Sherlock Fic - The Plan
Title: The Plan
Rating: Maybe 15+, if I'm being very cautious.
Disclaimer: I do not own these characters, and am making no profit from their use, more's the pity.
Warnings/ Pairings: Slash, Sherlock/John
Summary: John had a plan, and its name was Get Some Sex. And the capitals were most certainly necessary.
AN: I needed a break from the angst-fest that is Reaction, so here this fic is. It's short and it's silly, but I wanted to write something that was just pure fun, and also that dealt with my head-canon of John as an adjusted, self-aware bisexual. And many thanks ginbitch , who beta'd this for me.
Also, the lovely themusecalliope has made a podfic of this story, and the wonderful sherryeris has translated it into Chinese!
John had a plan, and its name was Get Some Sex. And the capitals were most certainly necessary.
Get Some Sex was really only a subset of the main plan at work, namely Get Over Stupid, Ill-Conceived Crush On Flatmate. That one wasn't going so well, but John figured it was early days yet, and he shouldn't get discouraged just because he was meeting some resistance.
After all, his fascination with Sherlock could probably be explained away by some sort of weird hero-worship, and the fact that he had odd moments where he couldn't think of anything but how insanely, unfairly attractive the man was...well, he'd had a very long dry spell in the army. That was John's story and he was sticking to it, largely because he thought if he actually admitted to being in love with the bloke who said he was married to his work he would have ended up being very depressed.
Sarah didn't work out so well as far as Get Some Sex went, let alone Get Over Stupid, Ill-Conceived Crush On Flatmate, but John figured it was because the gender was wrong. He was obsessing (not in love, thank you very much) over Sherlock, who was a man, so he'd need sex with a man to get over it.
Which was all well and good, except that sex with a man tended to be more difficult than sex with a woman, at least in John's experience. Largely because his gaydar was practically non-existent, and while lesbians were often flattered by a straight (or bi, in John's case) guy's attention, heterosexual men were by and large not flattered by a guy hitting on them. At best, they got uncomfortable and started to edge away. At worst...well, John had been grateful for his military training more than once.
In short, if John was out on the town, he just found it easier to try to pick up women as opposed to men.
Still, the way this guy was eyeing him up, John was starting to hope he was on to something. Henry was younger than John, and a med student in the middle of switching careers (or so Sherlock said) and he was paying John a lot of attention. Which, with the way John's luck had been lately, would be because he was hoping to get some tips on becoming a doctor and not because the bloke fancied him.
Henry got called over by Lestrade to give his statement - he'd witnessed what could be the suspect's getaway, but as Sherlock said it was a decoy and Sherlock tended to be right John didn't think Lestrade should hold out much hope - and John debated the merits of asking him for a drink. On the one hand, there was Get Some Sex, on the other, there was a lot of embarrassment and John was frankly sick of hitting on guys who just didn't swing that way.
John was about to let it pass - it wasn't really enough to go on, and the lanky limbs and dark hair make the guy look a bit too much like Sherlock to really serve the cause of Get Over Stupid, Ill-Conceived Crush On Flatmate - when it occurred to him that he had a better option than his unreliable gaydar standing right beside him. The merits of Sherlock's gaydar were up for debate, but he was bound to be better at it than John was.
John had the feeling he should probably be a bit more humiliated at the prospect of asking the man he'd been obsessing over whether another man was gay or not, but at that point he couldn't care less. Get Over Stupid, Ill-Conceived Crush On Flatmate had been failing at an exponential rate, and John desperately needed Get Some Sex to succeed if only to remind him that there were, in fact, people other than Sherlock out there.
So John asked, careful to keep his voice low. “Sherlock?”
Sherlock muttered something under his breath, not looking away from the stretch of pavement he was examining. John was fairly certain it didn't have anything to do with the case, and he was probably only trying to pinpoint the exact flavour and make of the chewing gum stuck between the tiles.
“Sherlock?”
Sherlock looked up, the usual annoyed expression of 'why do you interrupt me with your dull, petty problems?' firmly in place.
And if John thought that expression was often a little softer when directed at him, that was clearly just a symptom of emotional involvement clouding rational thought processes, the kind Sherlock was always going on about.
