all at once.

“Hey, you okay?” she murmurs, obviously worried.

“Fine, fine, Watson,” he replies distractedly.

She’s not buying it. “You don’t look fine. Lay it out for me.”

And so Holmes turns his maniacal muttering into ranting, complete with dramatic arm flourishes, and the sheer weight of the data streaming out of him is astonishing. Bradstreet is lost before he finishes his first sentence, but Watson isn’t. It’s obvious from the tenor of her comments that she intends to calm the detective down, placate him or whatever, but it isn’t working. He gets steadily louder and more angry, arms thrashing until-

Oh. Well, that’s something you don’t see every day.

Chapter Text

Sherlock frequently forgets how small Watson really is. Really, the woman is tiny. Without her ridiculous shoes, she doesn’t even clear his chin, so he’s at a loss to explain why he assumes she’s taller than she is.

This is probably not what he should be thinking about, Sherlock muses as the interrogation-room door slams shut behind them. But, really, all he needs to solve the case is a conversation with the detective in charge, and this is as good a place as any to have that conversation.

Watson shoots him a glare as though she can hear the thought. Though, ever since the date-that-wasn’t, the night with the serial killer’s ‘House of Horrors’, Watson’s been 27% more likely to glare at him, or otherwise express her displeasure with his actions. And she really wasn’t shy about it before.

It’s not his fault. Really, it’s not. He didn’t mean to forget, and no one would blame him for prioritizing catching a murderer over a night of baleful monotony - dating, how excruciating - even if the new data about Watson promised to be the most thrilling puzzle he’d had in a long time. She can’t imagine he gave that up lightly, can she?

And, really, he’s been planning to reschedule, but there’s always something and he doesn’t want this to just be any old date (if he's going to go on a date, it's not going to be one of the soul-sucking variety).

He watches Watson cross around to the far side of the table, where she’ll be sitting facing the ‘mirror’ when the detectives finally deign to speak with them - Sherlock usually chooses seats on the other side of the table when they give him the option, just to be frustrating. She pauses, frowning. She ducks down, looking under the table, before making a disgusted sound in the back of her throat.

“There aren’t even chairs in this room,” she mutters, standing again.

“Subpar police force,” Sherlock says, having determined the lack of budget allotted to this precinct within thirty seconds in the station. Watson glares at him again, but it’s slightly more indulgent. "Really, excellent jurisdiction to practice crimes in, these people are hardly liable to actually catch anyone-"

“You’re just angry that they didn’t take you seriously-”

“Obviously demonstrating their poor judgement-”

“As far as they know, you’re just some crazy man who decided to waltz into the station and turn himself in -”

“Yes, because everyone turns themselves in with their accomplices-”

“Which I resent, by the way, no one ever thought I was rule-breaker until I met you-”

“You weren’t a rule breaker until you met me.”

Watson grins at him then, that secret little smirk that tucks itself into the corner of her mouth and lights up her eyes. He can feel himself melting into a little pile of goo from that smile, and hopes it doesn’t show too ludicrously on his face.

“Well, that’s certainly true,” she teases, tilting her body so she just leans into his space.

Sherlock swallows, throat suddenly dry. What is this, is he panicking? God, stupid, he doesn’t panic, not around women - granted, they’re infuriating under normal circumstances, but sex with them is never difficult. Though, the term ‘normal circumstances’ has never applied to Watson.

He clears his throat - and then has to do it again before he can speak.

“Besides, they’ve locked us up together, plenty of opportunities to try and construct a story.”

Watson leans back, and he can no longer feel her breath fluttering against his throat, and it’s utterly illogical, but he misses it.

“They’re probably recording this. I mean, it’s obvious you’re a talker.”

Sherlock scowls. “I’m trying to help them, obviously.”

“Right,” Watson agrees easily, putting her hand flat on the table and hopping up to sit on it, “because wandering into a police station where no one knows you, without documentation from Gregson, loudly proclaiming that you know the method in which the terrorist created his weapon before loudly beginning to detail his methodology was the fastest way to convince them that you weren’t the terrorist.”

“Come now Watson, anyone with a basic knowledge of virology and bacteriology could have figured out how he was doing it,” Sherlock complained, to which Watson replied by lying down on the table, leaving her legs dangling off the edge at the knee. He tries not to stare at the expanse of her thigh that’s revealed when the move pulls her skirt up an extra inch or two. He’s unsuccessful, which is ridiculous, her pyjamas cover far less skin.

