Work Text:
A Place at My Table
(1. magnification)
If there was one place John had learned not to tread, it was the areas specifically designated Sherlock's in the flat. It wasn't necessarily due to Sherlock forbidding him—the most he'd do was glare as long as John didn't misplace something—but rather because John preferred keeping all of his fingers and skin intact. For all the careful attention he paid to his mind palace, Sherlock considered chaos an appropriate model to follow in physical "organization."
Sherlock's bedroom didn't get this treatment, much to John's relief. The living room waxed and waned in levels of messiness, but it was a far cry from the first time he'd walked in. The main room that gave John heart palpitations was the kitchen, with its flashbang scarred, rickety worktable piled high with hazardous detritus and incredibly expensive scientific equipment. In John's nightmares, the table grew legs and chased him around the flat and out into the streets, breathing green fire and howling about empirical methods being the closest thing humanity got to God.
John didn't like the worktable. Sherlock loved it to bits. Naturally, this sparked a bit of conflict.
Suggestions to move it always put Sherlock in a sulk, and John's attempts to corral the truly toxic chemicals out of the flat earned him all sorts of stink eyes. He spent the first month alone carving out an area for actual food and tea through sly words, strong-arming, and on a few particularly memorable occasions, sleights of hand taught to him by the capricious genius himself.
He suspected it was this last method that earned some grudging respect from Sherlock, as there was now a single cabinet reserved for food only. John was still working on keeping at least half of the refrigerator clear of human parts, but at least Sherlock no longer completely relied on Mrs. Hudson for sustenance.
"John!"
"Bloody hell," John grumbled into his pillow, gathering what little energy he had to roll over and holler at the door. "What do you want, Sherlock!"
The man had been calling his name for the past ten minutes. Normally, John would see what all the fuss was about, but he'd had a long day at the clinic and a longer night spent at the Yard staring at pictures of body parts floating in the Thames. All he wanted to do was sleep, but Sherlock's body rhythms existed in some different dimension the man either couldn't or refused to access. Rare were the times they woke and slept in tandem.
"I need your assistance," came the now much more measured response. Sherlock had been working his way up in volume, which was the only reason John had chosen to address him. He knew from experience just how far Sherlock's voice could carry and he didn't want to disturb Mrs. Hudson (even if she'd had far worse from them—it was a miracle she hadn't intervened so far).
John groaned into his pillow, punching his mattress a few times before slithering out of bed. Whatever Sherlock needed, it had better be incredibly urgent.
"Huh," he grunted as he entered the kitchen, looking at the new mess Sherlock had created. Urgent wasn't the exact term for it, but Sherlock certainly was in a pickle.
A hook hung jury-rigged from the ceiling (please don't let him have damaged the ceiling fuck is Mrs. Hudson going to have a fit), presumably the tool he'd used to help tie his hands behind his back. In truly spectacular fashion, the rope ran taut from his wrists and up around the hook, where a knot prevented Sherlock from simply pulling the rope off the hook.
"Why the bloody hell did you go and do that for?" John asked through a yawn, not quite awake enough to get properly indignant. Or aroused.
"I wanted to multitask," Sherlock replied, jutting his chin at his microscope. "But instead I...am stuck."
He spat the last word out like a curse. John's lips twitched, but he hid it with another yawn. He'd savor the blue moon of Sherlock admitting he was at fault for something later—right now, he would do his best to help out.
But at his own pace, of course. After all, Sherlock hadn't asked for his assistance yet, and John had been trying to get him to verbalize what he needed to him in an attempt to better Sherlock's communication. The bonds weren't dangerous—just incredibly complex. They'd only wound Sherlock's excessive pride.
Focusing on teaching Sherlock a lesson in asking for assistance would also keep him from thinking too hard about how Sherlock was essentially gift wrapped. Those sorts of thoughts weren't to be thought in Sherlock's presence at all.
"Looks like it," John remarked unnecessarily, wrinkling his nose at the dirty beakers lined up along the edge of the table. They were a prayer away from toppling over. "What's the experiment? Whatever's under your microscope or the ropes?"
"Microscope," Sherlock said shortly, pursing his mouth in intense concentration. "If I can just—"
John watched in amusement as Sherlock wiggled on the stool, nearly kicking over a stack of books beneath the table in the process. The result was a now even more precarious stack, a still tied up consulting detective, and a largely unsympathetic doctor.
"Would you like some tea?" John asked, holding up the kettle innocently.
Sherlock huffed, tossing his head like an offended stallion. Dark curls flew about, falling into narrowed eyes that glared John down.
It should've concerned him that such a baleful appealed to him. John relished the times when emotion broke through Sherlock's icy and aloof facade, revealing a man with teeth and blood and grit. Those moments fed the flimsy, foolish fantasies he briefly entertained in his dreams that something could work between him and Sherlock. Contrary to popular belief, he'd gotten over the indignation of being mistaken for a couple with the capricious man months ago, and had fallen into curiosity over the whole thing.
Now, here he was, goading Sherlock and soaking up the sight of such effective restraints. John had never gone for such things in bed but the aesthetics were truly marvelous. This was Sherlock tied up, and that made all the difference.
"I know what you're doing," Sherlock said, glare only intensifying as John's grin widened.
"I have no idea what you're talking about," he replied, heart skipping a bit as Sherlock actually snarled in frustration.
"Damn you," Sherlock muttered once John had painstakingly fixed up his tea. He watched John savor the first sip before his gaze shifted to his microscope. "I need the magnification at 100x."
Hm. Not the request I expected but asking for assistance nonetheless.
"Alright," John said, walking around to stand by Sherlock's side and adjust the knob. He took care not to let his sleeve catch on anything. The last thing he wanted was to clean up a chemical mess.
Sherlock leaned forward to peer into the microscope, exposing a pale nape. John caught a trace of his expensive cologne before he pulled back, settling in to lean against the counter with his tea and cloudy mind.
"40."
John sighed, quickly realizing what he'd gotten himself into. However, Sherlock was allowing him to touch the microscope. It was one of the few items John couldn't breathe near without Sherlock descending on him like a whirlwind or (and this comparison always made John snort) a protective mother bear.
They carried on in this fashion until John finished his tea. At one point, Sherlock asked him to switch out the slides, which drew John's attention to what exactly he was studying.
"Do I even want to know?" John asked, grimacing at the bubbly, bile-colored substance.
"Some sort of ooze that bubbled up from beneath a client's shed. Well, they called it ooze; I believe it's decomposition fluid, but whether or not it's human is something I have to ascertain."
"Of course," John said genially, deftly putting the slide into place.
Another long peer; another loaded pause that John knew precipitated a request. He waited patiently, his cup of tea making him more agreeable than usual to Sherlock's convoluted process.
"Can you prep another slide?"
"Of this stuff?"
"No, I'd like to examine a cross-section of Mycroft's inflated ego."
John snorted into his cup, which was thankfully just about empty, or else he would've choked on his tea. Sherlock's scathing sarcasm was always enjoyable when he wasn't being (unwitting or otherwise) cruel with it.
"How much bile do you really need to examine?" John asked, rolling up his sleeves. He should've just shed the dressing robe—the stink alone meant the thing would need a wash right after this—but he hadn't put on anything else except for trousers in his haste to get downstairs.
"Enough," Sherlock sniffed, nodding at an opened box. A squirt bottle filled with the mystery fluid stood out like a sore thumb. "Everything is in there."
It'd been quite a while since John's medical school days, but his hands remembered what to do. Finding a clear area to work on the table proved harder than prepping the actual slide. How Sherlock got anything done in the cluttered conditions he chose to surround himself with baffled him.
"Human," Sherlock proclaimed once John affixed the slide he prepared to the microscope and played another round of the hot and cold zoom game. "A neatly prepared lab slide as well."
"It's alright," John hedged, doing his best not to flush at the unexpected (and, in his opinion) unwarranted compliment.
They lapsed into silence, which was expectant on John's end and frustrated on Sherlock's. He gave one more futile wiggle before slumping further down the stool with a sullen pout.
"About the ropes…"
"Very tight," John remarked, unable to help himself.
