Oversimplification for geniuses (John/Sherlock, nc-17, 4800 words)
This is Sherlock-fic! I know, I know, who would'a thought?
I actually started writing this before series 2 was shown, so it's woefully out of date, but I was thumbing through some old notebooks and discovered that I had written the ending long-hand. So, whereas this is not new fic at all, it is fic that I have at least completed. It is sooooo long since I completed anything.
Oversimplification for geniuses
(John/Sherlock, nc-17, 4800 words)
For someone who's such an expert in normal human behaviour, Sherlock is very bad at it.
For example, when John says, "Sarah and I have split up,"
Sherlock says, "Yes." He doesn't make it better by looking up at John, drawing in a sharp, worried breath and saying, "And it was humiliating."
"No," John protests. "No. It was all quite amicable. We talked about it, and we decided-"
"She decided," Sherlock corrects him. He's reading a help wanted ad for the hundredth time. The ad is applicable only to redheaded men, and it happens to be the pivotal clue in his latest case. John is already desperately tempted to call it The Adventure of the Ginger Nuts on his blog, but he'll wait until its conclusion to see if a better pun presents itself.
He sits down in his chair, across from Sherlock by the window, and calmly continues as if there had been no interruption. "We decided that our relationship wasn't going anywhere, and that, while we still cared about each other, maybe it was time for us to start seeing other people."
When Sherlock simply continues his scrutiny of the ad, John wanders into the kitchen. He gathers up their mugs, empties the cold, pale slop of tea left in the bottoms down the sink, and sets them by the teapot. He fills the kettle, wonders if the banging in the pipes is getting worse, puts the kettle on its stand and turns it on.
All the while he's thinking.
He wanders back into the living room.
"What do you mean 'it was humiliating'?"
Sherlock raises an eyebrow, perfectly scathing in that undirected way he defaults to. "Your raw knuckles say you've punched a wall, so clearly you very much disliked something she said. And there's lipstick on your cheek, John, from where she kissed you goodbye after she dumped you." Sherlock's eyebrow conceives to arch even more pointedly. "I'd call that fairly humiliating, wouldn't you?"
John can't really argue with that.
:::
In these situations, John is never sure who is babysitting whom. Is Sherlock employing John as a distraction for Mycroft while he spends his time doing things that are not the investigations Mycroft has asked him to carry out? Or is Mycroft there to ensure that John doesn't do anything silly like to try to assist Sherlock when he's not wanted?
Whatever the reason for Mycroft's unannounced and prolonged visits, they make for very awkward evenings.
There is never much by way of conversation. Mycroft sits there, drinking tea, and smiling fixedly. Mycroft smiles as though he read a book on the subject some time long ago, and learned the technique by carefully following steps one to six.
Tonight is bad.
X Factor is on, and sometimes John likes to watch the early episodes, when it's still audition stage and there's a good chance of seeing some really bad singers. But he's oddly self-conscious about turning it on while Mycroft is there. John thinks he might feel bad about subjecting a mind as elegant as Mycroft's to Lady Gaga, as performed by a nervous teenager.
John's learnt his lesson from the time he had Eastenders on while Sherlock was in the room.
So instead, they sit in silence.
The Woman Occasionally Known As Anthea is not even there to carry some of the strain, even if her contribution to the conversation is generally nothing more substantive than the infrequent snicker at the latest message on her iPhone.
Mycroft finishes his tea, delicately nudges aside Sherlock's riding crop left on the tabletop and puts his cup down in its place.
"So, you're no longer seeing Sarah," he says.
"Did Sherlock tell you? Or did the constant surveillance you keep me under fill you in?" John's only half-joking.
Mycroft utilizes advanced smiling technique number three and stretches his mouth a little further in a grin, acknowledging John's attempt at humour. "You've been job hunting," he says, nodding towards the open paper on the windowsill. "All things going well with Sarah, you'd still be in the honeymoon period and wouldn't dream of giving up the chance to see her daily. You're also not the kind of man to run away if the relationship were in trouble. Therefore, the relationship must be over."
John nods. "Well, yes."
Mycroft mirrors the nod. "I blame my brother. I expect she did too."
She had, actually. She'd said a lot of things, but Sherlock's name had come up in most of them. They were the kind of pointed and quiet things people say when they're breaking up, and John doesn't think it's worth repeating any of them, and certainly not to Sherlock's big brother.
He shrugs. Mycroft nods again, more slowly.
