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When Mariana moved into 221A, John Watson told himself he wasn’t allowed to fall in love with her.
He has eyes. Mariana Ametxazurra is a gorgeous woman. Her beautiful tight brown curls made John want to run his hands through them. The caramel color of her skin is heavenly, especially when the light shines on her at her desk. Then there’s her soft brown wide eyes, which John found himself getting lost in. Lastly, there was her dark brown freckles danced across the woman's round face.
The best part of her to John was how human she was. Mariana wasn’t some sexy Spanish model, she was a beautiful whole person. Mariana had a cute gap in her teeth that she expressed being insecure about. She tended to snort when she laughed too hard at John's bad jokes and snored like a sick dad. The accountant was into superhero movies, fanfiction, and crappy reality shows.
She was amazing. But John couldn’t fall in love with her.
At first, it felt like a strange power dynamic. Mariana needed a job so she could stay in the country, Sherlock and John were able to offer her a job to do just that. So John couldn’t just go and flirt with her. What if she only responds positively out of fear of being fired? John isn’t that kind of guy, no sir.
However, very quickly, a new problem formed. Mariana quickly became John and Sherlock’s best friend. They worked together, spent nearly every dinner together, went out to the pub, had movie nights scheduled every Thursday and Saturday. Mariana ran the financial and marketing side of their business and anything else behind the scenes. She walked Archie for John when his injuries were flaring up (and whenever she wanted). They did laundry, shopped, and cleaned as a little duo. John couldn’t risk ruining that for something as silly as his stupid crush.
That was what he focused his energy on, not falling in love with the beautiful, nerdy, incredibly smart, Spanish women downstairs.
He forgot to worry about falling in love with the brilliant, violin-playing detective one room over. And why should he worry? John had never been interested in men before. Except Zack Morris from Saved By The Bell, but everyone thought he was hot. Like how everyone thought Aladdin and Prince Eric are dreamy. Well and John guesses there was Arthur from football camp in Year Ten. Oh and Stammo, but John was in college discovering himself. Fuck John forgot about Lieutenant Riley.. he was something else.
Except for those 6 men, he never had any interest in men. It was silly to even worry about.
Yes.. Sherlock is objectively attractive. Again John isn’t blind. The detective is 6 '3 and lean as hell, with little effort. He has striking grey eyes, a strong jawline, and a very nice smile when it is bothered to show. It was a smile that made John feel like he had won the most valuable prize. Generally, he dressed very smart. As long as his sensory issues weren’t too intense, Sherlock normally wore turtlenecks, stylish pants, jackets, and soft gold jewelry. The gold jewelry that he wore in his ears and around his neck went beautifully with his dark brown skin.
But John wasn’t worried about falling in love with him. Because yes, Sherlock is a handsome man, but he also drives John crazy. He’s constantly waking John up at odd hours with case information, fun facts, experiments, gunshots, and jumping. Sherlock is the most evasive man John has ever met, which also made him a hypocrite, since if John tried to be vague, Sherlock freaked out. Lastly, everything had to revolve around the genius. If John and Mariana were talking about something Sherlock didn’t care about, the conversation changed. If he didn’t like a case, they ditched it. And if a space bothered him, they left.
John loved Sherlock.. but in love.. no way.
He didn’t realize how badly he failed until he was sitting between his two best friends, both of them having fallen asleep on him. Sherlock’s head rested in his lap while Mariana’s lay on John’s shoulder.
It felt nice.. comfortable.. John wanted this forever.
Fuck.
What the fuck.