“If you say so, Sherlock,” Watson said dismissively, closing her eyes.

Sherlock just stared at her, aghast. “You’re not serious. You’re a doctor, Watson, you have to know how viruses work.”

“Viruses, yes. Biological weapons? No.”

She was being infuriating on purpose - had to be. “Watson. Really. It’s a simple matter of creating a synthetic genome, loading into bacteriophage, infecting a mutated population of E.coli-”

“Yes, simple matter, all that,” she interrupts, voice slow and teasing.

He stalks closer to glare at her, forgetting for a moment the phenomenon of her inversely proportional gravity. “Watson. Anyone with access to a proper laboratory and some medical journals could have figured this out. You took genetics, tell me when you would have understood the concepts I’m describing.”

Sherlock can see that Watson understands what he’s saying - she’s pinched the fingers of her right hand together.

“Second year of my undergrad,” she admits grudgingly, and Sherlock nearly crows with delight.

“Exactly! So how they imagine that I am a viable suspect for these crimes-”

Watson sits up and - oh. There it is. She’s so small. They’re not even eye to eye, regardless of the height boost the table has given her. It’s… distracting. Very distracting.

“Sherlock-,” she says gravely, and Sherlock isn’t quite sure when or how it happened, but he’s really, really close to her now, standing between her knees, and she smells like mint and beeswax (from his hives, and isn’t that the most primitive display of ownership known to man, he has literally marked Watson with his scent-) and Sherlock knows what she’s going to do, of course he does she’s-

“-Shut up,” she finishes. And he does. Really, there’s nothing he needs to say bad enough to make her stop kissing him.

Chapter Text

Contrary to popular belief, there are cases that Sherlock hates. The first time Joan was around when he took a call like this, he had agreed to take the case before the detective was even finished speaking, even though it wasn't Captain Gregson, and as soon as he hung up, he had pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes, as though he could grind them to ash and that might just make everything stop.

Joan has learned to hate it when he does that - it makes her wish he was the kind of person that accepted physical comfort, because when he is in pain she is convinced she could open up her rib cage and fold herself around him until he could just live inside her where it is safe and warm and never ever scary or wrong.

If he would let her, she would smother him in caresses and kisses until the rest of the world ceased to exist for either of them.

Unfortunately, neither of them are the kind of people that allow themselves this kind of lapse when there is action to be taken.

Still, Joan sometimes wishes that she could just bury her head in the sand when the case involves kids. Anything to not have been with the police when they raided the debilitated apartment complex, when they descended to the mould infested basement, flashlight beams seizing along the walls and heavy boots clobbering the worn staircase; compared to the chaos of the SWAT team, her and Sherlock’s descent into the black was almost negligible.

Joan had been the one to reascend to the land of the living to meet the CPS Crisis Response team; she needed a minute, just a minute, to unsee what she saw down there, in those tiny little rooms with their tiny little lights illuminating tiny little bodies - she just needs a second. She just needs a second, and Sherlock needs to look at the evidence, but there’s something telling her, screaming at her, that this isn’t what she needs, what he needs, and that she needs to be with Sherlock, she just needs to know that he’s okay -

+++

Joan sits on the hard plastic chairs outside one of the conference rooms at the precinct, bumping shoulders with one of the CPS workers. The social worker - Diane - is holding a newborn in her arms, and they each have a toddler tucked in against their sides. Joan runs a hand through the fluffy curls of the little boy next to her, resisting the constant urge to check and recheck the shoulder joint that she’d just reset back into its socket.

Nik had been so grateful to have the constant grinding pain stop that he’d plastered himself against her side from the minute it was done, refusing to let her out of his sight.

Joan stared at the door to the conference room, where Sherlock, Gregson and another social worker were sitting with the older kids, three teenagers, trying to piece together some kind of sanity out of this mess.

Joan wanted to be with Sherlock. Wanted to know that he was okay.

He hated the cases that involved children more than she did.

(Honestly, Joan had never expected Sherlock to be the kind who liked kids. Not that she thought he hated them - at least, with no more specificity than he hated the rest of the world and the people in it - but that he might actively enjoy their presence had never occurred to her.