"I imagine she had a little nickname for him. Something a little mocking she could smile as she said?" His tone rises at the end, politely waiting for the confirmation he knows is coming. Mycroft's cruel in that way, John thinks, how he always invites a man to hang himself. At least Sherlock just storms right in to tell you your own secrets.
"Pavlov," John says dutifully.
Mycroft mouths it back to himself uncertainly. His nose wrinkles. He's disappointed. John hadn't been thrilled about it himself.
:::
Mrs Hudson is not their housekeeper. She tells them this regularly, in case they get confused by the way she appears in the flat every Wednesday morning to plump the cushions, dust Sherlock's stacks of books and make them a nice cup of tea with a couple of digestive biscuits.
"And how's Sarah?" she says. "Oh, she's such a lovely girl. Such a pretty girl, and so clever too."
She taps Sherlock on the calf, and he lifts his legs to allow her to straighten the chintz covers she's put on the arms of the couch.
"We split up, actually," says John.
Mrs Hudson puts Sherlock's legs back down, and moves on to the potted plant, pressing her fingertips into the soil to see if it requires watering.
"Oh, did you? Oh, that's a real shame. Still, plenty more fish in the sea."
"He doesn't want a fish, Mrs Hudson," says Sherlock. He flings a hand dramatically over his eyes and says, "Are you going to be much longer? I can't think while I'm being tidied."
"I suppose it's just as well," Mrs Hudson continues, as if Sherlock hadn't spoken. She dotes on Sherlock, primarily, John believes, because she has learnt to be deaf to his protestations. "Not like you'd have time for a relationship when you've got Sherlock to keep you busy."
John chokes on digestive crumbs. He snorts McVities rather painfully out of his nose. "Sherlock had nothing to do with it," he says.
"No time for relationships when you're so busy solving cases and catching criminals, have you?" says Mrs Hudson. She bustles off to the kitchen, muttering, "No girl with any self-respect wants a man who's going to keep cancelling dinner plans so he can go mess about with dead bodies and the police."
:::
All I mean is, said Sarah, gently reproaching, "that I don't really think you've got space for me in your life.
Not when you've got him."
:::
Normally John wears more than just a towel around his middle, even just around the flat, but he's on his way to the kitchen to have words with the boiler about the cold water in the shower and the fucking ludicrous amount of banging the pipes are making.
He's going to have to call a plumber, who may or may not answer the phone, may or may not return any message John leaves, may or may not grudgingly agree to come take a look on some day at some time which they couldn't possibly give a definite on because they prefer to just turn up like the Second Coming of Christ, with the same amount of pomp and ceremony thrown on, and then get paid an insane amount of money to tell John that maybe it's an airlock but they can't be sure until they take a closer look at the pipes, which of course they can't do today.
He's in the middle of cursing plumbers, the plumbing at 221b Baker Street, and 221b Baker Street for housing the accursed plumbing, when he runs into Sherlock.
"Oh," says John. "I thought you were out visiting pawnbrokers."
"Saw all I needed to," says Sherlock.
John's flesh is like a shellfish's under Sherlock's scrutiny: pink and tender and exposed. Sherlock will be reading all kinds of stories in John's body, turning the page from John's throat to his chest to his belly, to his stripy red and grey towel.
"Close-range," says Sherlock.
He is. Sherlock is very close. John is very aware of it, just like he is aware that he is only wearing a towel. He doesn't need Sherlock to point it out.
"You were shot at close-range," says Sherlock.
John's gaze snaps to the puckered ring at the joint of his shoulder, the scar that lives on his skin like an angry parasite. "Oh, yeah. It was, uh, friendly fire. Huh, friendly fire. I suppose it's a bit like your mates throwing you a surprise party. Except with bullets, instead of beer and cake and karaoke."
John's mouth shuts itself and John is grateful to it for making that executive decision.
Sherlock stands there a while longer, while John is betowelled and dripping gently on Mrs Hudson's dark paisley carpet.
Very seriously, Sherlock says, "I don't have any friends who would include karaoke at a surprise party for me." He cocks his head at John. "At least I would hope you know me better than that by now." He sweeps past, calling back over his shoulder, "Do hurry up and do something about the plumbing, would you?"
:::
The second message is the same as the first one -Come back to the flat. SH - except with the addition of urgently.
John sits in the Golden Pheasant Pub, wishing it hadn't decided to become a gastro-pub because breadsticks aren't as satisfying as little bowls of peanuts. Also, gastro-pubs aren't as accepting of single, silent males who want to sit brooding at the bar as regular pubs are. Gastro-pubs are for families who want a nice meal out but want things like vegetarian lasagne and steak and ale pie on the menu.