Sherlock only grunted, looking up at him through eyelashes and floppy curls. The bar of light overhead washed him out, reducing him to something a step above black and white.
John did his best to remain outwardly impassive. It was unfair how a man so uncaring of anything beyond his work could muddle John's mind with his attractiveness to the point of personal crisis.
"It would appear I need some assistance," Sherlock said bitingly.
"No problem," John replied, already reaching for a pocketknife littered among the scientific apparatus and folders. He'd spotted it as soon as he'd taken stock of the situation and kept it in sight throughout.
Up close, John could inhale Sherlock's cologne with better effect, along with traces of London and a long day. Beneath that, John caught a whiff of his shampoo. He unconsciously leaned in but caught himself when silky curls brushed across his cheek.
"How did you tie yourself up so thoroughly?" John asked gruffly, banishing the accidental contact from his mind. Even with the hook, some of these knots seemed impossible with Sherlock's limited range of motion.
"I have my methods."
John huffed, slicing through the last knots with the same care he utilized with a scalpel. Sherlock had rolled his shirt sleeves up, and the ropes left red marks that John wanted to rub away before most of the lividity could set in.
Sherlock pulled his arms forward before John could, and the desire he shouldn't have indulged anyway was lost to the sudden urge to return to his bed.
"Try not to do that again, yeah? You might've been stuck here all night," John chided sleepily on his way out.
"I'll keep that in mind," Sherlock said, even though they both knew he wouldn't.
And that, John thought idly as he fell into his bed and promptly passed out, was somehow part of Sherlock's appeal. Passionate to the point of self-destruction for The Work. Somehow, Sherlock still expected him to believe all that nonsense about him being a high-functioning sociopath. For such a clever man, sometimes he could be such a horrible liar.
If he dreamed of Sherlock wearing far less than normal and trussed up to John's headboard by his favored scarf, then that was neither here nor there. It was alright to dream about Sherlock Holmes, as long as he remembered that the dreams were just that and nothing more.
(2. reaction)
Bit by bit, the worktable gained order. It was a miracle of such epic proportions that John was half inclined to call the Church and have it properly recorded. The kitchen was a far cry from the mad scientist's wet dream it had once been, and John couldn't help but be pleased with the result. After all, it was his influence that brought the change. Mrs. Hudson no longer cringed like a live bomb was behind her as she bustled about the kitchen, and John didn't have to worry about some concoction blowing the lid off 221B Baker Street. The poor flat had been through enough as it was.
There were still dangerous chemicals scattered about—more dangerous than John would've liked—but a compromise was far easier than a complete win. John understood some things would never change. It was just a matter of enticing Sherlock to consider the overall picture and not just the experiment at hand.
Sometimes John succeeded, and sometimes he didn't. Today was a resounding failure.
"Son of a—Sherlock!" he bellowed as soon as he entered the building. A faint popping sound similar to firecrackers combined with the acrid scent of smoke never boded well.
"He's at it again," Mrs. Hudson said mournfully, already peeking out with a tea towel wrung to bits in her hands, "John, could you–?"
"Already on it," John replied, bounding up the stairs and banging through the door despite being laden down with groceries.
The culprit stood by the worktable, clutching a vial in one and looking at the source of the most recent chemical catastrophe through foggy goggles.
"John!" Sherlock exclaimed, whirling around, "I asked you to pass me those forceps—"
"I was out," John interjected, dropping the groceries to clap a hand over his nose. "Christ, what did you mix today?"
"I didn't expect the reaction to be so...exothermic," Sherlock evaded haltingly, turning back around to reach for a bottle. A few seconds later, the remnants of the failed experiment were neutralized, ceasing the production of the noxious smoke.
"Clearly," John muttered, carefully approaching. He frowned at the lack of protective equipment; besides the goggles, Sherlock had only bothered with an apron. "Are you hurt?"
"No, no. Just startled," Sherlock admitted, voice distant in a way that signaled he was deep in thought. "How odd…"
John sighed and proceeded through the usual steps when Sherlock created the biohazard of the week. Windows were flung open, Mrs. Hudson reassured that the flat was still intact, items maneuvered, etcetera. In this span of time, Sherlock muttered to himself, handling the chemical mess and clearing the table with a scowl more confused than anything.
He shouldn't have found the expression so endearing, but in John's defense, a visibly confused Sherlock rarely occurred. So for that alone, John chose to hold off today instead of promptly delivering his typical lecture before stomping up to his room.
"What went wrong?"
At first, he thought Sherlock might not have heard. Just as he was about to repeat himself, Sherlock suddenly spun away from the table, clutching a (thankfully, John noted) empty Erlenmeyer flask by its thin neck.
"Abominable human error. My hands shook, and in my haste to correct myself when pouring one chemical in, I knocked another into a separate beaker. Careless," Sherlock spat derisively, holding the flask up towards the open windows. It caught a ray of light, briefly outlining Sherlock's hand in a pink, transparent glow.
"Your hands shook?" John asked, unsure if he heard correctly.
"Yes. Don't make me repeat myself."
John grunted, undeterred by the warning bite in Sherlock's tone.
Prior to this, he hadn't seen Sherlock in three days. He'd vanished sometime during one of his shifts at the clinic, working through a case he hadn't received through Lestrade. John had let it be. If Sherlock were in true trouble, the man would either contact him or Mycroft would pop up, waving his ever-present umbrella and pinning him like a bug in a frame with his cold eyes.
It always stung a bit whenever Sherlock worked a case on his own, but John understood the exclusion was rarely intentional these days. He was the one that insisted on keeping down a normal job and criminals didn't work regular hours.
For Sherlock to be gone for three days and return to his lab instead of his room to recuperate meant that he hadn't solved the case. It also meant that he'd neglected proper food and self-care. His shaky hands came from exhaustion. John knew that once the goggles were removed, he'd find eyes rimmed red and framed by dark circles. They'd be bright as always–they always were when Sherlock sunk his teeth into a case—but the light would be off-putting.
"You should eat—"
"No," Sherlock spat, whirling around and striding back towards the table, "I just need to properly test my hypothesis, and then—"
He stopped abruptly. Everything about Sherlock when he got into a mood like this was abrupt; stops and starts, arm and leg movements, and his moods.
"You can do it," Sherlock said, turning to face him, "You have steadier hands at the moment, and you won't mess up. Not with me guiding you."
Needless to say, John was more than a little caught off guard by the suggestion.
"Me, mixing chemicals? Have you gone mad?"
"I'm perfectly sane," Sherlock dismissed, hands aflutter as the idea seized him, "I know you have experience from medical school. Come on John, don't tell me the notion doesn't excite you!"
"Not at all," John lied, running through the various ways he could somehow encourage Sherlock to at least have some tea and biscuits before he keeled over on the table and blew them all up to kingdom come. None of them were viable.
"It's written all over you. I can read you, John—get over here before Mrs. Hudson comes up. Just five minutes, and I'll have either the solution to the case or more questions to seek out the answers to."
Framed like that, John wasn't left much choice. What could go wrong in five minutes?
Dumb question. Sherlock's managed to wreck people's lives in thirty seconds.
"Only if you eat afterward," John heard himself say, the words slipping out in a surprisingly firm tone before he even realized he'd thought the ultimatum at all. "I'll help you with your experiment, and then you will eat, and then you will continue working the case."
Silence filled the flat, broken only by the very faint hissing coming from the mess Sherlock had accidentally created. John stood his ground, back ramrod straight and eyes fixed on Sherlock's distorted, goggle-covered ones. He wouldn't be persuaded away from this course now that he'd set himself on it.
"Sometimes you surprise me, John," Sherlock started, breaking the silence first by pushing his goggles back onto the top of his head. His eyes looked just as John predicted, but there was also a new element to them: delight. "Very well. You have set your parameters, and I shall abide by them. But just know that I see no point in you concerning yourself with my habits."
"Food isn't a habit, it's a necessity," John replied, startled by how pleased Sherlock was at how firmly he'd put his foot down. Usually, Sherlock detested any attempts at control and normalcy John tried to impose. Why did he look so happy about it today?
