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July was always a weird month.
It either started with the downpour of the century or the hottest day the year had to offer—nothing in between.
This time, like it has been more often than not, it rained like a bloody storm.
Not unexpected, this is London after all, but it proved to be a terrible inconvenience for their case. In present, yes, the rain had come to a halt. It was frustrating regardless.
Speaking of which—
"The trains were delayed earlier because of the rain," Sherlock spoke with his eyes closed, apparently reciting intel from memory. "Violet Smith had a difficult time reaching the station this time around. She slipped with her bicycle once or twice. The stalker could have easily reached for her, in theory. It wouldn't be effective, though—he's clever in that regard."
John just stood there. What he just said had been obvious, and while he's more than willing to shower Sherlock with praise and admire his flushed face, this type of statement was a tad too easy to catch.
Lestrade stood right beside them, face puzzled as it usually is with such cases. "A man's been following her, we should just arrest him for stalking. All she needs to do is drop a name or catch him in the act with evidence."
"She can't record him, he'll catch on," Sherlock scoffed, eyes snapping open. "Unless, of course, she pulls up a camera beforehand, but I don't think she'd have any place on her to hide it. Besides, we already mentioned we don't know who the man is yet."
Everyone in the New Scotland Yard building was scattered around, running from place to place either to fetch paperwork or grab a quick coffee, yet Sherlock, John and Lestrade stood close by together, the stable units in a place ruled by constant motion.
Inevitably, since the door to Lestrade's office was wide open the entire time the conversation was being had, officers would not-so-subtly walk in to overhear what Sherlock had come up with; and, consequently, subject themselves to the banter that arrived with his and Lestrade's differing opinions.
"Why can't one of us head down to Surrey and find him?" John suddenly added himself to the conversation after seeing Sherlock sure as hell wouldn't do it for him, and Lestrade was too caught up in trying to keep him agreeable. "We can be armed or something."
Sherlock rolled his eyes, a gesture of his John was still getting used to. "He's probably armed too. He wouldn't follow a woman through an isolated forest without a gun for protection. Or to immobilise her, in the worst-case scenario."
"So you'll head down?"
"No, John, you'll head down," Sherlock curtly replied. "I'm not going to waste precious research time on unimportant things like field testing."
John chuckled. "You sound like Mycroft."
Lestrade looked visibly startled at the mention of the elder Holmes, but Sherlock just frowned. "I'm not an oversized arsehole with a fear of doing productive things—"
"Oh, you're still an arsehole."
"—therefore," Sherlock grimaced and closed his eyes for a second, almost as if bracing himself to persevere and finish his sentence, "your comparison is baseless."
"Can we focus on the case, please?" Lestrade asked, utterly exasperated.
Sherlock and John glanced at each other, clearly holding back their laughter, and put on their serious faces again. As well as they could manage right now, anyway.
"Oh, I think they'd rather focus on something else," an annoying feminine voice chirped, eliciting a few chortles from some officers in the room.
Lestrade looked at Donovan and sighed. No proper berating this time, just mild disappointment. Done as he was with everyone, this treatment seemed rather appropriate—and, normally, it should be enough to get her to stop.
It wasn't.
Dimmock shook his head in disapproval and muttered something under his breath as Donovan kept laughing, all the while Anderson thought it'd be a good idea to open his own mouth. "We know what you'll be up to when you head back home," he sniggered.
Sherlock scoffed. "Anderson, the more you speak, the more you lower these people's IQ scores. I'd rather not be left taking care of an entire building full of imbeciles once you're done talking."
John smiled to himself. Sherlock's feud with Anderson never failed to amuse him; clearly, Lestrade was biting back a grin of his own as well.
Another officer, tall and lanky with blond hair and brown eyes, placed his arm on Anderson's left shoulder and munched on a donut while cackling maniacally. "You think that freak's got a relationship with him? How the hell do you let that slide, Watson?"
God, these people were absolute dipshits.
Sherlock tensed immediately the second he heard that forbidden word, and John sensed it—as he always did. John knew everything about Sherlock's body language; the look in his eyes when he's upset, when he's cheerful, when he's afraid. The crease of his eyebrows when he's feeling uncomfortable, the rise of his shoulders when he's being...
"You two never confirm it nor actually deny it," a different officer — shorter and tanner than the last — pointed a finger in accusation. "You've got it wrong. They're together and just never admit it."
Sherlock kept averting his gaze as chatter began to flow across the room, eyes shifting between various dots on the ground, hands clenching into fists behind his back. His lips almost trembled, a movement only John picked up on.
Lestrade sighed again, repeating his words. "Can we please focus on the case? There's a woman who's being stalked daily. She needs help. Our help. We won't get anything done if you keep acting like children."