If you sit on your own in a regular pub, people don't assume you're waiting for someone.
The third message says, Stop pretending you have a life. I need you. SH
John is still stinging with indignation over the first half of the message when he registers the second. Then, the final resistance he can manage is to finish chewing the last of the breadstick in his mouth before he leaves.
During the hot, dark sway of the trip on the tube, he imagines possible endings for Sherlock's sentence.
I need you… to help me solve this case, is laughable. If Sherlock needs someone to help him think out a case, then John isn't going to be whom he turns to. Jim Moriarty ranks higher on the list of possible contenders than John does.
I need you… because I think better when you're in the room, is a nice idea but one with very little anecdotal evidence to back it up. Sherlock likes an audience for his brilliance, but it doesn't follow that he specifically needs John for that.
I need you… to shut the window because I am getting cold and I am a lazy sod, is the most likely kind of answer, albeit one with a little more detail than Sherlock would give.
I need you. One little beep-beep of an incoming text message, and off trots Pavlov's dog.
The flat is dark, but Sherlock is still on the couch when John climbs the stairs. He opens one eye, blinks lazily at John, then closes it again. He looks lordly on the couch, like someone's plucked him out of his stately home and dropped him in 221b Baker Street and he's just too damn aristocratic to notice. His body has the graceful unreality of a mannequin; it doesn't pay attention to the usual rules of proportion and angle.
He goes on lying there, and John's patience dwindles.
"Well?" says John eventually. "What is it?"
"Managed to tear yourself away from the breadsticks, did you?" says Sherlock. "I'm flattered."
"You said you needed me, what for? Urgent, you said." He stalks a little closer to the couch but Sherlock still refuses to open his eyes.
"It was urgent an hour ago when I first texted you," says Sherlock. "Now it's approaching a crisis."
"What is?" John demands. He's looming over the couch now. There are shadows over Sherlock and they make the angles of his face more hazardous than usual; it's a cliff's edge just looking at him. "What's going on? Why do you need me? What am I doing here?"
It's all starting to sound far too existential for a Saturday night. The very nature of his being apparently depends on what the hell is going on here, here right by Sherlock and his couch, and the question forms itself with the blinding clarity that only comes from having a couple of pints more than is a good idea.
Sherlock blinks at him again, with the epically unruffled bearing of a giant stone head.
"Patches. I need some more," he says. He waves a hand around blindly in the rough direction of an empty box of nicotine patches on the floor. "Try the newsagents at the end of the road."
On the stroll down to the newsagents, the fresh air clears John's head. Sherlock, he realises, needs him. And Sherlock also needs nicotine patches. The question John should be asking himself is just how important to Sherlock are the nicotine patches? And, then, does he need them more than he needs John?
It's a very sorry state of affairs when one's existential pondering is reduced to the contemplation of one's worth relative to nicotine patches.
:::
The rubble in the bank vault is white and powdery, like icing picked off a cake and set at the edge of the plate. Other than the rubble, the vault is empty.
Lestrade surveys the scene with a kind of hopeless resignation. He strikes John as a man who's deeply fed up that people won't stop breaking the law. Not angry or despairing about the inescapable flaws in human nature, not excited or passionate about the chase and the prospect of danger. No, just very very fed up.
Police and crime scene officers swarm about the empty vault, as though there might still be something to find, and Sherlock is peering through the hole in the wall. Lestrade and John stand back a little and watch the activity with all the dull interest of commuters waiting for the Monday morning train.
"So, I heard you and Sarah broke up," says Lestrade.
John nods. "Yeah, couple of weeks ago."
Another pause, as they both watch Sherlock disappear through the hole.
"Sorry," says Lestrade.
John nods again. "Thank you."
Sherlock re-emerges from the hole. There's white dust on the shoulders of his coat, in his hair and on his hands.
"Couldn't put up with Sherlock then?" says Lestrade.
"Why does everyone assume Sherlock has some bearing on my bloody love life?"
That was quite loud, John decides. Loud enough that lots of people are now looking at him. Probably a bit too loud.
"I just meant, well, what sane woman could put up with him?" says Lestrade. He's eyeing John a little uncertainly. Up until this point, Lestrade has accepted John as normal, against Sherlock's decidedly abnormal. He's clearly re-evaluating that appraisal.
"Vincent Spaulding, Mr Wilson's assistant," says Sherlock. "Arrest him. You'll have to hurry." That last part is thrown over his shoulder as he strides out of the vault.