“Is he gay?” he asked, nodding towards Henry where he stood with Lestrade.
Sherlock took perhaps two seconds to make his pronouncement. “He's not gay - his effusive attitude is more a generalised hero worship for those who've served in a war-”
“God dammit!”
“-so you needn't worry John, your virtue is safe.”
There was a slight pause as they each registered what the other had just said.
“Why did you swear?”
“Since when do I have virtue?”
Sherlock got that hard look on his face that said John would answer his question first, because Sherlock would keep asking it until he got an answer, any other line of conversation be damned.
“Why did you swear, John?”
John sighed, feeling very put-upon. “Because if he'd been gay, I could have asked him for a drink.”
Sherlock's eyes were very narrow, and it looked as though he was thinking very fast. “And why would you want to ask him out?”
John had learned his lesson with that disastrous date with Sarah - Sherlock had to have things spelled out to him. So John spelled it out. “Because I'm hoping for a date and some casual sex, all right?”
“You're...experimenting?” Sherlock asked, a note of hesitancy in his voice.
John was more than a little confused. “I'm bisexual, Sherlock - how on earth is that bloke an experiment? Actually, on second thoughts, don't answer that, you're probably going to come up with something really creepy and disturbing-”
“You're bisexual?”
John's voice died in his throat. The confusion, the sudden light in Sherlock's eyes - the same one he'd possessed when John had explained 'Harry' was actually his sister - it was all pointing to one thing...
“You didn't know I was bisexual?” he asked, just to be certain.
Sherlock looked disgruntled, which was an answer in itself.
John couldn't help himself; he burst out into laughter. All those times when he'd wondered if he was being too obvious, if Sherlock could see John's regard for him written on his face like he seemed to see everything else...and all along, Sherlock had no idea he was bisexual. It was an immense relief.
It was also very funny - the idea that he'd managed to get one over on Sherlock for once, instead of the other way around.
Sherlock, however, was looking deeply unimpressed. “Yes, I was unaware that you were bisexual, but I fail to see why that is so amusing.”
“Because it's you!” John wheezed, trying to get his inelegant whoops of laughter under control. “Because you can tell whether people are sleeping around on their partners by the way their wedding rings look, and you could tell I was from Afghanistan by my limp and tan lines...but you never realised I was bisexual!”
“I was aware you had bisexual tendencies,” Sherlock grumped. “Many people do, it's just a matter of whether they embrace them or not.”
“This is going on the blog!” John declared, having mustered himself so that only the occasional snicker escaped.
“I don't suppose you would consider letting this go?” Sherlock asked, looking as though he'd swallowed something vile.
“There are some things you let go, and some things you hold onto until the end of time because they're too funny to let go. This is one of the latter.”
Sherlock scowled. “If you're bisexual, why are you asking me if the man's gay?”
“Because my gaydar is absolute rubbish,” John said honestly. “I always seem to end up hitting on straight guys.”
“What about the gay clubs? Not much chance of striking out there.”
“But most of the guys who go there tend to be at least ten years younger than me - the whole scenario makes me feel like some kind of creepy sexual predator, which tends to put a damper on things.”
Sherlock snorted, as though being considered a sexual predator wasn't even a blip on his radar. Which, given that it was Sherlock, was entirely possible; John wouldn't be surprised if he'd pretended to be one at some point for a case.
“So why did you ask if he was gay?” Sherlock asked again.
John resisted the urge to roll his eyes, and felt like he should get a medal for it. How could Sherlock be so smart yet so thick at the same time? “Because he's attractive, and I want gay sex - that blunt enough for you?”
Sherlock's eyes darted back to the man they'd been discussing, his expression purely speculative, but there was an unholy light in his eyes. As though he'd just discovered the answer to the world's most fascinating riddle.
It was an expression John knew all-too well. “Stop that.”
“Stop what?”
“Whatever it is you're planning! I know that look on your face, and it usually ends in explosions in the living room or unspeakable things on the kitchen counter. My sexuality is not an experiment.”
“But John-”
“No!”
Sherlock appeared to be sulking, but John could see that formidable mind ticking behind his eyes - Sherlock was planning something.
John made a mental note to retrieve his more breakable possessions from the kitchen and living room.