Everyone shut up (mercifully), and Sherlock let out a sigh of his own; more relaxed than anything. John beamed at him, that small, genuine grin he only reserved for him, and that seemed to do the trick in calming him down entirely.
"Alright, thanks," Lestrade said. "Back to what we know... Smith always heads and leaves from there by herself, right?"
Sherlock took a minute breath. "Yes," he replied, voice sounding a tad vacant. Unfocused. "She goes to and leaves Surrey by herself every day, except for weekends. That's when she visits her mother, so she stays here."
Lestrade nodded in acknowledgment, nudging at Hopkins to write that down. After the second time, she relented and picked up a pen, duly keeping track of everything Sherlock said word for word.
"Any other relatives? Children, brothers or sisters, nephews, grandparents?" Lestrade asked.
"One uncle, though he apparently died in South Africa a while ago," Sherlock replied.
"He had a large fortune though, so we've put a pin on him in case he was murdered," John added. "It's strange that Woodley and Carruthers reached out to Violet as suddenly as they did. Could've been deliberate."
"Was definitely deliberate," Sherlock retaliated with a devilish smile. "The first conclusion I came to was that the two men wanted the money for themselves and their marriage, considering their odd closeness, but I eliminated the possibility after Smith told us of her assault at Woodley's hands."
"Of course your first thought was that they're two married men," Anderson cackled. "Where have I heard of that before?"
Laughter once again took over the room, louder than before. Lestrade pinched the bridge of his nose, not at all eager to deal with this again. "Everyone, for God's sakes, please focus on—"
"Perhaps they took notes from the freak and his 'friend'?" Donovan quipped, though not as entertained as earlier, but the other officers took care of that and made their amusement as palpable as they could.
John glanced at Sherlock again; he looked even more vulnerable than before. He never really corrected anybody on their assumptions about his and John's relationship, even now. John wondered if he regretted it at that moment...
Not like anybody noticed, but John didn't make any corrections on the matter this time. He was always the more vocal half of the duo—when it came to this, at least. Everyone insisted he was dating Sherlock, he insisted he wasn't. Simple as that.
Sure, it was frustrating to admit again and again that you weren't dating your painstakingly attractive flatmate, but what was John to do? His only other option would be to make his pining obvious. That would come at the cost of his dignity.
(Worth it).
The sneering died down bit by bit, leaving an awkward silence in its place. Lestrade didn't get back to talking about the case like everyone thought he would.
Sherlock looked around, his gaze fixated mostly upon furniture. He didn't have much to say. Neither did Lestrade, but he was thankfully dignified enough to look apologetic.
John seemed a bit more charged. Sherlock glanced at him once or twice, more so as a warning.
The look shared just about the same gravity as the first time he ever said 'could be dangerous'. He wasn't afraid to shift his attention to other things now, though.
Someone had the mental capacity of a goat and decided it'd be a good moment to cough. Even John, who had picked up some of Sherlock's deduction techniques over their period of companionship, couldn't tell if that was an actual cough or the bloke trying to cover up a laugh.
Some other officers let brief titters slip through their lips in consequence, though not even close to the hearty laughter from minutes earlier.
Lestrade looked over the papers several times, his face contorted as if he was an American man trying to read Chinese, yet the words stuck in his throat every time he tried to speak aloud.
Sherlock, again, looked severely uncomfortable. His pride had taken a critical hit — not the first time it happened at the hands of Scotland Yard's finest arseholes — and he looked like a little lost child. Like he had no idea what to do or what to say.
John looked at the officers just a few inches away. Sherlock, pointedly, did not.
A smile crossed his face.
John had an idea.
"I'm assuming this means you'll behave professionally now?" Lestrade asked hopelessly, his tone indicating he's already too far gone for dealing with these people.
He then let his gaze fall on Sherlock, nodding at him to continue with his deductions.
Sherlock stared at him like a deer in the headlights. His pale eyes went from Lestrade's face to the floor and back a couple of times, and his skin somehow looked even whiter than usual under the bright ceiling lights.
John hummed, a cheeky grin reaching his eyes before it reached his lips, seemingly ecstatic at the prospect of no one knowing what he was up to. "Sherlock?"
"Yes?" he inquired instantly, eyes on John's as quickly as he took a deep breath. John's smile only grew wider.
"He'll probably propose to him, they've both got a knack for terrible timing," a petite police officer whispered to a man next to her.
The man beside her looked puzzled. His response didn't come until about half a second later. "Are they even actually dating?"
The petite blonde rolled her eyes. "Duh? Have you seen them at crime scenes? I'm willing to bet they have no idea what personal space is."