"Why am I arresting him?" Lestrade calls after him. "Sherlock! Sherlock, I can't just go around arresting people because you say so!"
John sighs. "I'd, uh, better…" he says apologetically to Lestrade, and follows Sherlock out.
Sherlock is sweeping down the white marble corridors in his long black coat like he's in a gothic novel, instead of a building that has photocopiers and paperclips and egg mayonnaise sandwiches in the break-room fridge for lunch.
He doesn't slow when John follows him, even though he must hear his footsteps behind him.
"Lestrade needs some details, Sherlock," John says to his back. "Sherlock! Some of us need explanations, remember? Tiny little brains?"
Sherlock takes a sharp left into the mensroom. The door shuts. John stands outside, rocking impatiently on his feet from toe to heel and back again. The mensroom door opens again and Sherlock pokes his head out.
"In, John," says Sherlock, rolling his eyes and sounding pained that he even had to say it at all.
The mensroom is primarily for the members of staff who work the lower levels of the bank, which is obvious from the psoriatic peel of the paint on the walls, the empty paper towel dispenser and the limescale stains in the bowl of the urinals. John has seen worse bathrooms, but most of those had been in Afghanistan, and one tends to be more understanding about standards of hygiene slipping when there is a war going on.
He raises an eyebrow at Sherlock expectantly.
"You have been unbearable for weeks. I've had quite enough of it now, John," says Sherlock, before he pins John to the door and sticks his hand down the front of his trousers.
"Jesus!" John explodes.
Sherlock's hands are very clever. He's got John's zip down and his hand inside before John has chance to realise that this cannot be any part of the whole 'redheaded men and what they have to do with burgled bank vaults' mystery. John loses control of his legs and instinctively knees Sherlock. Sherlock grunts, and slams him backwards, caging him closer between himself and the door.
"You can't! Sherlock, this is a public place, anyone could, what if someone…"
Sherlock keeps him trapped all through John's scandalised, middle-class prudery, not a word of which is no or stop. There's a lot of hidden strength in Sherlock's body. John's surprised by it. He can feel it pressed along the length of his own: tight and lean and nothing soft at all. Even through the thickness of his coat, Sherlock's body radiates heat. His thigh is rubbing, catlike, against John's as he insinuates his hand in John's underwear, fingers sliding in to grip John's cock.
John makes a strangled noise, struggles while Sherlock patiently holds him still, then makes eye contact with Sherlock.
Sherlock's got one hand on John's shoulder, and the other is wrapped around the base of John's dick, holding him while he gets hard, filling the curl of Sherlock's fingers, until his grip is almost too much. "Not the first time you've had another man's hand on you, is it?" he says. "St Barts. What a thorough education."
His mouth is hot against John's, not kissing him - Sherlock would never use his mouth for kissing when he could be talking, expressing every piece being put together in his brain. He thinks best out loud, and right now he must be thinking about getting John to fuck his hand.
The pad of his thumb rubs over the thick ridge on the underside of John's cock, and he watches John, intent and amused, like John's about to give himself away. And John is, he'd be babbling if he knew what it was Sherlock wanted to hear. Instead, he's wound up with panic and confusion, and the bubbling, heated want that makes his hips twitch into Sherlock.
There's so little room between their bodies that when Sherlock starts a slow, measured jerk of his wrist, his knuckles skim John's belly. It makes John's skin tingle and ache, too much sensation in one place until it's approaching painful. Sherlock's hand is moving between them, a dirty little secret between them, and John's breathing rips and frays to a more ragged rhythm, punched out of him in the dirty hollow of the bank's mensroom.
John clutches at the lapel of Sherlock's coat, smudging the white rubble dust, and Sherlock smiles like this is victory.
There's a gathering wetness at the head of John's cock. Sherlock throws a new move into the rhythm of his hand, a virtuoso adding a flourish to his performance, and sweeps the heel of his palm into it, and then the sound of John's flesh on Sherlock's is wetter, slicker, filthier.
John's body won't stay still. Just like Sherlock knows - exactly like Sherlock knows - he holds John pinned against the door, while John squirms and pushes for more, traps him so he can't ruin all Sherlock's good work. John's hand scrabbles at Sherlock's coat collar, and he twists the fabric into his fingers, until Sherlock's forced to bend even closer, until Sherlock would have to abandon his coat in order to escape him, have to leave part of himself behind, while John fucks his cock back into the harder, heavier tug of Sherlock's hand.