--
There was a god, and whoever they were, they absolutely despised John Watson. It was the only explanation.
For it seemed that as much as John had a plan, Sherlock had one as well. And Sherlock's plan seemed to be something along the lines of Drive John Watson Insane.
Bad enough that John had endured all the comments about them being gay for each other by everyone under the sun, the candlelight that every restaurant insisted on plying them with and Sherlock's bizarre concepts of personal space. Now he was enduring a thousand other subtle torments that seemed designed to drive him completely mad, and he often caught himself wondering if Sherlock was running an experiment to determine if someone could actually die of terminal sexual frustration.
John wouldn't have thought it was medically possible, but after the last week, he was beginning to see how it could happen.
For one, while Sherlock used to wrap himself in layer upon layer of clothing - dressing gowns and jackets and that bloody long coat of his - lately he'd taken to walking around the flat just a breath away from completely naked. He rarely bothered putting a shirt on unless it was particularly cold, and just last night he'd wandered out into the kitchen from the shower wearing only a towel slung around his waist.
John wasn't complaining about the view, but faced daily with long expanses of pale skin and lean muscle, Get Over Stupid, Ill-Conceived Crush On Flatmate was crashing and burning.
The touching wasn't helping. Previously, when Sherlock suffered bouts of inexplicable tactility he'd just seize hold of John without warning and drag him around, before releasing him just as quickly. But lately, Sherlock had escalated the touching to levels that were becoming dangerous to John's self-control. He'd touch John on the nape of his neck or the small of the back - sometimes light, barely there touches, sometimes leaving his hand there for long moments at a time in a way that felt undeniably possessive. There were quick brushes of John's hands to get his attention, touches to his jaw to make him turn his head and now, instead of stalking off and expecting John to follow, Sherlock seized his hand and pulled him along.
John might have dismissed it as Sherlock being Sherlock and conducting some kind of weird experiment (though what that experiment might have been, John could only guess) were it not for the comments. More specifically, the way Sherlock behaved in response to said comments.
Sherlock's behaviour meant they were attracting more 'gay couple' insinuations than ever, but instead of ignoring them, Sherlock was almost preening under them. He'd smirk and wrap an arm around John's waist, which would glue the doctor's tongue to the roof of his mouth and make him utterly incapable of stammering out a denial.
In short, the whole situation was making John quite desperate to see Get Some Sex come to fruition as soon as possible. But he was having no luck at all - every man he was even idly interested in was as straight as two parallel lines, according to Sherlock.
“What about the brunette? Would I have any success hitting on him?”
“No,” Sherlock said simply.
They were on their way back from the Chinese takeaway they so often frequented, and John had spotted a few likely-looking guys milling at the corner of the street and sharing cigarettes. Normally he wouldn't just walk up to someone on the street, but he was getting desperate - one more day of bare-chested Sherlock and he was literally going to explode from sexual frustration.
So he'd asked Sherlock, and apparently, none of them were gay. Which had become disturbingly common over the past week.
“Dammit! Am I the only gay man in London?” John muttered, half to himself, as they climbed the stairs.
Sherlock scoffed. “Of course you aren't.”
“Well, I suppose I'm technically bisexual, but I meant that it seems like I'm the only man around who likes other men.”
“I like men.”
John froze in the act of making himself a cup of tea as he swiftly quelled the impulse to turn around, shove Sherlock up against the kitchen bench and just kiss the infuriating man.
He tried to make his voice casual when he answered, “Yeah, but you're married to your work.”
“That was before I knew you.”
For the second time in as many minutes, John's mind stalled. He abandoned the tea and spun around to stare at Sherlock, who was regarding him so intensely John could practically feel his clothes beginning to scorch.
“What?” It was the most intelligent response he was capable of.
Sherlock sighed in the way he usually sighed at crime scenes, as though he couldn't believe other people were this dense. “I've attempted to make my intentions clear during this past week, but you are either oblivious to it or completely uninterested, so there seems to be no other recourse.”
Another sigh, this one slightly different - slightly disbelieving, as though Sherlock couldn't quite credit what he was doing. “John...are you open to the possibility of a sexual relationship?”