They promptly shut their mouths after John grabbed Sherlock by his coat lapels and connected their own.
The entire room went silent—a bloody pin drop would sound like an earthquake in there.
Sherlock looked absolutely stunned. John was sure he'd never seen his eyes that wide. For a while, he stood still to a point where John wondered if he had finally halted his brain function.
His lips moved on Sherlock's as if he'd done this tons of times before, though the lack of response did start to make him feel awkward.
Just as he felt the need to break apart, to frantically pull away and make an excuse as to why the fuck he did that, Sherlock tentatively placed his shaky hands on John's arms and kissed back.
His eyes finally closed, and he let out a small sigh — likely of contentment? — as he gave in to John entirely. Their hands felt more at home than they ever had in other cases of close proximity, alleviated by the relief of each other's steady touch.
The peck lasted longer than either of them expected, and Sherlock was more than satisfied (though still shocked beyond belief) with ending it at that, until John decided it'd be an excellent idea to use his tongue and run it over Sherlock's bottom lip.
John revelled in the sound that was Sherlock's breath audibly hitching, a small moan threatening to escape his mouth. John drank in any sounds Sherlock made, indulging himself in them as if they were delicacies in an expensive restaurant.
John's hands slowly moved to hold Sherlock by the waist, his grip gentle and careful, as if Sherlock was a fragile object capable of breaking under the slightest bit of pressure—he got a sweet shiver out of him with that.
That time, Sherlock did let out a tiny noise, his hands somehow ever shakier than before. His movements grew more frantic, more demanding, more desperate, as he fought to match John's pace in their tongue-wrestling session.
John felt even more confident at that, and dared to let his fingers slip even lower, underneath his coat; tracing the delicious curve of Sherlock's arse over the expensive black denim, easily threatening to slip right below it—
"Oi, get a room!" Anderson finally spoke, and John distantly celebrated at how appalled he sounded. Almost as if none of these people, or few of them, truly believed the two had a relationship...
Fleeting murmurs began to surface from the room, just like previously, though John (he wasn't sure if Sherlock could fully function at that point) could tell there was an air of shock in the unwilling audience, now that they had subjected them to... this.
At last, after what felt like an eternity and a millisecond at the same time, their kiss broke with a soft smack. Sherlock gasped again, and John grinned up at him with that smug look that screamed 'yeah, I did that'. His mood was literally untouchable.
Then he realised people have been staring this whole time.
As in, since they began kissing.
Well, no shit, that's why I did that, he thought to himself, but he is absolutely sure Sherlock might've forgotten that. He was very keen on continuing... whatever that was. That was ultimately the greatest surprise of the evening.
Sherlock cleared his throat after an awkward glance at the other officers. His face was permanently painted crimson, and he was practically vibrating. God, this man would be the death of John someday. "A-About the two men we mentioned earlier... it's very likely one of them is the stalker. There's no one else who would be stalking Smith in particular besides them."
John even got him, the great and ever-inventive Sherlock Holmes, to stutter. This day was definitely getting marked on his calendar as only the second best in his life.
"Yeah, what he said." Lestrade didn't look as astonished as the others when he spoke. "Look into Woodley and Carruthers' files. Try to see if either of them have a criminal record."
The room remained still. Everyone either stared at each other or at Sherlock and John, with very few officers looking right at Lestrade as a type of respite.
He was getting impatient. "On with it, then!"
Like a spell had been lifted, almost every person in there snapped back into reality and frantically moved around, in and out of the room, to execute the order.
Lestrade sighed. "Took you two long enough to work it out."
Sherlock opened his mouth in retaliation, about to make a correction by himself for once, but John effectively interrupted him. "Yeah. Thanks."
Lestrade nodded at them, and off he went.
John huffed out a little laugh once the two of them were left alone. "You okay, Sherlock? You seemed... distracted."
"Shut up," he hissed upon seeing John's kooky smile, yet he couldn't resist breaking into one himself.
For a good few seconds, there was no noise in the room besides their steady breathing and their heartbeats — both men prayed the other couldn't hear it — as they laced their hands together subconsciously. Neither could tell who moved to join their digits first, but both of them let out a giggle regardless.
And even now, as some Yarders were still in their cubicles, glaring at the pair with the most astounded expressions they had ever seen, John wouldn't change anything.
"Did you see how Lestrade startled at the mention of my brother earlier?" Sherlock suddenly asked a few minutes of comfort later.
John raised his eyebrows impossibly high. "Only now that you mentioned it."
Sherlock's eyes had that mischievous glow in them. "Want me to call Mycroft and tell him to reach out to Lestrade as he fakes an emergency?"
"God, yes."