John squeezes his eyes shut, jaw unhitched and a low, hoarse noise rolling out of his throat as he comes. All he's aware of is Sherlock's body against his, the scratchiness of Sherlock's coat entwined in his fingers and Sherlock's breath hot against his mouth and the muscles in Sherlock's long legs flexing next to him.
There's a moment of deeper darkness, Sherlock's lips at his ear.
"She was right to dump you."
It's not the sort of sweet little nothing that John's used to, but it doesn't make his orgasm hit any less hard. His dick spurts between Sherlock's fingers. It's hot and wet and messy, dribbling sloppily over Sherlock's hand, and white drops of it bead the black front of Sherlock's coat and the pushed-up bundle of John's jumper. John groans as he comes and comes, clinging hold of Sherlock all through it.
Then his bones leak out of him, and he goes slack against the door. His knees are shaking. Sherlock makes a soft, satisfied noise and props John's full weight against the door. He steps away, and through the addled, post-orgasmic haze, John watches him at the sink, carefully blotting John's come off his coat.
:::
Well, that was all very unexpected and embarrassing.
The next morning, John feels a compulsion to apologise to Sherlock for his penis ending up in Sherlock's hand. John would like to ignore the situation, but if he doesn’t explain to Sherlock why that should probably never happen again, it might happen again, and John will be no use to Sherlock at all if he's perpetually in anticipation - with a healthy dose of fear - that Sherlock will lure him into a mensroom again to give him a good wank.
He finds Sherlock in his favourite chair at the window, knees up to his chest and his violin tucked beneath his chin like it's a peculiarly tolerant tabby cat.
"So, um, yesterday," says John. "I know you probably think you were helping, I don't know, helping take my mind off Sarah, working off some frustration or whatever-"
"It did help," Sherlock cuts in.
"No, it didn't," says John patiently.
"Yes, it did."
"No, it didn't!" says John, far less patiently. He takes a deep breath. "Look, you don't properly understand the situation."
Sherlock raises an eyebrow at him contemptuously, as if John should realise what a stupid thing he's just said and be ashamed of himself accordingly for even thinking it.
"No, look, I wasn't… See, when Sarah and I split up, it was… well, certainly partially, because of you."
Sherlock slices his bow over the violin strings, and a piercing, dramatic chord shivers in the air. John gets the impression he's being mocked.
"Sherlock, this is serious. Sarah dumped me because she thought, well, she thought maybe we were a little too close, if you see what I mean, and-"
"I do see what you mean," says Sherlock gravely.
John's voice is having to get very loud to carry on over all of Sherlock's decidedly unhelpful additions to the conversation. "And so when you do things like… what you did yesterday, it just complicates the situation between us."
Sherlock blinks at him. "Really? I rather thought it made things a lot simpler." He rolls his eyes at John's blank look. "Oh do follow along, John." He ticks his points off on his long fingers. "Your girlfriend dumps you because of the presumed nature of our relationship, everyone instantly assumes it's because of our relationship, and you've been fretting since it happened about the exact nature of our relationship. I would have thought that the nature of our relationship is now abundantly clear."
That's a lot of repetition of the word 'relationship'. He wonders if Sherlock is trying to make a point. And then he wonders some more, wonders if it's just somehow possible that he's in a relationship with Sherlock bloody Holmes, a kind of accidental signing on the dotted line, just like how Sherlock swept him from introductions - unbalanced as they were - to living in a flat shared with Sherlock and his accumulated dust and curios.
Sherlock stands up, violin hanging in his hand in the kind of loose grip a child uses to hang on to a teddy bear, and crosses to the window. Birds flying across the sky outside look like pieces of laundry ripped loose from washing lines. Sherlock leans against the glass, sunlight on his face.
Somewhere in the distance, a police siren raises its voice in a wail.
"Do hurry up and finish processing that thought," says Sherlock. "I think we might be going out soon."
He is. John's in a fucking relationship with Sherlock bloody Holmes, probably has been for weeks.
And the kicker of it all, the thing John objects to more than Sherlock - the prospect of Sherlock, of capturing Sherlock's interest, of mattering to Sherlock, of Sherlock's surprisingly strong and unsurprisingly deft hands, of Sherlock's need to be assisted away from saying things that make him sound more heartless than he actually is - is that when Sherlock clearly decided he had to take pity on John and let him in on the secret, he'd chosen the shockingly unsubtle method of sticking his hand down John's trousers.
John's mobile buzzes. Lestrade.
"What's the address?" says Sherlock, setting his violin aside and sweeping his coat on in one balletic flourish.