“With you?” John asked, not sure if he was understanding Sherlock correctly. Surely he couldn't be saying...surely he couldn't mean...
“Yes, with me.”
John was making a valiant effort to gather his thoughts, feeling as disoriented as if he'd just stepped into an alternate universe. Which, really, couldn't be ruled out.
His brain suddenly latched onto Sherlock's first phrase, and John could almost hear the click as the pieces finally fell into place. “You said you'd tried to make your intentions clear. This past week...was that you...seducing me?”
“Evidently unsuccessfully, as you seemed unable to grasp my less than subtle hints and required a verbal pronouncement,” Sherlock snapped. “Now answer the question!”
He looked very distant and very removed, his face completely still and frozen, as though whatever John said in reply wouldn't affect him in the slightest. As though whether John accepted him or rejected him would make no difference to his life.
That was what made John open his mouth to refuse. He couldn't be Sherlock's experiment, the effect of emotional attachment on human sexual practices or whatever he was studying this time around. John could be many things to Sherlock, but not that, not simply a convenience, an idle curiosity.
But then he noticed the way Sherlock's jaw was clenched, the way his hands were curled into tense fists, the way his eyes glimmered with something very much like desperation. Sherlock was trying to appear relaxed at a moment when his body was vibrating with more tension than John had ever seen him possess, and then he knew.
This wasn't casual for Sherlock, not at all. In fact, Sherlock was probably risking more than John was - John had other friends, after all. He wasn't as close to them as he was to Sherlock, but they were there. But Sherlock...didn't seem to consider anyone a friend except John.
So John answered the question. “Yes.”
Sherlock blinked, and actually looked surprised, as though while he'd obviously felt the need to ask for such a relationship it hadn't actually occurred to him that John's reply would be positive.
“Yes,” John repeated, just to make sure he understood. “We can be partners, lovers, boyfriends, whatever you want to call it. Though on second thought, don't call me your boyfriend, sounds too much like we're teenagers. Or your lover, that sounds far too archaic.”
Sherlock was looking at him with an expression close to wonder on his face, the kind of rapture that only dawned when he put all the pieces of a case together. Then a smug, almost predatory smile curved his lips, and the next thing John knew his hips were against the kitchen table and Sherlock was kissing him.
Caught by surprise as he was, it wasn't exactly an ideal kiss. John choked and jerked, their teeth clashed and John's lower lip was painfully squashed. But Sherlock was undaunted - he simply drew back, re-angled his head, and swooped in once more.
The kisses were deep and drugging, and John certainly had no complaints to make. He was so caught up in them that it was only halfway through the fourth when he realised that Sherlock's fingers were tugging at his jumper, as if the taller man was trying to figure out a way to remove it that wouldn't involve breaking their kisses.
Of course, as soon as John noticed he was doing it Sherlock seemed to lose interest in favour of trying to unfasten John's trousers.
That made John draw back, which was harder than he would have thought, because Sherlock seemed determined to somehow merge their lips together and followed until John's hand on his chest arrested him.
“You want to have sex now?” John blurted.
“Why not?” was all Sherlock said, and in the next instant he was kissing John again.
Why not indeed? John had just enough of his rational mind left to think that it was rather typical of Sherlock to jump straight into the deep end with no time to adjust.
He pushed Sherlock back from him again. “No.”
“No?” Sherlock looked like a boy whose puppy had just died.
“Not here,” John clarified. “My bedroom - I've got lube and condoms.”
“What kind of lube?”
“Few different brands, actually.”
Sherlock's eyes glinted. “Oh, really?”
“Hey, I've been on the lookout for sex with a man for a month, I needed to be sure I'd be properly supplied!”
“Sometimes, John, you really are quite extraordinary in your dependability.”
John was still absorbing that compliment - said in all sincerity and without any sort of backhand to it, which was a miracle in itself - when Sherlock seized his hand and practically dragged him up the stairs. Not that John was at all unwilling to go, but Sherlock's bloody long legs meant he could bound up three steps at a time, while John was limited to two at the most.
As he went, John mentally revised his plans. Get Over Stupid, Ill-Conceived Crush On Flatmate was officially shelved. Abandoned, discarded, never to be taken up again.