Some days, Joan isn’t sure that Sherlock actively enjoys her presence.

But to Sherlock, children embody limitless potential in a way that is unique from everyone else. They have yet to teach themselves social boundaries, sometimes even moral boundaries. They are eager for knowledge and are able to hold on to the dichotomy of certain conflicting truths without fear. Children don’t fear what they don’t understand - they only seek to make that thing understood.)

Joan’s hands seize a little tighter around Nik uncontrollably. He doesn’t seem to mind, just settling more heavily against her.

Joan jumps when the door opens unexpectedly, ready as always to go tearing after Sherlock - but it isn’t him.

The other social worker leans part-way out of the room, and beckons to Diane. She and Joan go through the awkward re-juggling of tiny, sleepy bodies - Nik slips down so he’s lying with his fluffy head in her lap instead of against her shoulder, the little girl, Jessica, scooches over to lean against her other side, and she props baby Stefan on her shoulder. He wakes up and starts to fuss, trying to fight his arms and legs out of the secure swaddling without much energy, but with just the right amount of baby-bonelessness that Joan is reacquainted with the fear of dropping a child, something she hasn’t felt since the early days of her residencies.

She sushes him, cooing under her breath, but he doesn’t settle until she accidentally tosses her hair over her shoulder, a common expression of frustration for her. It skitters over his face and he hiccups from the suddenness with which he swallows another cry. Joan twitches her head again, and he gurgles when the tips tickle his cheeks.

When Sherlock finally comes out of the conference room, standing a little extra upright, chin angled a few extra degrees into the air, jaw stiff and face bloodless, it is to find a softly smiling Joan, swarmed by children.

Jessie and Nik have finally succumbed to sleep, and Stefan is babbling at her seriously, tiny baby hands clinging desperately to her hair. Joan looks up, and smiles at Sherlock. This day is awful, and she would like nothing more than to forget it ever happened, but she’s going to count this one a win - they don’t get enough cases where the victims aren’t already dead when they find them.

All she can focus on right now is trying to get rid of that dead look in Sherlock’s eyes - the one that means he’s thinking “You aren’t good enough” and “Who do you think you are?”.

He blinks a couple times as he looks at her, apparently confused.

“I had no idea you were… ‘good with children’, Watson,” he finally says, coming to crouch down in front of her.

Joan rolls her eyes, trying to keep the mood light. “I did turns in the neonatal and pediatric wards during my residency, Sherlock. This, unfortunately, is not my first rodeo.” She winces as soon as the words are free, because that is not keeping with the lightness she is attempting to achieve.

Still, Sherlock smiles at her a tiny bit, reaching out to run a gentle hand over the crown of Stefan’s head. Stefan’s hand detaches from Joan’s hair with surprising dexterity to grip Sherlock’s finger fiercely. His mouth parts a little bit, shocked, and Joan’s smile can only grow.

“Today is a good day, Sherlock,” she whispers fiercely, leaning forward until their foreheads rest against each other, forcing him to meet her gaze. He does, and then he can’t look away.

“Not as awful as it could have been, Watson,” he concedes, and she dips her chin, “But this isn’t even close to the end of the tragedy for the children.” He swipes his hand through the air suddenly, violently, his mouth curling into a snarl. “I should have been faster, I should have paid attention to the au pair before any of this happened! I should have-” his voice breaks, and Joan can’t stand it, because it isn’t his fault, it isn’t and she just needs to -

When their mouths meet, it doesn’t feel abrupt, or accidental, or any of the other things the previous kisses have been. This feels… like they’re crashing into each other, like they’ve been falling into this moment since Sherlock got the phone call, since Joan had started carrying the weight of acid and bile on the back of her tongue -

+++

They don’t make it home for several hours, she and Sherlock. Bell drives them, and when he pulls up in front of the Brownstone, none of them make a move nor a sound. Joan contemplates just staying in this car, just for a little while longer, until she can move and think without feeling like throwing up her lungs - but Marcus wants to go home too, or out, or wherever it is that he goes when he tries not to think about what he sees on the job, at least for a little while.

The Brownstone is dark and empty. Joan has gotten into the habit of calling either Mrs. Hudson or Alfredo when she and Sherlock are going to be gone on a long, hard case; it’s nice to come back to lights on, maybe a fire in the living room, the lingering smell of whatever they had made themselves for dinner.