Sherlock grinned impetuously before working to clear the area. John waited, his stomach knotting around itself as he stared at the worktable.
Working the microscope for Sherlock was one thing; playing at being a chemist was quite another. John recalled university labs and the stressful horrors of Organic Chemistry, but there was a reason he'd gone on to be a surgeon—and an army surgeon at that. In the heat of the moment, people didn't want someone that could rattle off formulas and theories. They wanted someone who could slice and stitch under pressure.
They donned gloves and goggles. Sherlock even produced an apron for him, and before John knew it, he stood in the spot that Sherlock tended to stand in when working.
Vials, flasks, and bottles stared at him with shiny, unforgiving gazes. Hardly any of them were recognizable to John's blank mind. Could they smell fear like dogs?
"Don't fret. All the components are harmless on their own and when mixed properly. It is only when handled incorrectly like earlier that they become dangerous."
Sherlock's baritone traveled down John's spine, hitting every vertebra along the way. He stood right behind him, his warm breath fanning over his collar.
"Sounds like someone I know," John managed to retort, his fingers carefully gripping the edge of the table for support. If Sherlock was going to stand behind him like that the whole time, they were going to have a chemical mishap of a different nature.
Sherlock scoffed. A second later, his pale hands overlaid John's, guiding them to where they needed to be. John could feel the tremor that ran through them, but contact seemed to help steady them.
At least one of us is benefitting from this, John thought as they carefully ran through the experiment, hyper-aware of every aspect of Sherlock shadowing him. It was a miracle he hadn't remarked on John's tenseness yet. He couldn't help but be hyperaware of the scant space between his backside and Sherlock's lean front.
"And now we pour, like so," Sherlock murmured, hooking his chin onto John's shoulder so he could properly see the reaction.
John swallowed back a strangled noise of surprise. Sherlock's scent pleasantly tickled his nose, undercutting the chemical he was instructed to pour into a beaker containing a sliver of metal sitting in a liquid John hadn't listened to the particulars of. Perhaps he should've.
"Relax," Sherlock said, sensing John's momentary hesitation. His hand tightened on John's in a gesture of comfort and control. It was enough for John to go with the motion and tip the beaker.
Instead of a bang or second wave of noxious smoke, the reaction was a soft bubbling accompanied by a notable color change. A wave of pleasure at the successfully conducted experiment washed over John, giving him a heady sensation and the urge to grin at the reaction. It didn't matter if the result boded well or not for Sherlock's case; the experiment itself had worked.
That wasn't so bad. It'd almost be fun if I hadn't known what havoc these chemicals could cause if mixed any other way.
Sherlock made a soft, triumphant sound. John could hear the grin in his voice as he spoke.
"Spectacular! It's a very clever duplicate, but chemistry has effectively confirmed my suspicions. I'll have to call the Yard—"
"After you've eaten," John cut in, stepping out of the way to let Sherlock handle the clean-up (and to regain his composure). "No slipping out of it! I'm sure it can wait."
"It cannot."
"Oh, it can," John said, seeing right through Sherlock's transparent attempt. He always wore a particular pout when he tried to charm John into giving in. John was now resilient to it—however adorable and strangely appealing it may have been. "Come on, none of that. Just get a bite in before you run off to catch the criminal of the week."
"A bite," Sherlock denounced scathingly, "is always three-quarters of a plate by your definition. And that is two quarters too many when I'm in the middle of a case."
"Too bad."
Sherlock's pout deepened. John didn't waver and was rewarded by Sherlock's shoulders slumping in defeat.
"Fine," he muttered petulantly, but the gleam in his eyes contradicted his supposed distaste for how things had played out. "We'll do it your way, John."
It was lovely when they did things his way. On the way to Angelo's, John decided that he should start reconsidering the strategies he employed against Sherlock. If "assisting" Sherlock with some hare-brained experiment got him to eat on a case, then John might just have to brush up on his chemistry.
(3. dissection)
The worktable at 221B had its limits. Despite Sherlock's best attempts–and there'd been several– the man couldn't study cadavers at the flat nor any animal that didn't come pre-prepped by whatever companies handled dissection animals. After a particularly nasty roadkill experiment languished forgotten on the worktable for a whole day after the duo's hasty exit to chase a lead down, it was unanimously decided that anatomy experiments should be as cleanly as possible.
Separate human parts fell into a grey area. No matter what either Mrs. Hudson or John said, Sherlock never stopped bringing them home from St. Bart's. Oh, he'd say he wouldn't after a lecture, but the next thing John knew, he'd be greeted by jars of eyeballs complete with dangling optic nerves or tongues lazily wagging at him in the morning after opening the icebox.
After a memorable incident with a pureed human liver, a pig's eyeball (what Sherlock's fascination with eyeballs was, John would never know), and John's laundry hamper, he'd put his foot down. A frustrating week had led up to the Laundry Incident, and John ended up pitching a fit to make his point. No detached human body parts in the flat for the rest of the month—not even a frozen toe or finger.
Of course, he was immediately ashamed afterward at how quickly and loudly he'd lost his cool at Sherlock, but in an astounding turn of events, John managed to cow him.
"Alright, John. No more for the rest of the month," Sherlock cut in quietly towards the tail end of John's rant.
"Alright?" John repeated, chest heaving and arms sore from gesticulating. He could feel nail marks in the meat of his palms from where he'd sporadically clenched his fists in a useless attempt to regulate his emotions.
Sherlock dipped his head, fingers dancing over the worktable before landing on a folder. He picked it up and rolled it into a haphazard cylinder. The fidgety motion–so different from his usual repertoire of dramatics–knocked John slightly askew.
"I agree to your terms. Rest assured this specific incident won't happen again."
At first, John kept careful watch, unsure when Sherlock's capriciousness would kick in, but sure it would. It always did. However, as days slipped by without a single eyeball in the icebox, John began to consider that Sherlock might actually mean it this time.
John knew that he had some sway over Sherlock, but that wasn't saying much. Sherlock lived to be defiant. Oftentimes, he felt as if he'd been handed a lit dynamite stick for a person and told to keep an eye on the finite wick. It was dangerous business and would most likely result in a violent end, but John loved the thrill all the same.
Extracting a steadfast promise from so fickle a person filled John with a sense of importance. He'd managed to do the impossible, and yet for some reason, he spent the rest of the month walking around with a vague sense of unease. It didn't feel right having enough space for cold goods and not having to triple bag discarded experiments to keep sticky leakage from getting onto the floors.
It was insane and more than likely a result of some chemical he'd been exposed to early on in his time at 221B, but John missed the unique anatomical nature of Sherlock's experiments. He knew it said a lot about him that he'd followed Sherlock so willingly into the world of crime-solving, but this quiet revelation about halfway through the month no doubt said more about the level of less than platonic fondness he had for Sherlock. One had to care a great amount for someone in order to put up with such a stomach-turning hobby.
Therefore, John wasn't terribly surprised when he felt nothing but relief when he walked in on Sherlock wrist-deep in something that resembled a chum bucket.
"Pig or cow?" he asked, toeing off his shoes with a jaw-cracking yawn.
Sherlock whipped around, extracting his hands from the guts quickly enough that blood splattered on the worktable. Rare and vivid guilt gave his surprise an extra edge, making John rear back in startled response. Sherlock Holmes looking genuinely guilty?
"John! I...lost track of time," he said, eyes darting to the clock and then back to him.
"I just got back. Mike wanted to go out for a pint," he replied slowly, caught between processing the fact he'd successfully surprised Sherlock and trying to figure out why Sherlock looked so guilty.
Then he remembered the date. John sighed as Sherlock fixed his gaze on his bare feet.
"You couldn't wait a few more hours?" John asked with an indulgent smile. An average person with as much beer sloshing around in his stomach would've been more appalled by the smell, but John had long since developed a high olfactory threshold.
"The delivery didn't come after midnight as I requested," Sherlock mumbled, toeing the floor. He looked every bit like a child caught red-handed with the cookie jar. "And you know how impatient I get when presented with such things!"
"I'm well aware," John replied dryly. "You don't even have proper footwear on."