Get Some Sex, however, was proceeding nicely.
Rating: Maybe 15+, if I'm being very cautious.
Disclaimer: I do not own these characters, and am making no profit from their use, more's the pity.
Warnings/ Pairings: Slash, Sherlock/John
Summary: John had a plan, and its name was Get Some Sex. And the capitals were most certainly necessary.
AN: I needed a break from the angst-fest that is Reaction, so here this fic is. It's short and it's silly, but I wanted to write something that was just pure fun, and also that dealt with my head-canon of John as an adjusted, self-aware bisexual. And many thanks ginbitch , who beta'd this for me.
Also, the lovely themusecalliope has made a podfic of this story, and the wonderful sherryeris has translated it into Chinese!
John had a plan, and its name was Get Some Sex. And the capitals were most certainly necessary.
Get Some Sex was really only a subset of the main plan at work, namely Get Over Stupid, Ill-Conceived Crush On Flatmate. That one wasn't going so well, but John figured it was early days yet, and he shouldn't get discouraged just because he was meeting some resistance.
After all, his fascination with Sherlock could probably be explained away by some sort of weird hero-worship, and the fact that he had odd moments where he couldn't think of anything but how insanely, unfairly attractive the man was...well, he'd had a very long dry spell in the army. That was John's story and he was sticking to it, largely because he thought if he actually admitted to being in love with the bloke who said he was married to his work he would have ended up being very depressed.
Sarah didn't work out so well as far as Get Some Sex went, let alone Get Over Stupid, Ill-Conceived Crush On Flatmate, but John figured it was because the gender was wrong. He was obsessing (not in love, thank you very much) over Sherlock, who was a man, so he'd need sex with a man to get over it.
Which was all well and good, except that sex with a man tended to be more difficult than sex with a woman, at least in John's experience. Largely because his gaydar was practically non-existent, and while lesbians were often flattered by a straight (or bi, in John's case) guy's attention, heterosexual men were by and large not flattered by a guy hitting on them. At best, they got uncomfortable and started to edge away. At worst...well, John had been grateful for his military training more than once.
In short, if John was out on the town, he just found it easier to try to pick up women as opposed to men.
Still, the way this guy was eyeing him up, John was starting to hope he was on to something. Henry was younger than John, and a med student in the middle of switching careers (or so Sherlock said) and he was paying John a lot of attention. Which, with the way John's luck had been lately, would be because he was hoping to get some tips on becoming a doctor and not because the bloke fancied him.
Henry got called over by Lestrade to give his statement - he'd witnessed what could be the suspect's getaway, but as Sherlock said it was a decoy and Sherlock tended to be right John didn't think Lestrade should hold out much hope - and John debated the merits of asking him for a drink. On the one hand, there was Get Some Sex, on the other, there was a lot of embarrassment and John was frankly sick of hitting on guys who just didn't swing that way.
John was about to let it pass - it wasn't really enough to go on, and the lanky limbs and dark hair make the guy look a bit too much like Sherlock to really serve the cause of Get Over Stupid, Ill-Conceived Crush On Flatmate - when it occurred to him that he had a better option than his unreliable gaydar standing right beside him. The merits of Sherlock's gaydar were up for debate, but he was bound to be better at it than John was.
John had the feeling he should probably be a bit more humiliated at the prospect of asking the man he'd been obsessing over whether another man was gay or not, but at that point he couldn't care less. Get Over Stupid, Ill-Conceived Crush On Flatmate had been failing at an exponential rate, and John desperately needed Get Some Sex to succeed if only to remind him that there were, in fact, people other than Sherlock out there.
So John asked, careful to keep his voice low. “Sherlock?”
Sherlock muttered something under his breath, not looking away from the stretch of pavement he was examining. John was fairly certain it didn't have anything to do with the case, and he was probably only trying to pinpoint the exact flavour and make of the chewing gum stuck between the tiles.
“Sherlock?”
Sherlock looked up, the usual annoyed expression of 'why do you interrupt me with your dull, petty problems?' firmly in place.
And if John thought that expression was often a little softer when directed at him, that was clearly just a symptom of emotional involvement clouding rational thought processes, the kind Sherlock was always going on about.