Tonight, though, she’d forgotten, and their home is just as blank and dark and as -

Joan shakes herself, and forces her body out of the car.

Just like a bad turn on the surgery floor, Joanie, she tells herself, refusing to let her knees wobble, You know what you gotta do. Self care, self care, self care… She feels the familiar tension grab her limbs - that final push to just finish one more thing, to check one more patient, help one more person, before she finally has to give in and just collapses.

She hears Sherlock’s door open as well, and sucks in a deep breath, ignoring the gaping emptiness she can feel in her chest.

Joan ducks down to look at Marcus through the window.

“Thanks for driving us, Marcus,” she says quietly, and he nods. Marcus opens his mouth to say something, and then chokes on the words before they are born, and just shakes his head.

“Hey,” she admonishes gently, and he turns to look at her, “Call me if you need to, okay? Even just to talk.”

He clears his throat. “Thanks, Joan, but I think I’m just going to go to bed as soon as I get home.”

She narrows her eyes just the tiniest bit at him. She doubts any of them will be able to do so much as close their eyes tonight. “I mean it, Marcus. For anything. Promise me?”

Sherlock ducks down beside her, so that he can peer into the car at Bell as well.

“You might as well agree, Detective,” he says, only the decreased tempo of his words betraying that Sherlock is not as unaffected as he appears. “She’ll only invite herself home with you if you don’t.” Joan bumps her shoulder against Sherlock’s gently, and doesn’t fight the tiny smile that is born when he nudges her back.

Marcus smiles a little bit too, and his nod isn’t as reluctant this time. Joan is appeased, and leans back so that Marcus can drive away. Sherlock follows the movement of her body as she straightens, and it is only then that she realizes how closely he is pressed along her back.

She has to move away to walk towards home, but she takes his wrist to keep him right next to her.

They walk through the door together, pressed close to fit, clutching at each other as though they are two children finding comfort from the dark -

Joan shakes the thought out of her head.

Sherlock doesn’t make any move to turn the lights on. They strip off their coats and boots and scarves in the inky black, bumping against each other, sometimes by accident, sometimes for reassurance.

They pause, their task complete; this is normally where they separate, Joan up the stairs to her room, Sherlock across the house to his, but neither of them can quite manage it.

Joan can’t see him, but she can feel the heat of Sherlock’s body, so it isn’t entirely a surprise to her when they’re suddenly embracing - Sherlock just collapses against her.

They prop each other up for a while, Joan reeling a little bit from the unexpected contact, unwilling to disturb the strangely laconic detective. Eventually though, she does move, the burden of being the strong one just too much to bear in that moment. Her hands grip his waist tightly, and she presses her face into his neck.

“Come to bed with me.” The words surprise her on their way out, just as much as they surprise Sherlock, judging by the way he stiffens against her.

“Not for… that, not for sex,” she says hoarsely, leaning against him a little heavier, knowing that will stop him from fleeing more effectively than grabbing him, “I just… I don’t want to be alone.”

He presses his nose into her hair, exhaling heavily. “Of course, Watson. Of course.”

+++

They lie beside each other in the darkness, not touching or speaking, but it’s enough for Joan. Sherlock lies on his back, and she is curled towards him on her side; her breath fluttering against his shoulder is their only point of contact.

Joan isn’t sleeping, but her mind isn’t aware - she floats in a haze of not thinking and thinking too hard, and the solidity of her exhausted body isn’t enough to drag her under.

“One of the teenagers,” Sherlock says into the silence, jolting Joan out of her reverie, “The oldest, she… Well. She had tried to protect the others. Taught them how to act, how to avoid attention. She treated their wounds when she was able, and bartered for medical care when she was not… She is the reason we found as many children as we did. And she - " Sherlock breaks off, jerking his head to the side, facing firmly away from her.

Joan stretches out when hand, slowly. Her fingertips brush the heaving arch of his ribs, and when they aren’t brushed off, she allows her hand to creep gently over his chest. Her palm flattens over his left pectoral, where she can feel the galloping of his heart; the tension in her vertebrae ratchets down another notch.

She waits, and he, eventually, continues.