Sherlock looked up at him through his curls. His pale eyes flicked this way and that across his face, taking stock of John's mood with scientific precision.
"You're not mad?"
"God no. Frankly, I'm surprised you lasted this long," John yawned, his mind already longing for bed. "Don't let me disturb anything."
With that, he filled a glass with water and left Sherlock to it. Sherlock's expression—somewhere between relieved and confused—almost made John laugh, but he managed to hold it in until he was in the privacy of his room.
After that, the experiments resumed, except now John's possessions were no longer cross-contaminated by viscera of any sort. Ridiculously pleased by something that was the bare minimum of lab safety standards, John let his mind wander down other, more dangerous paths. The new development had opened up room for cautious change to occur.
Seeing Sherlock bent over the worktable no longer struck fear into John's heart. Instead, John found beauty in the madness. He wanted to approach the workspace and watch Sherlock create and destroy in equal measure, gaze torn between the work and the masterful hands pulling answers from it all. He'd always admired Sherlock's scientific mind, but it was only now that he was beginning to embrace all its practical manifestations.
"John. What is this?"
John almost tripped over himself. He'd been on his way out when Sherlock piped up from the work table, but all thoughts of a quick stroll around the block fell away as he contemplated how to respond. Usually, he was the one asking Sherlock the questions.
"Are you okay?" he decided to ask, wondering if Sherlock had somehow hit his head or worn one too many nicotine patches.
"Perfectly fine," Sherlock drawled, his back still facing John. He raised a hand in a beckoning motion accentuated by a pen John recognized as one of his own. "Stop gaping and get over here. I need a doctor's eyes."
John blinked. On paper and when the Yard got in the mood to question John's presence, that was always the reason Sherlock cited. However, John held the opinion that Sherlock didn't really need his expertise. His knowledge of anatomy was far greater than the average person's, and he'd been able to parcel through many bodily oddities without John's aid. St. Bart's had plenty of people that, despite their various opinions on Sherlock as a man, wouldn't hesitate to toss in their medical two cents on a case if asked. John was a dime a dozen in the medical field.
"What's the problem?" he asked, standing by Sherlock's side and looking down at a series of glossy crime scene photos laid out on the table.
"This," Sherlock said, tapping the pen on a shot that captured the scene in its entirety.
John took a closer look. The body—a white male clothed in a T-shirt and jeans—lay face down in a ditch that was mostly gray mud, litter, and around 15 cm of rank water. There were no open wounds. The only mark of foul play was the giant footprint on the man's upper back.
"He was murdered. Held down and drowned," Sherlock said, frustration bleeding into his voice, "Except there are no defensive wounds and no signs the man fought back. Additionally, the tox screen came back negative, which means he wasn't drugged to be compliant." He tapped the pen against his chin. "But why didn't he fight back?"
John picked up the medical report and scanned it clinically. Then he took a look at the man's ID picture, noting the ruddy complexion and broken veins across the cheeks. For someone relatively young, he'd developed a strong drinking habit early.
"What does the shirt say?" he asked, buying time. Disappointing Sherlock, while a frequent occurrence for him, would be doubly spirit lowering since Sherlock had specifically asked for his advice this time around.
Sherlock waved the pen dismissively. "It's a festival shirt. Some sort of eating competition he participated in gave it to all the contestants."
"Eating competition," John murmured, something dancing at the back of his mind. It was the slightest hunch, far slower to come than the ones Sherlock grasped at and turned into full-blown, evidence-backed deductions.
"Yes. He was–hey," Sherlock pouted, crossing his arms as John took his pen back and pocketed it.
"Shut up," he said, only half aware of pressing his finger to Sherlock's mouth. Ruddy complexion. Eating competition. Carbs…
The epiphany struck him like lightning just as he noticed how soft Sherlock's lips were.
"Auto brewery syndrome!" John exclaimed, grasping Sherlock's shoulder (best not to keep touching his mouth) and sticking the medical report under his nose.
Sherlock blinked like a cat. He traced his upper lip with his tongue once before shifting his gaze to the report. If John didn't know better, he would've said Sherlock had been just as distracted as him by the touch.
"I can surmise from the name the general concept, but what are the specifics?"
"It's a condition where the gastrointestinal tract ferments carbs," John explained, the force of his epiphany carrying him away from thoughts of fingers on mouths, "Symptoms generally overlap with those of drunkenness. It's so rare that I've never seen a case before and it hardly gets diagnosed, but it's fascinating! He must not have been aware he had it if he entered an eating competition."
"But someone else must've suspected!" Sherlock exclaimed. "Oh, it's brilliant! That means the suspect must have some kind of medical knowledge and waited for the carb overload before luring the victim to the ditch. But what about the tox screen?"
"It's my understanding that it's a very quick process. His levels were probably near back to normal by the time he died. If he ate enough, the process could've made him pass out like any black-out drunk. He must've trusted his killer," John added.
"Yes, yes, he must've," Sherlock echoed, eyes already fixed at some distant point in his mind palace, "I'm feeling peckish. Let's eat."
"Right now?" John asked, forced to scramble back as Sherlock leaped to his feet.
"Yes, right now," Sherlock confirmed insistently, "Our suspect will be going nowhere, and as you always love to remind me, food is an unfortunate necessity."
John dropped his feeble inquiries in the face of the whirlwind of activity Sherlock had become. In truth, he didn't want to press too hard, but John couldn't help but be curious about the change in procedure.
Outside, the slick sidewalks and biting wind pushed the two closer together than normal. Sherlock made for an effective windbreak and John simply liked to be close.
"You've been distracted lately."
Sherlock's statement came out of the blue, catching John off guard.
"Pardon?"
"Distracted," Sherlock enunciated, "I cannot figure out why. All of your needs are being met. Our cases are intriguing enough to keep you on your toes. You've received no phone calls from drunken family members. Even your silly little blog is doing well." He retreated behind his scarf just a little, muffling his next words as if they were meant more for himself than John. "What could be bothering you?"
"My blog isn't silly," John stuttered, heart in his throat as he realized what Sherlock had noticed.
But he hadn't deduced it yet, which was good. John just had to keep him from doing that, and everything would be as fine as it could be considering what was at risk of being exposed.
"It's a bit silly. You paint me out as some hero," Sherlock said, spitting the last word with enough derision to curdle milk. He shook his head sharply. "But that is not the point. The point is that there's something remiss."
"There's—honestly Sherlock, there's nothing wrong. I'm fine," John said, which was mostly true.
John was a simple man. He sustained little hope in intriguing Sherlock enough to pull him away from his marriage to The Work. John contented himself with small, fleeting fantasies. A stray thought here, a lingering glance there.
But sometimes, he wondered what delusional measures he'd have to take to make the numerous times they'd been mistaken for a couple true. On even rarer occasions, John stopped lying to himself and let himself accept that he'd seize the opportunity if it was presented. He'd weighed the potential damage it could do to their friendship if the relationship crashed and burned. Even then, John thought he'd go for it. How could he not? This was Sherlock they were talking about.
Sherlock's eyes scanned him, light glinting off them as they flicked from his mouth to his eyes and across the planes of his face. John waited patiently, caught between resignation and taut anticipation that this was it. He'd been had–Sherlock would drag it all out of him, and John wouldn't be able to lie. Come hell or high water, he'd be honest and accept whatever Sherlock may have to say about his feelings.
A car passed, headlights riming Sherlock in white light. They'd stopped at some point, simply staring at each other. If John wanted to, he could lean in and kiss Sherlock then and there. Hazy from the prolonged eye contact, he thought Sherlock wouldn't mind being kissed out in the open on a London night.
"Insufficient information," Sherlock said suddenly, brow crinkled with momentary confusion before abruptly continuing down the street. "Come along, John."
John stared after him a moment, a strange swooping sensation running up from his toes and making him lightheaded. Sherlock…hadn't discovered his secret?
"Did you–did you just have a human 404 error?" he asked instead, a bubble of laughter pitching his question higher than normal.
"John."
"Oh my God, you did! You buffered!" John exclaimed, running after Sherlock before he could round the corner. "Oi, wait up!"