“Is he gay?” he asked, nodding towards Henry where he stood with Lestrade.
Sherlock took perhaps two seconds to make his pronouncement. “He's not gay - his effusive attitude is more a generalised hero worship for those who've served in a war-”
“God dammit!”
“-so you needn't worry John, your virtue is safe.”
There was a slight pause as they each registered what the other had just said.
“Why did you swear?”
“Since when do I have virtue?”
Sherlock got that hard look on his face that said John would answer his question first, because Sherlock would keep asking it until he got an answer, any other line of conversation be damned.
“Why did you swear, John?”
John sighed, feeling very put-upon. “Because if he'd been gay, I could have asked him for a drink.”
Sherlock's eyes were very narrow, and it looked as though he was thinking very fast. “And why would you want to ask him out?”
John had learned his lesson with that disastrous date with Sarah - Sherlock had to have things spelled out to him. So John spelled it out. “Because I'm hoping for a date and some casual sex, all right?”
“You're...experimenting?” Sherlock asked, a note of hesitancy in his voice.
John was more than a little confused. “I'm bisexual, Sherlock - how on earth is that bloke an experiment? Actually, on second thoughts, don't answer that, you're probably going to come up with something really creepy and disturbing-”
“You're bisexual?”
John's voice died in his throat. The confusion, the sudden light in Sherlock's eyes - the same one he'd possessed when John had explained 'Harry' was actually his sister - it was all pointing to one thing...
“You didn't know I was bisexual?” he asked, just to be certain.
Sherlock looked disgruntled, which was an answer in itself.
John couldn't help himself; he burst out into laughter. All those times when he'd wondered if he was being too obvious, if Sherlock could see John's regard for him written on his face like he seemed to see everything else...and all along, Sherlock had no idea he was bisexual. It was an immense relief.
It was also very funny - the idea that he'd managed to get one over on Sherlock for once, instead of the other way around.
Sherlock, however, was looking deeply unimpressed. “Yes, I was unaware that you were bisexual, but I fail to see why that is so amusing.”
“Because it's you!” John wheezed, trying to get his inelegant whoops of laughter under control. “Because you can tell whether people are sleeping around on their partners by the way their wedding rings look, and you could tell I was from Afghanistan by my limp and tan lines...but you never realised I was bisexual!”
“I was aware you had bisexual tendencies,” Sherlock grumped. “Many people do, it's just a matter of whether they embrace them or not.”
“This is going on the blog!” John declared, having mustered himself so that only the occasional snicker escaped.
“I don't suppose you would consider letting this go?” Sherlock asked, looking as though he'd swallowed something vile.
“There are some things you let go, and some things you hold onto until the end of time because they're too funny to let go. This is one of the latter.”
Sherlock scowled. “If you're bisexual, why are you asking me if the man's gay?”
“Because my gaydar is absolute rubbish,” John said honestly. “I always seem to end up hitting on straight guys.”
“What about the gay clubs? Not much chance of striking out there.”
“But most of the guys who go there tend to be at least ten years younger than me - the whole scenario makes me feel like some kind of creepy sexual predator, which tends to put a damper on things.”
Sherlock snorted, as though being considered a sexual predator wasn't even a blip on his radar. Which, given that it was Sherlock, was entirely possible; John wouldn't be surprised if he'd pretended to be one at some point for a case.
“So why did you ask if he was gay?” Sherlock asked again.
John resisted the urge to roll his eyes, and felt like he should get a medal for it. How could Sherlock be so smart yet so thick at the same time? “Because he's attractive, and I want gay sex - that blunt enough for you?”
Sherlock's eyes darted back to the man they'd been discussing, his expression purely speculative, but there was an unholy light in his eyes. As though he'd just discovered the answer to the world's most fascinating riddle.
It was an expression John knew all-too well. “Stop that.”
“Stop what?”
“Whatever it is you're planning! I know that look on your face, and it usually ends in explosions in the living room or unspeakable things on the kitchen counter. My sexuality is not an experiment.”
“But John-”
“No!”
Sherlock appeared to be sulking, but John could see that formidable mind ticking behind his eyes - Sherlock was planning something.
John made a mental note to retrieve his more breakable possessions from the kitchen and living room.