“She reminded me of you,” he whispers, as though it’s a confession, something he should be ashamed of admitting. “She reminded me so much of you, Joan, and I just… I couldn’t stop thinking, thinking about losing you… Joan-”

She’d been frozen, paralyzed by the weight of her name - Sherlock never says her name, but when he says it the second time, gasps it, she is helpless to stop her movement.

Suddenly, she is on top of him and his breath is in her mouth and his hands are in her hair and their hearts are beating out the same rhythm against their sternums and -

“God, Sherlock, stop, just shut up,” Joan gasps, and then bites his lower lip; a tiny moan scrapes through his throat and its fucking magical.

“And don’t call me Joan, God, too weird-”

Chapter Text

Joan would be lying if she said that she wasn’t surprised that Sherlock wanted to go on their date at the Diogenes.

(Joan has only recently stopped thinking the word date with air quotes - she hasn’t quite lost the mental italics yet. She can’t decide if her panic is anticipatory or… just good old-fashion panic. Date. She is going on a date with Sherlock. Jesus Christ.)

Still, she prepares just as meticulously for this as she would for any other date (okay, maybe a little bit more meticulously. Maybe she shaves her legs obsessively, using a sugar exfoliant between passes of the razor until her legs are silky, baby’s bottom smooth. Maybe she curls her hair into a mass of bouncy coils, before brushing it all out and applying her trusted straightener - she doesn’t want to look like she’s trying too hard, and Sherlock likes her hair the way it is - Christ, she knows how Sherlock prefers her hair -). In the end, it’s a wonder she manages to talk herself out of the house at all.

She takes her time getting out of the cab too - it’s much, much harder than pop culture had prepared her for, this… this thing, taking the ‘next step’ with her best friend.

Get a grip, Joanie, she berates herself, The two of you have only been making out like teenagers for the past month, surely you can manage a date, you used to be good at dates!

Joan straightens her back, lifts her chin, and struts into the restaurant - she makes it to the hostess’ station before the facade cracks, and she bends forward a bit to smooth her skirt down, separating the layers of chiffon from each other and stroking them into order around her hips.

The hostess gives her an understanding smile.

“You look gorgeous,” she drawls, and winks. Joan smiles gratefully. “You have a reservation, sweetie?”

“Uh, yeah,” Joan clears her throat a couple of times before she can speak without croaking. “Should be for two, under Holmes?”

The hostess consults her sheet briefly before turning to Joan again with a smile. “He’s already here. Just this way, please.”

It’s such a cliche, and Joan judges herself harshly for even thinking it, but as soon as she catches sight of Sherlock, waiting for her, the rest of the restaurant just kind of… fades. Joan can feel a ridiculous smile pulling at her mouth, and doesn’t even care.

Sherlock smiles too when he sees her - well, smiles for Sherlock. His eyes open up really wide, and his mouth gets all soft, his chin tips to the side - yup. There it is. The Sherlock Smile.

His eyes drag from the top of her head to the tips of her toes, and then back up, so slowly she swears she can feel the sparks drifting across her skin.

She’s vaguely aware of herself speaking to the hostess, placing a drink order, thanking her, but she’s much more aware of her proximity to Sherlock, the way she can smell that antiseptic-formaldehyde-woodsmoke smell that smells like home as she sits kitty-corner to him at the square table.

“Hi,” she says softly, the word barely making it past her lips - her voice seems to have abandoned her.

Sherlock’s eyes crinkle. “Hello, Watson.”

She clears her throat a little bit, taking a sip of her water to try and cover it up - and asks, “So why the Diogenes, Sherlock? I thought your opinion was that the place is… Well. I believe your exact words were ‘needlessly pretentious’.”

Sherlock just waves his hand. “No reason.”

Joan narrows her eyes; she doesn’t believe him.

Unfortunately, she doesn’t get the chance to interrogate him about it, because a platter of food arrives right at that moment.

“The next platter will be out in ten minutes, sir,” the waiter says before sweeping away again. Joan raises an eyebrow at Sherlock, and he has the decency to look mildly sheepish.

“I hope you don’t mind that I took the presumption of ordering for the both of us for the night.”

“Well,” Joan says, taking a sip from the wine glass that had been set at her elbow, “You know what I like.”

Oh, Joanie! I think he’s blushing, Joan thinks to herself with no small amount of relish.