It didn't happen often, but sometimes, Sherlock couldn't help but be human. John resolved to keep this in mind going forward. It wouldn't do to be lax about his secret (there was a very real possibility Sherlock wouldn't take kindly to it), but maybe he didn't have to be so paranoid about it.
After all, outside of the long-standing joke, no one really thought he, John Watson, and Sherlock Holmes were capable of a romantic relationship. Right?
(4. acceleration)
Some experiments went past the worktable's boundaries. St. Bart's managed to handle most of the extraneous experiments, but occasionally experiments occurred in other places. Impromptu testing of theories—usually with John or Lestrade acting as reluctant guinea pigs—at crime scenes happened frequently enough that John had long stopped fighting against it. But every now and then, Sherlock came up with something so maddeningly insane that it superseded the scientific inquiry boundaries John had become alarmingly used to.
"Remind me again why you're doing this?"
He and Sherlock stood at the top of one of the side stairwells in the Yard. Below, a bit of netting nearly identical to some recovered from a current case involving a love pentagon between acrobats and a string of jewel thefts had been strung up a few inches from the floor. It was less a matter of who'd done it, but rather, how they'd done it. Several witnesses had all failed to spot the actual thieves but concurred on one detail: hearing a strange noise outside their respective buildings before realizing they'd been robbed.
"Evidence to back up my theory," Sherlock replied, unfurling a lumpy tarp he'd come to the flat with earlier that morning, smiling with gleeful anticipation. His grin had only strengthened when he'd promptly dragged John to the Yard, sending the officers that had the bad luck of catching the look on his face into a tiff. It was well known throughout London that when Sherlock got that grin on his face, explosions, gore, and climactic case conclusions weren't far behind.
The only person that wasn't put off by the expression was John. He'd seen Sherlock give package notifications and scientific journals that made bold claims the same grin, which took the edge off the mania some read in the expression.
John looked down at the odd assortment of containers lying at his feet. Of the rough dozen, two-thirds were cylindrical, with the rest being rectangular. They were all of varying lengths, widths, and material types.
"Sherlock…?"
"Pass me the stones."
The second part of the purchase had been blue decorative stones—the slippery kind people put in vases. John opened the mesh bag and, on Sherlock's order, began to disperse them as evenly as possible into each container. It was about halfway through this task that John began to grasp what the point of the whole endeavor was.
"The netting recovered was never meant to catch the thieves," he remarked, watching the stones slip into a metal cylinder a level away from being a plain old steel pipe.
Sherlock's eyes sparkled brighter than the stones. The mesh bag in John's hand emptied, leaving behind an absence he barely noticed in his puzzling through the clues.
"The sound the witnesses heard…was the jewels. In a container," he continued, suddenly excited. It wasn't every day he managed to figure out so much of a case while it was still open."It wasn't rain or a gutter breaking. It was the jewels!"
They were drawing a bit of a crowd. John could hear people beginning to line up on the stairs, spreading out on all the levels between them and Lestrade and his people down at the bottom. Now that people knew Sherlock's intentions didn't involve destroying the Yard, they felt safe enough to witness the action.
"If it's not one of these first six, we'll transfer them into the remainder," Sherlock explained, screwing the top onto the last container.
"But why all the different containers?" John asked, frustrated he couldn't figure out this last bit. This was the part where Sherlock was three steps ahead, holding some vital, case-making information that John wasn't privy to.
"You'll see. Fun bit first," Sherlock winked.
John told himself that he tripped over the container because he lost his balance getting out of his crouch, and not because of the wink. A mere wink couldn't undo Three Continents Watson.
Sherlock stepped up to the railing and pulled out the radio he'd nicked earlier from his coat pocket.
"Ready to begin, Lestrade! Inform the witnesses to listen carefully and your people to shut up."
And without further ado, Sherlock lobbed the cylinder over the edge.
John couldn't say what it was at that moment that stole his breath away. It could've been anything from the sheer giddiness Sherlock exuded to the way his open coat swirled around his ankles; the shine of harsh fluorescent light on his dark curls to the graceful curves of Sherlock's smile and flung out arm. Perhaps it was a summation of all these parts, tied together by an utterly random (and surprisingly innocent) experiment in a thousand John had either witnessed or partaken in.
Oh, God. I'm in love with him.
The susurration of the stones clinking against metal confines, each other, and gravity filled the mostly quiet stairwell. John was sure everyone's eyes were on it as it fell, but his eyes were fixed on Sherlock.
"How was that?" Sherlock demanded through the radio.
Some squawked response came through, but John couldn't put sense to the words. It was as if something integral had gone into free fall along with the cylinder. Half-terrified that Sherlock would read him like an open book if he caught sight of his face, John turned to face the stairwell wall.
Scuffed, depressing plaster and a metal banister that had seen better days. John focused on a bracket that connected the banister to the wall, wondering frantically at what point he'd fallen in love with his best friend and flatmate.
The attraction had always been there. Just as a low-level simmer he could ignore, then a more solid concept that John toyed with indulging. John couldn't deny he'd developed a fondness for Sherlock's quirks. Sherlock could drive him mad, especially with that bloody worktable of his, but in love seemed a bit much.
Or was it? Who did he spend all his time with these days? Who did he trust first and foremost? Who couldn't he imagine living without? John only had so many priorities and ambitions in life, and Sherlock either was involved with or was the center of them. Sherlock was all he cared about. Being in love with him wasn't as strange as it seemed at first—
"John?"
"Yeah, I'm here," John said, turning on his heel and rubbing his hand over his mouth. God, even the way Sherlock said his name had John rethinking all the excuses he'd made to keep from pursuing Sherlock. How could he not have realized this?
But as John watched Sherlock run through the experiment with ever heightening euphoria, he realized that he must've been in love nearly from the start. It was simply too deep a love to have been born after his incessant lusting after Sherlock. If anything, he suspected the love had come before the lust, and he'd been so distracted by the physicality that he'd gone and run into this brick wall of emotion all on his own.
They completed the experiment to the rise and fall of cheers from onlookers as cylinders were tossed down. On their way down to the bottom, Sherlock explained the purpose to him in between glaring at lingering officers.
"I already knew what had created the noise, but I needed to narrow down the specifics of the container as much as possible," Sherlock said, coat flapping around his ankles. About halfway down, he grabbed John's sleeve, guiding him through a packed landing. "I'm fairly sure our thieves have hidden the container in plain sight. There's a set of warehouses one of them works at that handles the distribution of cylindrical raw materials for industrial use, so narrowing down the options was necessary…"
John listened, barely in touch with reality. Sherlock's grip tightened, impatiently tugging him along in his wake.
There's no way I can hide it, he thought morosely, heart beating erratically against the thin skin of his wrist, doing its damned best to be felt by Sherlock's hand through his sleeve. John had gotten lucky that one time out in the streets, and that had been when he'd still been oblivious to the true depth of his feelings. It was always easiest to lie to Sherlock when he didn't fully grasp the truth himself.
They reached the bottom of the stairwell to a cacophony of noise. Sherlock reveled in it, ready to drag everyone into the last arc of the case. He let John's wrist go. A sour taste filled his mouth as he watched Sherlock be enveloped by Lestrade and his people.
Sherlock Holmes would forever be married to The Work. John couldn't find it in himself to begrudge him for it when it made him so happy. For all his complaints about the worktable, John knew that it was emblematic of Sherlock's passion for science—as integral to the man's persona as his coat or his mannerisms. Sherlock had somehow made room for John's partnership, even his friendship, in his life, but there was no room for romantic love. John couldn't be selfish enough to ask for more when Sherlock had already given him so much.
He'd have to hide it. John didn't know how long he could—it'd been hard enough just hiding his lust—but he'd have to try. John couldn't afford to make a foolish leap of faith. He'd been an idiot for thinking he could. This was Sherlock they were talking about.
"John?"
John tried to school whatever pained expression he must've been wearing, but Sherlock's ecstatic smile slipped regardless.
"Are you alright?" Sherlock asked, and Christ it had to have been bad if Sherlock was inquiring about his well-being at such a critical turning point in the case.