--
There was a god, and whoever they were, they absolutely despised John Watson. It was the only explanation.
For it seemed that as much as John had a plan, Sherlock had one as well. And Sherlock's plan seemed to be something along the lines of Drive John Watson Insane.
Bad enough that John had endured all the comments about them being gay for each other by everyone under the sun, the candlelight that every restaurant insisted on plying them with and Sherlock's bizarre concepts of personal space. Now he was enduring a thousand other subtle torments that seemed designed to drive him completely mad, and he often caught himself wondering if Sherlock was running an experiment to determine if someone could actually die of terminal sexual frustration.
John wouldn't have thought it was medically possible, but after the last week, he was beginning to see how it could happen.
For one, while Sherlock used to wrap himself in layer upon layer of clothing - dressing gowns and jackets and that bloody long coat of his - lately he'd taken to walking around the flat just a breath away from completely naked. He rarely bothered putting a shirt on unless it was particularly cold, and just last night he'd wandered out into the kitchen from the shower wearing only a towel slung around his waist.
John wasn't complaining about the view, but faced daily with long expanses of pale skin and lean muscle, Get Over Stupid, Ill-Conceived Crush On Flatmate was crashing and burning.
The touching wasn't helping. Previously, when Sherlock suffered bouts of inexplicable tactility he'd just seize hold of John without warning and drag him around, before releasing him just as quickly. But lately, Sherlock had escalated the touching to levels that were becoming dangerous to John's self-control. He'd touch John on the nape of his neck or the small of the back - sometimes light, barely there touches, sometimes leaving his hand there for long moments at a time in a way that felt undeniably possessive. There were quick brushes of John's hands to get his attention, touches to his jaw to make him turn his head and now, instead of stalking off and expecting John to follow, Sherlock seized his hand and pulled him along.
John might have dismissed it as Sherlock being Sherlock and conducting some kind of weird experiment (though what that experiment might have been, John could only guess) were it not for the comments. More specifically, the way Sherlock behaved in response to said comments.
Sherlock's behaviour meant they were attracting more 'gay couple' insinuations than ever, but instead of ignoring them, Sherlock was almost preening under them. He'd smirk and wrap an arm around John's waist, which would glue the doctor's tongue to the roof of his mouth and make him utterly incapable of stammering out a denial.
In short, the whole situation was making John quite desperate to see Get Some Sex come to fruition as soon as possible. But he was having no luck at all - every man he was even idly interested in was as straight as two parallel lines, according to Sherlock.
“What about the brunette? Would I have any success hitting on him?”
“No,” Sherlock said simply.
They were on their way back from the Chinese takeaway they so often frequented, and John had spotted a few likely-looking guys milling at the corner of the street and sharing cigarettes. Normally he wouldn't just walk up to someone on the street, but he was getting desperate - one more day of bare-chested Sherlock and he was literally going to explode from sexual frustration.
So he'd asked Sherlock, and apparently, none of them were gay. Which had become disturbingly common over the past week.
“Dammit! Am I the only gay man in London?” John muttered, half to himself, as they climbed the stairs.
Sherlock scoffed. “Of course you aren't.”
“Well, I suppose I'm technically bisexual, but I meant that it seems like I'm the only man around who likes other men.”
“I like men.”
John froze in the act of making himself a cup of tea as he swiftly quelled the impulse to turn around, shove Sherlock up against the kitchen bench and just kiss the infuriating man.
He tried to make his voice casual when he answered, “Yeah, but you're married to your work.”
“That was before I knew you.”
For the second time in as many minutes, John's mind stalled. He abandoned the tea and spun around to stare at Sherlock, who was regarding him so intensely John could practically feel his clothes beginning to scorch.
“What?” It was the most intelligent response he was capable of.
Sherlock sighed in the way he usually sighed at crime scenes, as though he couldn't believe other people were this dense. “I've attempted to make my intentions clear during this past week, but you are either oblivious to it or completely uninterested, so there seems to be no other recourse.”
Another sigh, this one slightly different - slightly disbelieving, as though Sherlock couldn't quite credit what he was doing. “John...are you open to the possibility of a sexual relationship?”