She smirks at him, and finally turns her attention to the plate.

“Oh! Fresh spring rolls! I adore these!” she exclaims, reaching out to drizzle the peanut sauce over one.

“Yes,” Sherlock agrees, and while he doesn’t say ‘I know’, he’s radiating so much smugness that she can hear him thinking it.

Joan picks up the roll with her chopsticks, bringing it to her mouth. Her tongue sweeps out, cleaning a layer of sauce off the skin of the spring roll, stopping the drip, before tipping the whole thing past her slick lips.

Sherlock swallowed heavily a couple of times, watching her mouth avidly as she savours the crunch and flavour of the roll. She plays it up a bit, tipping her chin up a fraction before swallowing, and can feel Sherlock’s eyes locked on her throat. She sighs when she’s done, stretching the end of the sound out with a bit of a purr.

Sherlock dives for his water glass.

She just smiles serenely, leaving him in peace to eat his own roll. He stabs it with a fork, and bites into savagely. Joan rolls her eyes, but has to smile at him.

Suddenly, his face screws up, and he starts choking a little bit.

She sits up abruptly. “Sherlock?”

He waves her off, or tries to, but he keeps coughing through tightly closed lips.

Oh, great. I swear to God, if this dates end with me giving him the Heimlich…

“Sherlock!” she whisper-shouts, trying not to draw too much attention, in case this wasn’t actually anything serious.

He finally just swallows. “No, no,” he gasps, fluttering a hand at her, “I’m fine, Watson, nothing to worry about.” He grabs his water glass and chugs the whole thing.

She watches him, aghast. “Are you having an allergic reaction?”

“No! No, Watson, I assure you, I’m fine,” Sherlock says, voice back to normal, but he’s still making a face like someone’s smeared a handful of rotten egg all over his face.

“Then what is it?”

“Water chestnuts,” he spits, wrinkling his nose (Joan is not at all reminded of a hissing cat being confronted with water), “Water chestnuts, Watson. There were water chestnuts in the spring rolls.”

She blinks at him. “Yes. They put them in for crunch.”

“Ghastly things,” he hisses, looking around for something to wash his mouth out with. “Mycroft probably infected his entire menu with them on purpose, he knows I can’t abide the little monstrosities, disgusting and disturbingly textured and God, how am I meant to get this atrocious taste out of my mouth, I swear, normally you can’t get the bloody waiters to leave you alone in places like this, and now -”

Joan sighs; she knows exactly where this is going. She reaches out and grabs his chin, pulling him into a kiss before he can even finish complaining.

“Umph,” he grunts against her mouth, but parts his lips readily when she sweeps her tongue into his mouth - this is a lot more tongue than she is generally comfortable with in public, but if it’s the fastest way to shut him up… Her tongue tangles slowly with his, again and again, dragging over the roof of his mouth, tracing the lines of his gums.

Joan pulls back eventually, flushed, trying not to take a look around to see how many people are gawking at her shockingly inappropriate public display of affection.

“Better?” she says coolly, impressed by how even her voice is.

He nods very very quickly.

The rest of the night, he picks the food apart obsessively, searching out every trace of water chestnut, and Joan is almost disappointed.

+++

Joan has just finished getting dressed the next morning when her phone beeps with a new text.

<<I hope you don’t find this overly invasive, but I would like to offer my sincere congratulations on the change in your relationship dynamic where my brother is concerned. I wish you all the best, Joan.>>

It’s from Mycroft.

Mycroft.

“SHERLOCK!”

Chapter Text

Sherlock stifled the urge to sigh, and glared at Watson instead, as though with his silence he could encourage hers. His efforts were rewarded with another little snarly-sigh from his partner.

She’d been doing this for the last twenty minutes - first at the crime scene, and now in the cab. It was driving Sherlock up the wall.

First, her phone would trill, a series of computerized beeps that was eminently recognizable to everyone who heard it - some meaningless pop-culture reference to an Italian plumber, from what he understood. Then, between 3 and 5 seconds later, Joan would make some noise of frustration or outrage, and then tick away at her phone viciously, tapping out a reply before sending it out with a vaguely satisfied noise.

The cycle restarted every fourty-seven to eighty-five seconds. Obviously, Joan was having an argument with her mother, and both of them were refusing to admit it was an argument, which is why neither of them just picked up the phone and called.