How are you going to hide this if you fail at the start?
John shook his head with a smile that came out more of a grimace, thanking every deity in existence that the motion was enough to halt Sherlock's outstretched hand of concern from going any farther.
"I've, uh, got to go. Right now. I'll get back later," he said, not even bothering to come up with an excuse as he backed up the steps. Up was an irrational direction, but it would get him away from Sherlock before he exposed any more emotions on his face or, heaven forbid, blurt out something stupid, damning, or damningly stupid.
The last thing John saw was Sherlock's upturned face watching him go, pale and unreadable under the fluorescent lights of the Yard.
5. (actuation)
Dangerous, flat-destroying things were beginning to return to the worktable. John could see them when he passed by. Opaque bottles and containers sporting multiple colored danger warnings like venomous snakes reproduced with deliberate speed, arranged in a manner that begged for commentary. However, these days, John tried to keep his eyes from doing any more than sliding over the contents of the table and the man it sometimes held.
It'd been about three weeks since John had begun his quest to repress his rather unfortunate epiphany at the Yard. In that time, he'd put in enough hours at the clinic to draw worry from his coworkers, ignored enough invites to the pub to draw worry from friends, and gone off his food enough to draw worry from Mrs. Hudson. Even the CCTV system seemed to be turning its cameras to follow him more closely than usual, but that could've just been a figment of John's nerve-heightened imagination. He didn't think Mycroft Holmes had the emotional capacity to be worried about anyone save for himself and perhaps Sherlock once in a blue moon.
The only person that didn't express worry for him in any fashion was Sherlock.
This didn't surprise John much. In the first few days, Sherlock had been so busy wrapping up the polyamorous jewel thieves case and solving a smaller one right on the heels of it that he hadn't noticed at all. Once he had, John had gotten his fair share of intense stares and pursed bow lips framed by steepled fingers, but no vocalized concerns. Instead, Sherlock mirrored the distance, face somewhere between unsure and carefully blank whenever John dared to look up higher than his collarbone.
It killed John to do it, but what other choice did he have? He'd spent the first part of his youth adamantly repressing his bisexuality, giving him good practice for this latest trial. He'd be a poor excuse for an Englishman if he couldn't deal with this recent case of lovesickness with a stiff upper lip. He just needed more time and space from Sherlock, and his secret would be preserved forever.
"Time and space," he whispered to his ceiling, alone in the dark of his room. It was an area Sherlock rarely ever breached, but lately, it didn't seem to matter. Thoughts of Sherlock followed him past the doorway, curling up alongside him in bed to taunt him as he tried to banish them from his mind. The knowledge that Sherlock was just below the floorboards had never been so burdensome and tempting.
He wondered what Sherlock was thinking. No doubt he was treating John like a case; if he even cared to figure out what was going on.
John shook his head. Of course Sherlock cared. If he hadn't, he would've just gone about things as if he'd noticed nothing different with John at all, but things were different. Sherlock had responded to the distance with his own, and then there was the regression of the state of the worktable.
Is he trying to goad me into an argument to regain my attention?
If that were the case, it was a sound strategy. In fact, the more John thought about it, the more he was sure that was Sherlock's plan.
He huffed out a dry laugh. He'd figured something useful out for once in time to aid himself. He would just have to studiously avoid looking at the table from now on, no matter what insane environmental hazard Sherlock put on it to draw some remark.
John rolled over, drowsiness combating the unease flitting through his stomach. He questioned the wisdom of his counterstrategy–Sherlock could really go too far with these sorts of things—but it was the most effective he could come up with, and he was too tired from consistently avoiding Sherlock to consider any other options.
Stubbornness became their undoing. That, and a nitrogen canister.
John was already in a bad mood when he limped downstairs about a week later for breakfast. He'd dreamed about Sherlock (again) and the guilty pleasure of doing so when he was supposed to be not thinking about him was taking its toll. His old psychosomatic limp always twinged back to a ghost of its former life when he was in mental strife.
Sherlock didn't miss his limp, which was probably why he didn't vacate the kitchen when John clomped in with his house robe undone over threadbare pajamas. John could feel his eyes flit up from the oculars of his microscope, following him as he walked around the opposite side of the table to—
"Motherfucker!" John swore profusely as his bare foot (he shouldn't have forgotten his slippers) collided with the side of a metal gas canister that most certainly hadn't been there yesterday.
"Do watch you step, John," Sherlock drolled. It was the longest sentence outside of case-related conversation he'd said to John since he'd started his one-man island routine.
John's nostrils flared as his head jerked up reflexively to tear Sherlock a new one for bringing unreasonable equipment home. The words were on the tip of his tongue, but they died an ashy death when he made eye contact with Sherlock for the first time in weeks.
Sherlock was still breathtakingly beautiful as always, but there was an edge to his appearance that John didn't like. Too many buttons were undone at his collar. His hair looked as if it'd seen too little time with a comb and conditioner. There was even a ghost of a five o'clock shadow darkening the line of the pale jaw he kept obsessively clean-shaven.
And his eyes. They offset his otherwise neutral expression, waiting eagerly for him to tip back into their routine and end this emotional torture.
Don't waver.
John averted his eyes and exhaled, shaking out his foot (at least it wasn't the one attached to his limp). Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Sherlock's face twist into something too complex for his peripheral vision to define accurately. Confused the new level to his plan hadn't worked and dark with frustration—that much John could make out before Sherlock spoke.
"Why won't you look at me?"
John turned away fully with hunched shoulders, careful to step around the canister stamped with all the usual warnings. God only knew what was in there. Whatever it was probably couldn't hurt John any worse than the emotion lashed up in Sherlock's voice.
"Nothing's wrong," he lied, only able to do because now he was facing the kettle and attempting to prepare tea like the confrontation weeks in the making wasn't happening.
Sherlock scoffed so loudly that John didn't need to be facing him for his mind to conjure with crystal clarity the exact arm gesticulation and head tilt paired with the sound.
"You are many things John, but you are neither a good liar nor a coward," Sherlock said, his pause deadly, "At least, I didn't think you were."
John hummed complacently to hide his wince. He'd deserved that one.
"Just tell me what's wrong. I've gone over everything again—don't think I've forgotten about that time in the street after we solved the auto-brewery syndrome case," Sherlock said, his stool scraping against the floor as he got up, "Nothing has changed in your life. No new drama with family or friends. No new debts or health problems or secret enemies. The only thing that remains is me."
"Not everything's about you," John muttered, focusing on filling the kettle.
Sherlock continued as if he hadn't even heard him, pacing the length of his side of the table. "I've gone over my actions tenfold. I don't know what I could've done to upset you so."
"You didn't do anything," John said, hating how relieved he felt at finally being able to say something honest in this whole terrible conversation.
"It's always something I do," Sherlock hissed, tipping into anger, "It always is."
Distantly, John registered that it had started to rain outside. He set the kettle on a burner and got the flame going, trying to rid the tremor from his hand by squeezing the handle to death. Time and space, time and space—
"What? No retort? Where's Captain John Watson?"
"Right here," John snapped, digging his fist into his stiff thigh, "And he doesn't want to fucking talk."
You're slipping. Don't give him any more.
"I've gathered that much," Sherlock said, jumping on the morsel he'd been given, "But why? You're the one so big on communication, and yet it is I that has to resort to this!"
John ripped open the cabinet doors, hissing out a breath through gritted teeth. His leg was starting to twitch, and Sherlock wasn't going to quit now. He'd keep poking and prodding until he dragged John out of his self-imposed isolation, not knowing that what he was so desperately asking for was the one thing he didn't want. Not from John.
"It's not you, it's me! I'm the awful, stupid fuck up here!" he yelled, having sense enough to slam a random mug on the counter instead of one of the few proper teacups they had. "Dammit, Sherlock, just let it be!"
"No. No, I won't," Sherlock insisted, approaching with a speed that John couldn't escape. His voice, low and intense, demanded attention. "Enough of avoiding me."