“With you?” John asked, not sure if he was understanding Sherlock correctly. Surely he couldn't be saying...surely he couldn't mean...
“Yes, with me.”
John was making a valiant effort to gather his thoughts, feeling as disoriented as if he'd just stepped into an alternate universe. Which, really, couldn't be ruled out.
His brain suddenly latched onto Sherlock's first phrase, and John could almost hear the click as the pieces finally fell into place. “You said you'd tried to make your intentions clear. This past week...was that you...seducing me?”
“Evidently unsuccessfully, as you seemed unable to grasp my less than subtle hints and required a verbal pronouncement,” Sherlock snapped. “Now answer the question!”
He looked very distant and very removed, his face completely still and frozen, as though whatever John said in reply wouldn't affect him in the slightest. As though whether John accepted him or rejected him would make no difference to his life.
That was what made John open his mouth to refuse. He couldn't be Sherlock's experiment, the effect of emotional attachment on human sexual practices or whatever he was studying this time around. John could be many things to Sherlock, but not that, not simply a convenience, an idle curiosity.
But then he noticed the way Sherlock's jaw was clenched, the way his hands were curled into tense fists, the way his eyes glimmered with something very much like desperation. Sherlock was trying to appear relaxed at a moment when his body was vibrating with more tension than John had ever seen him possess, and then he knew.
This wasn't casual for Sherlock, not at all. In fact, Sherlock was probably risking more than John was - John had other friends, after all. He wasn't as close to them as he was to Sherlock, but they were there. But Sherlock...didn't seem to consider anyone a friend except John.
So John answered the question. “Yes.”
Sherlock blinked, and actually looked surprised, as though while he'd obviously felt the need to ask for such a relationship it hadn't actually occurred to him that John's reply would be positive.
“Yes,” John repeated, just to make sure he understood. “We can be partners, lovers, boyfriends, whatever you want to call it. Though on second thought, don't call me your boyfriend, sounds too much like we're teenagers. Or your lover, that sounds far too archaic.”
Sherlock was looking at him with an expression close to wonder on his face, the kind of rapture that only dawned when he put all the pieces of a case together. Then a smug, almost predatory smile curved his lips, and the next thing John knew his hips were against the kitchen table and Sherlock was kissing him.
Caught by surprise as he was, it wasn't exactly an ideal kiss. John choked and jerked, their teeth clashed and John's lower lip was painfully squashed. But Sherlock was undaunted - he simply drew back, re-angled his head, and swooped in once more.
The kisses were deep and drugging, and John certainly had no complaints to make. He was so caught up in them that it was only halfway through the fourth when he realised that Sherlock's fingers were tugging at his jumper, as if the taller man was trying to figure out a way to remove it that wouldn't involve breaking their kisses.
Of course, as soon as John noticed he was doing it Sherlock seemed to lose interest in favour of trying to unfasten John's trousers.
That made John draw back, which was harder than he would have thought, because Sherlock seemed determined to somehow merge their lips together and followed until John's hand on his chest arrested him.
“You want to have sex now?” John blurted.
“Why not?” was all Sherlock said, and in the next instant he was kissing John again.
Why not indeed? John had just enough of his rational mind left to think that it was rather typical of Sherlock to jump straight into the deep end with no time to adjust.
He pushed Sherlock back from him again. “No.”
“No?” Sherlock looked like a boy whose puppy had just died.
“Not here,” John clarified. “My bedroom - I've got lube and condoms.”
“What kind of lube?”
“Few different brands, actually.”
Sherlock's eyes glinted. “Oh, really?”
“Hey, I've been on the lookout for sex with a man for a month, I needed to be sure I'd be properly supplied!”
“Sometimes, John, you really are quite extraordinary in your dependability.”
John was still absorbing that compliment - said in all sincerity and without any sort of backhand to it, which was a miracle in itself - when Sherlock seized his hand and practically dragged him up the stairs. Not that John was at all unwilling to go, but Sherlock's bloody long legs meant he could bound up three steps at a time, while John was limited to two at the most.
As he went, John mentally revised his plans. Get Over Stupid, Ill-Conceived Crush On Flatmate was officially shelved. Abandoned, discarded, never to be taken up again.
Get Some Sex, however, was proceeding nicely.