"Suffolk Street, the Philippine Embassy," John supplies. He's still frowning as Sherlock walks out. He feels the need to make something very clear, but the object of his frustration is halfway down the stairs. He follows him out, continuing his attempt to talk this out with Sherlock, even if he's only got his back at which to argue. "I'm not an idiot you know. Sherlock, listen, I'm trying to talk to you."
Sherlock bounds out of the front door and hails an approaching taxi. "I'm sure it's fascinating." He gestures John towards the taxi. "Come on, John. I don't want to miss anything."
"Sherlock," says John. And he stops moving.
Long-suffering, Sherlock looks back at him.
"I'm not an idiot," John says. "I don't need everything reduced to its simplest terms."
The taxi trundles to a halt beside them.
"Yes, you do," says Sherlock. He gets in the taxi and leaves the door open.
John stands on the street.
He's still a little shellshocked by what's happening, but one thing is very clear to him: he doesn't have to get in the taxi. Sherlock can't force him. Sherlock may have ambushed him in the mensroom, but John's ready for it now, and John is a soldier for god's sake and if he can fight a bloody war with only minimal psychological and physical scarring, he can turn down Sherlock fucking Holmes. He can make that rejection as straightforward as simply not getting in the taxi.
The taxi chunters on the spot, nasty fumes roiling out of its exhaust. John considers it, the indistinct and glassy profile of Sherlock within it. John could as easily go back up to the flat and pretend to do a little job-hunting while he actually watched The Jeremy Kyle show, as he could get in the taxi.
But the problem with not getting in the taxi is this: there's nowhere else on earth that John wants to be. Even if it means proving Sherlock right yet one more time.
With a sigh and much rolling of eyes, John gets in the taxi. He shoots Sherlock a displeased look.
"Do you have to be so damn smug about it?" he says, and the twitch of Sherlock's lips grows to a smirk.
As the taxi pulls away from the kerb, toward whatever the latest scandal or crime is, and John finds he can only fervently hope that Sherlock will keep him fully briefed on all future developments in their relationship.
~end
I actually started writing this before series 2 was shown, so it's woefully out of date, but I was thumbing through some old notebooks and discovered that I had written the ending long-hand. So, whereas this is not new fic at all, it is fic that I have at least completed. It is sooooo long since I completed anything.
Oversimplification for geniuses
(John/Sherlock, nc-17, 4800 words)
For someone who's such an expert in normal human behaviour, Sherlock is very bad at it.
For example, when John says, "Sarah and I have split up,"
Sherlock says, "Yes." He doesn't make it better by looking up at John, drawing in a sharp, worried breath and saying, "And it was humiliating."
"No," John protests. "No. It was all quite amicable. We talked about it, and we decided-"
"She decided," Sherlock corrects him. He's reading a help wanted ad for the hundredth time. The ad is applicable only to redheaded men, and it happens to be the pivotal clue in his latest case. John is already desperately tempted to call it The Adventure of the Ginger Nuts on his blog, but he'll wait until its conclusion to see if a better pun presents itself.
He sits down in his chair, across from Sherlock by the window, and calmly continues as if there had been no interruption. "We decided that our relationship wasn't going anywhere, and that, while we still cared about each other, maybe it was time for us to start seeing other people."
When Sherlock simply continues his scrutiny of the ad, John wanders into the kitchen. He gathers up their mugs, empties the cold, pale slop of tea left in the bottoms down the sink, and sets them by the teapot. He fills the kettle, wonders if the banging in the pipes is getting worse, puts the kettle on its stand and turns it on.
All the while he's thinking.
He wanders back into the living room.
"What do you mean 'it was humiliating'?"
Sherlock raises an eyebrow, perfectly scathing in that undirected way he defaults to. "Your raw knuckles say you've punched a wall, so clearly you very much disliked something she said. And there's lipstick on your cheek, John, from where she kissed you goodbye after she dumped you." Sherlock's eyebrow conceives to arch even more pointedly. "I'd call that fairly humiliating, wouldn't you?"
John can't really argue with that.
:::
In these situations, John is never sure who is babysitting whom. Is Sherlock employing John as a distraction for Mycroft while he spends his time doing things that are not the investigations Mycroft has asked him to carry out? Or is Mycroft there to ensure that John doesn't do anything silly like to try to assist Sherlock when he's not wanted?
Whatever the reason for Mycroft's unannounced and prolonged visits, they make for very awkward evenings.
There is never much by way of conversation. Mycroft sits there, drinking tea, and smiling fixedly. Mycroft smiles as though he read a book on the subject some time long ago, and learned the technique by carefully following steps one to six.