It was maddening.

And, as always, whenever Joan was frustrated, her usual perceptiveness went right out the window, because she had failed to pick up on Sherlock’s -

Oh. There’s an idea.

His annoyance is suddenly gone, and he turns predatory, shifting his body to turn towards Watson slightly. She doesn’t notice, except to speed her typing.

Sherlock bides his time, until she smirks particularly widely after sending a text. She’s less likely to be really angry with him if she feels she ‘won’ the argument, after all. Sherlock eases his window down.

His hand whips out, and seizes her phone. He snaps his arm back, and releases the phone at the perfect moment; it arcs almost serenely out the window and is lost as the cab exits onto a freeway.

Watson gapes for a long while, first down at her empty hands, and then out the window, and then finally back out the rear windscreen of the cab. Her mouth opens a bit wider, prepared to call out, but she quickly realizes the futility of asking the cab to stop, and slumps.

Then she glares at Sherlock. He feels a little frisson of - not fear, God, don’t be ridiculous, Watson is hardly frightening - something slide down his spine, and focuses on controlling his expression.

“What. The hell. Was that?” she hisses, over enunciating dangerously.

“You were annoying me,” Sherlock replies superciliously, and Watson’s eyes narrow further.

“I was annoying you?” she growls, hands clenching into fists.

“Yes, good, you follow,” Sherlock says dismissively, turning back to the window.

She inhales menacingly through her teeth, and Sherlock has to suppress a flinch - he was rather hoping Watson would sulk for a while before she worked up to a good yell, but she seems to be skipping right into lecture mode.

“God, Sherlock, what is the matter with you! That was astonishingly immature, and I thought I was past being surprised by your appalling lack of anything approaching manners, I really did. What exactly did you imagine that was going to accomplish? Did it even occur to you to tell me that I was, somehow, intruding on your oh so precious ‘peace of mind’? Ignoring the cost of the phone, for a minute, it was still my property, and not yours to do with as you see fit!”

“Yes, alright!” Sherlock cries, interrupting her rant before she can work herself into a proper fit, “It was, perhaps, impulsive of me -”

“Impulsive!” she shrieks, her voice almost too high to be heard by the end of the word. "Impulsive? That’s what you’re - that was not impulsive, Sherlock! Childish, definitely. Inappropriate, disrespectful, infuriating-”

“Watson, calm down,” he tries, turning all the way to face her, but it’s apparently the wrong thing to say.

“Do not fucking tell me to ‘calm down’, Sherlock Holmes,” she snarls, “It is your fault that I’m angry in the first place-”

“Actually I rather think you were angry at your mother before-”

“Shut up,” Watson hisses, “You can just fucking deal with me being angry, Holmes, because I am not ‘calming down’, why should I? God, I cannot believe you, sometimes, you know that? Who just decides that tossing a phone out a window is the proper way to deal with anything?”

She continues on in this vein for another minute, with absolutely no input from Sherlock - he’s not making that mistake again. Watson doesn’t even look at him, instead glaring fiercely at the back of the cabbie’s seat, gesticulating wildly. He can feel his cheek curling up, as he grows more and more bemused, mouth pursing. Watson is really getting into her stride when Sherlock decides this has really gone on long enough.

He reaches out and curls a hand over the side of her neck, tugging her towards him. The action is unexpected enough that Watson follows him readily, her eyes snapping to meet his.

Their lips meet, and the kiss is quite a bit less friendly than the others have been, but no less intoxicating. Sherlock can taste Watson’s anger in the twist of her lips, the way the tentative stroke of his tongue is met by her teeth scraping over his bottom lip, the way her hand fists in his hair. It tastes like thunderstorms and champagne, and Sherlock grins into her mouth, playing his lips over hers in quick little sips. She bites him again, and her tongue sweeps into his mouth all at once, overwhelming his own attempts at reciprocation before pulling away entirely.

Her flashing eyes lock on his from six inches away, and he grins slyly again. Her swollen lips twitch a bit in response before her eyes narrow, her hand tightening in his hair.

“Don’t for a second think this gets you off the hook, Holmes,” she smirks, before pulling him back in.

Sherlock might think about tossing more of her things out of windows if this is how she’s doing to respond every time.