John gasped when Sherlock grasped his good shoulder and tried to spin him around. After so long spent trying to avoid all the casual brushes and touches they'd allowed in their friendship, his touch shocked his nerves.
"Sherlock, don't," he pleaded, pressing himself back against the edge of the counter.
But Sherlock could never let things go, and deep down, John wanted to let go of his resolve. He missed Sherlock and regretted having hurt him (and he had, hadn't he?) in his clumsy attempts to do the complete opposite. John had never intended for his distance to be permanent, but standing in the kitchen, he realized that no time or space could lessen his love for Sherlock. He'd always love him in his foolish, hopeless way. There was no repressing it. John just had to live with it and the consequences of it being found out in the worst way possible.
"John?"
John Watson was no coward, but as he faced Sherlock, he kept his eyes shut. He didn't want to see Sherlock finally figure it out. Even he couldn't mistake John's feelings for anything else at this point.
Sherlock's breath ghosted over the side of his face as he bent to peer at his features. He smelled like chemicals and toothpaste. John found himself missing the expensive cologne and conditioner.
He knew the moment it happened by the spasm of Sherlock's fingers, still curled around his shoulder. It stretched into one agonized eternity defined by the growing hum of the kettle, the dull patter of the rain, and the random flare of pain in the confused nerves that ran up his leg.
"Oh, John—"
"Don't," he managed to get out, daring to open his eyes.
Sherlock didn't look angry anymore, but neither was he perturbed, disgusted, or any of the other mixes of negative emotions John had expected. Instead, he had that wild air whose cutting beauty had gotten John into this mess in the first place, mixed with a healthy amount of disbelief.
"Don't," he repeated, stomach swooping at the disbelief. He knew it was stupid for someone so ordinary as him to dare love someone so unique as Sherlock, but he didn't want to be confronted for it. "Don't, okay? Let's not talk about it. We can just put this whole thing behind us, and it won't affect anything, and—"
Several things seemed to happen at once. John stumbled away from the counter, intending to put space between him and Sherlock so he could plead his case for continued friendship better. However, Sherlock had opposite intentions—he went with him, reaching for his other shoulder with a look part panicked and part determined.
Except that was his bad shoulder, which always ached on the bad days alongside his limp. Sherlock's grip drew an unintended yelp from John. The kettle went off at the same time, whistling as John jerked himself away out of instinct, stumbled back, and tripped over the canister.
John did his best to tumble away from it, but he still knocked it over with a deafening clatter. He managed to stop himself by slamming into a counter and not the worktable, but the damage had already been done.
Barely audible over the kettle, a faint hiss of air rang in John's ears.
"Bloody hell," he said, springing into action. Two of his four limbs ached something fierce, but now wasn't the time for hesitation.
John shrugged his robe off and tossed it over the canister, skirting it as he reached for Sherlock. He grabbed his arm with one hand, used the other to move the kettle off the stove, and then shoved them towards Sherlock's bedroom.
Or attempted to. He got them about halfway down the short hall before Sherlock made an aggrieved noise and pushed back.
"What the hell are you doing?" John demanded, trying to pull Sherlock when he squirmed out in front of him.
"It's not—oh, confound it all, John! It's not going to explode," Sherlock said, yanking his arm free and striding towards the kitchen.
John's throat closed up in panic as he raced to keep up with Sherlock, who was tossing his ineffectual house robe off the canister.
"It's nothing but nitrogen," Sherlock explained, tightening the loosened valve with a grunt, "Perfectly harmless in our ventilated flat. Too noble of a gas to interact with anything on the table either."
John's adrenaline rush careened to an anticlimactic halt. Nitrogen?
Sherlock straightened up with a sigh, shaking out his sleeves before busying himself with John's robe. His eyes studied the seam between the overhead cabinets and the wall with artificial focus.
"The warning stickers are just that: stickers. I put them there. As well as on most of those containers," he confessed, jerking his head towards the table behind him, "For some reason, I couldn't bring myself to bring in the real deal."
John stared at Sherlock. Now that the flat wasn't in imminent danger of blowing up around their heads or becoming filled with toxic gas, his mind was beginning to register that Sherlock was building up to something. A stupid, odd flutter of hope beat against his ribcage.
Sherlock swallowed, looking down at the robe draped over his arm. He plucked off a piece of lint—nit-picky out of nerves.
"I'm usually much quicker on the uptake, but I feared I was just imagining it," he murmured, "Seeing what I wanted to see, like that one time you thought I human buffered. Even I can be susceptible to fallacy."
John drifted towards him. Sherlock watched him approach and without saying a word, helped him back into his robe. John tied it loosely with steady hands.
Sherlock's hand curled around his cheek, fingers cool against his skin. John covered it with his own, grounding himself in the feel of tendon and bone that didn't belong to him.
"I'm not totally heartless. Otherwise, I wouldn't have a heart to burn out," Sherlock said, lips twitching wryly at the Moriarty reference. He sobered. "Whatever heart I possess, it's always belonged to you."
Before John could say anything to what was probably the best confession he'd ever received in his life, Sherlock pressed his mouth to his. His hands came up to frame his face, warmer than he'd expected. John was so stunned that he couldn't kiss back, but Sherlock didn't seem to mind as he pulled back and cleared his throat. Twin spots of pink bloomed high on his cheekbones.
"Was that alright?"
"Yeah—yup, it's all fine," John said, like the idiot he was. Christ, he'd imagined this moment a thousand times over, and now that it was happening all he could do was default to standard British pleasantries.
Sherlock's eyes twinkled. "I caught you off guard."
"No, no," John said, bristling at Sherlock's smug expression, "Absolutely not—come here, you berk!"
It figured that his words would be about the most unromantic he could come up with. However, John had never considered himself a man of words. He'd always been good at speaking in other ways.
Later, in Sherlock's bed, John watched Sherlock's bare chest rise and fall with sated breath. He'd starfished, taking up so much space that John had to press close to him and pin one of Sherlock's arms just to stay in the bed. Not that Sherlock seemed to mind much at all.
"So."
"So," Sherlock echoed, eyes coming back from wherever he'd gone in his orgasm. "Words. Yes."
John laughed. Sherlock flailed his free arm in John's general direction, but gave it up as a lost cause when all his limb wanted to do was remain limp. He sighed, rolling onto his side to face John.
"So," he said again, pale eyes searching John's face like they always did when he was on the brink of declaring some deduction. "You want to be with me."
"Yes," John frowned, searching Sherlock's face in the same manner with more limited success. He understood that Sherlock meant beyond sex. A flash of insecurity, combined with the horrible fear he'd gotten ahead of himself, cut to the bone. "Yes, of course. Unless you don't…?"
John didn't even get to finish his nervous question before Sherlock's finger was shushing him.
"I do," Sherlock said firmly so as not to be misconstrued. "I've wanted this since I realized that you were the only person who could possibly keep up with me."
"More like barely," John joked around Sherlock's finger before kissing it happily. "Hmm. You've got a godawful table, but I'll take that and all the rest with you."
That startled a laugh out of Sherlock, who propped himself up on one elbow to look at John properly.
"Why are you so doggedly obsessed with my work table? It's a highly undeserved grudge," he said, tossing his head of hair.
"It's a danger to society just like its owner."
Sherlock's hand skimmed down his ribcage towards his hip. John's prick gave a valiant twitch of interest. There was an insatiable edge to Sherlock's smile that roused his blood back to life.
"Hmm. It's only as dangerous to you as I am to you." That smile widened knowingly. "And how dangerous can that be?"
"You know, I'm reconsidering even as we speak," John said breathily as Sherlock moved in one sinuous motion to straddle his hips.
"Reconsider later. Kiss me now."
"Demanding," John muttered, unsurprised in the slightest, but he was all smiles as he clasped the back of Sherlock's neck and pulled him down to fulfill his request.
+1 (conclusion)
"John!"
John jolted awake, which wasn't the best way to wake up after a far too long night of pints at the pub. That was the last time he tried to keep up with coppers coming off a shift—alcoholism practically came in the job requirement with them.