Tonight is bad.
X Factor is on, and sometimes John likes to watch the early episodes, when it's still audition stage and there's a good chance of seeing some really bad singers. But he's oddly self-conscious about turning it on while Mycroft is there. John thinks he might feel bad about subjecting a mind as elegant as Mycroft's to Lady Gaga, as performed by a nervous teenager.
John's learnt his lesson from the time he had Eastenders on while Sherlock was in the room.
So instead, they sit in silence.
The Woman Occasionally Known As Anthea is not even there to carry some of the strain, even if her contribution to the conversation is generally nothing more substantive than the infrequent snicker at the latest message on her iPhone.
Mycroft finishes his tea, delicately nudges aside Sherlock's riding crop left on the tabletop and puts his cup down in its place.
"So, you're no longer seeing Sarah," he says.
"Did Sherlock tell you? Or did the constant surveillance you keep me under fill you in?" John's only half-joking.
Mycroft utilizes advanced smiling technique number three and stretches his mouth a little further in a grin, acknowledging John's attempt at humour. "You've been job hunting," he says, nodding towards the open paper on the windowsill. "All things going well with Sarah, you'd still be in the honeymoon period and wouldn't dream of giving up the chance to see her daily. You're also not the kind of man to run away if the relationship were in trouble. Therefore, the relationship must be over."
John nods. "Well, yes."
Mycroft mirrors the nod. "I blame my brother. I expect she did too."
She had, actually. She'd said a lot of things, but Sherlock's name had come up in most of them. They were the kind of pointed and quiet things people say when they're breaking up, and John doesn't think it's worth repeating any of them, and certainly not to Sherlock's big brother.
He shrugs. Mycroft nods again, more slowly.
"I imagine she had a little nickname for him. Something a little mocking she could smile as she said?" His tone rises at the end, politely waiting for the confirmation he knows is coming. Mycroft's cruel in that way, John thinks, how he always invites a man to hang himself. At least Sherlock just storms right in to tell you your own secrets.
"Pavlov," John says dutifully.
Mycroft mouths it back to himself uncertainly. His nose wrinkles. He's disappointed. John hadn't been thrilled about it himself.
:::
Mrs Hudson is not their housekeeper. She tells them this regularly, in case they get confused by the way she appears in the flat every Wednesday morning to plump the cushions, dust Sherlock's stacks of books and make them a nice cup of tea with a couple of digestive biscuits.
"And how's Sarah?" she says. "Oh, she's such a lovely girl. Such a pretty girl, and so clever too."
She taps Sherlock on the calf, and he lifts his legs to allow her to straighten the chintz covers she's put on the arms of the couch.
"We split up, actually," says John.
Mrs Hudson puts Sherlock's legs back down, and moves on to the potted plant, pressing her fingertips into the soil to see if it requires watering.
"Oh, did you? Oh, that's a real shame. Still, plenty more fish in the sea."
"He doesn't want a fish, Mrs Hudson," says Sherlock. He flings a hand dramatically over his eyes and says, "Are you going to be much longer? I can't think while I'm being tidied."
"I suppose it's just as well," Mrs Hudson continues, as if Sherlock hadn't spoken. She dotes on Sherlock, primarily, John believes, because she has learnt to be deaf to his protestations. "Not like you'd have time for a relationship when you've got Sherlock to keep you busy."
John chokes on digestive crumbs. He snorts McVities rather painfully out of his nose. "Sherlock had nothing to do with it," he says.
"No time for relationships when you're so busy solving cases and catching criminals, have you?" says Mrs Hudson. She bustles off to the kitchen, muttering, "No girl with any self-respect wants a man who's going to keep cancelling dinner plans so he can go mess about with dead bodies and the police."
:::
All I mean is, said Sarah, gently reproaching, "that I don't really think you've got space for me in your life.
Not when you've got him."
:::
Normally John wears more than just a towel around his middle, even just around the flat, but he's on his way to the kitchen to have words with the boiler about the cold water in the shower and the fucking ludicrous amount of banging the pipes are making.
He's going to have to call a plumber, who may or may not answer the phone, may or may not return any message John leaves, may or may not grudgingly agree to come take a look on some day at some time which they couldn't possibly give a definite on because they prefer to just turn up like the Second Coming of Christ, with the same amount of pomp and ceremony thrown on, and then get paid an insane amount of money to tell John that maybe it's an airlock but they can't be sure until they take a closer look at the pipes, which of course they can't do today.