Sherlock's yell hadn't sounded panicked, which was good, but it hadn't sounded very fond either. John tried to recall the events of the night. Greg had brought him home…he'd made it up the stairs…had he puked somewhere inconvenient? John's mouth tasted as if he had, but he could've sworn he'd made it to the bathroom.
"John!"
"Oh, bugger it," he groaned, dragging himself out of Sherlock's bed with the sheet wrapped around his bare shoulders. Whatever it was he'd done, he'd just have to kiss and make up for it once he made himself more presentable. Surely Sherlock couldn't be too mad since he'd ended up in his bed instead of his now barely used room upstairs.
He brought the water glass and paracetamol already sitting on the nightstand (Sherlock in a previously charitable mood before he'd been pissed off), hastily swallowing them. The morning light pierced his head in a way that didn't bode well for the rest of the day, but John pushed past the irritable pain as he followed the sound of Sherlock's voice to the kitchen.
"What happened, love…?"
John paused in the doorway to take in the scene.
The worktable had been rearranged to make room for what looked like the world's most ramshackle model plane. John could see why Sherlock had been yelling—while items had been handled with care, whatever order there'd been to the table was gone. The only item left as is was the microscope.
Sherlock stood by his prized microscope, eyes wide and one hand indignantly clutching the neck of his dressing robe. His other swung between pointing at his table and a figure sitting hunched on the couch like an erratic pendulum.
"You two—of all the things—my table!"
"Hiya, John," Greg smiled weakly from within his blanket cocoon. "Can you get him to stop yelling? I've got a killer headache."
"As you should," Sherlock retorted, momentarily overcoming his all-consuming indignation to provide scathing commentary. "I bet this was your idea, you nostalgia-addled moron!"
"Huh?" John said eloquently.
Sherlock rolled his eyes, arm swinging back to point at the plane. "That is clearly the result of you two getting so drunk you decided to unlock childhood memories. The plane, while decorated with extra scavenged bits—sourced from my supplies, I'll have you know, is a base purchasable a few streets away," Sherlock swung his arm back towards Greg, "You're the one that gets maudlin when extremely drunk and folds up paper into useless little shapes at conference meetings—don't give me that look, you know I'm right." Sherlock's arm fell momentarily. "Model planes on my table. I should report you to your superior."
"Right as usual," Greg grumbled, hunching over to lean on the couch arm. His shoes had somehow made their way onto the mantle. "About the maudlin thing—not my superior. You know I'm technically your superior?"
"The only thing you're superior at over me is being disgustingly emotional."
"Ok, that's enough," John said, sensing the downward spiral forming, "Sherlock, I understand you're upset, but we both feel bad enough as is already. Greg can bring back some breakfast," John shot a beseeching look to Greg that he accepted with little fuss, "While I get started on cleaning up, alright?"
Sherlock considered this. John gestured for Greg to get put together as Sherlock sighed and folded his arms together.
"Fine, but I won't give him medicine," he said snottily, marching out of the room and shutting the bedroom door with a crash that made the remaining men wince.
"Bloody hell mate, sorry about that," Greg said, gingerly getting himself together. John could only imagine Sherlock's initial reaction to finding the detective on the couch. "When do you reckon we even got the time to put that together?"
"I've no clue," John replied honestly. Bits and pieces were starting to come back from the night before, but he didn't remember buying the plane or setting it up. He'd only just recalled that Greg had accompanied him up instead of merely dropping him off. They'd treated Sherlock's absence as an excuse to continue the party. Or to put the plane together?
John winced. Definitely to put the plane together.
"I'll let you patch things up with the missus," Greg joked, winking as he shrugged his coat on, "I hope the place is still standing when I get back."
"Me too," John muttered, watching him shamble down the stairs before shutting the door with a sigh. He fought the urge to let his head fall on the wood with a thunk—that'd be a horrible idea right now.
He couldn't fault Sherlock for being upset. Even now that they were together and the worktable was at a new record of cleanliness (John was sure it would almost pass a health inspection), the table remained Sherlock's territory.
John brushed his teeth and splashed water on his face, ignoring the pins and needles sensation against his tight, oversensitive skin. It didn't do much to pull him together, but it was better than nothing.
"Sherlock?" he called out, shuffling towards his doom. Sherlock didn't banish him from the bed as punishment because he liked cuddling too much, but his cold shoulder made him feel about two inches tall.
The bedroom door cracked open, revealing one of Sherlock's narrowed eyes.
"He's left? Good," he said, emerging dressed and phone in hand.
"Er…" John started, trailing off when he saw Sherlock's gleeful expression. What on Earth was going on? Had he been saved by a case higher than a 5 being mysteriously texted to Sherlock?
"I never anticipated such levels of ingenuity from you two, but alcohol truly does cut away overthinking in surprising manners," Sherlock rambled, aiming his phone to take pictures of the plane with a widening smile, "It's actually aerodynamic! I bet with a little more tinkering we could get it across the street. God knows where you two found that foil though…"
"You're…not mad?" John asked for clarification, approaching cautiously.
"Not at you," Sherlock said flippantly, rounding the corner to get a different angle, "Never at you, and honestly over moderately at Gary. He needs to learn a lesson about appropriate drinking boundaries with my partner and my theoretical ire will get that across. I expect my worktable cleaned, but this is solid experimentation here. I almost wish I'd been included."
John considered this. In a way, it made sense. Sherlock had always had funny ideas about boundaries, and what did he love the most in all the world? Science, experimentation, ideas.
"I've decided not to drink with the Yard anymore."
Sherlock snorted. "That'll last a few weeks. We need to get vodka back in you—it clearly unlocks some hidden engineering potential."
"I think that was more Greg. I honestly don't remember any of this!"
"Blackout drunk conditions," Sherlock surmised with a glint in his eyes, "Fascinating."
"I'm not your guinea pig," John said flatly, shooting the experiment down before it could germinate any further in Sherlock's ever turbulent mind.
"But it's all in the name of science!"
"I've accepted that science is a mistress you can't abandon, but that doesn't mean you've got to go roping me into your love affair," John sniffed, only partially serious.
Sherlock momentarily stopped taking pictures to approach him. John squirmed as Sherlock began to pepper soft kisses across his face, halfheartedly trying to shrug him off.
"I do love The Work, but I can't make love to it."
"The Work also doesn't make you breakfast and picks up your dry cleaning," John added, giving in to Sherlock's antics when he gently herded him back against the table.
"No, it doesn't. Do you see where I'm going with this?"
"Quite clearly," John groaned, lacing his hands into Sherlock's hair as he trailed his mouth down his neck, "Sherlock."
Sherlock pulled back with a wet sound. His smile was positively devious. It wasn't fair that he managed to look so put together when John was torn between pulling him back in and burying himself in bed to sleep the rest of his hangover off.
"Not right now," he said instead, remembering Greg. Then he returned his attention to Sherlock, who was leaning against the wall in a most delectable manner. "Jesus, Sherlock, you're going to be the death of me. One minute."
It was rather hard to snog someone who took one minute literally. Sherlock pulled back, only the slightest bit disheveled as he declared John's self-allotted time up.
Dating Sherlock Holmes was, in some ways, no different than being his flatmate. Most of John's days were filled with reeling at the twists and turns Sherlock's work pulled them through. Sherlock still mixed chemicals with all the self-preservation and hubris of a Victorian-era chemist, and John still had to bully him into keeping up with more besides grooming during cases.
The evolution in their relationship had occurred with surprisingly little fanfare outside of the emotional turmoil. John was a bit embarrassed to find that they'd already had all the domestics mostly worked out, which left them all the lovely bits to discover about each other.
"John, come look at this part. If we can reinforce it with some lightweight material, I believe we can maximize air time."
Sherlock's expectant look pulled John from his musings. He perched on his stool, and when they made eye contact, he jerked his head towards the other side of the table.
"Alright," John said, rolling up his sleeves and walking around to the other side. He sighed melodramatically. "The things I do with you."
John sat, unsure of what he was doing, but glad to be with Sherlock anyway. Sherlock picked up the plane, eyes alight with anticipation as he explained to John what they'd do next once Greg returned with the penitent breakfast. Not once did John think about the table's dangers.