He's in the middle of cursing plumbers, the plumbing at 221b Baker Street, and 221b Baker Street for housing the accursed plumbing, when he runs into Sherlock.
"Oh," says John. "I thought you were out visiting pawnbrokers."
"Saw all I needed to," says Sherlock.
John's flesh is like a shellfish's under Sherlock's scrutiny: pink and tender and exposed. Sherlock will be reading all kinds of stories in John's body, turning the page from John's throat to his chest to his belly, to his stripy red and grey towel.
"Close-range," says Sherlock.
He is. Sherlock is very close. John is very aware of it, just like he is aware that he is only wearing a towel. He doesn't need Sherlock to point it out.
"You were shot at close-range," says Sherlock.
John's gaze snaps to the puckered ring at the joint of his shoulder, the scar that lives on his skin like an angry parasite. "Oh, yeah. It was, uh, friendly fire. Huh, friendly fire. I suppose it's a bit like your mates throwing you a surprise party. Except with bullets, instead of beer and cake and karaoke."
John's mouth shuts itself and John is grateful to it for making that executive decision.
Sherlock stands there a while longer, while John is betowelled and dripping gently on Mrs Hudson's dark paisley carpet.
Very seriously, Sherlock says, "I don't have any friends who would include karaoke at a surprise party for me." He cocks his head at John. "At least I would hope you know me better than that by now." He sweeps past, calling back over his shoulder, "Do hurry up and do something about the plumbing, would you?"
:::
The second message is the same as the first one -Come back to the flat. SH - except with the addition of urgently.
John sits in the Golden Pheasant Pub, wishing it hadn't decided to become a gastro-pub because breadsticks aren't as satisfying as little bowls of peanuts. Also, gastro-pubs aren't as accepting of single, silent males who want to sit brooding at the bar as regular pubs are. Gastro-pubs are for families who want a nice meal out but want things like vegetarian lasagne and steak and ale pie on the menu.
If you sit on your own in a regular pub, people don't assume you're waiting for someone.
The third message says, Stop pretending you have a life. I need you. SH
John is still stinging with indignation over the first half of the message when he registers the second. Then, the final resistance he can manage is to finish chewing the last of the breadstick in his mouth before he leaves.
During the hot, dark sway of the trip on the tube, he imagines possible endings for Sherlock's sentence.
I need you… to help me solve this case, is laughable. If Sherlock needs someone to help him think out a case, then John isn't going to be whom he turns to. Jim Moriarty ranks higher on the list of possible contenders than John does.
I need you… because I think better when you're in the room, is a nice idea but one with very little anecdotal evidence to back it up. Sherlock likes an audience for his brilliance, but it doesn't follow that he specifically needs John for that.
I need you… to shut the window because I am getting cold and I am a lazy sod, is the most likely kind of answer, albeit one with a little more detail than Sherlock would give.
I need you. One little beep-beep of an incoming text message, and off trots Pavlov's dog.
The flat is dark, but Sherlock is still on the couch when John climbs the stairs. He opens one eye, blinks lazily at John, then closes it again. He looks lordly on the couch, like someone's plucked him out of his stately home and dropped him in 221b Baker Street and he's just too damn aristocratic to notice. His body has the graceful unreality of a mannequin; it doesn't pay attention to the usual rules of proportion and angle.
He goes on lying there, and John's patience dwindles.
"Well?" says John eventually. "What is it?"
"Managed to tear yourself away from the breadsticks, did you?" says Sherlock. "I'm flattered."
"You said you needed me, what for? Urgent, you said." He stalks a little closer to the couch but Sherlock still refuses to open his eyes.
"It was urgent an hour ago when I first texted you," says Sherlock. "Now it's approaching a crisis."
"What is?" John demands. He's looming over the couch now. There are shadows over Sherlock and they make the angles of his face more hazardous than usual; it's a cliff's edge just looking at him. "What's going on? Why do you need me? What am I doing here?"
It's all starting to sound far too existential for a Saturday night. The very nature of his being apparently depends on what the hell is going on here, here right by Sherlock and his couch, and the question forms itself with the blinding clarity that only comes from having a couple of pints more than is a good idea.
Sherlock blinks at him again, with the epically unruffled bearing of a giant stone head.
"Patches. I need some more," he says. He waves a hand around blindly in the rough direction of an empty box of nicotine patches on the floor. "Try the newsagents at the end of the road."
On the stroll down to the newsagents, the fresh air clears John's head. Sherlock, he realises, needs him. And Sherlock also needs nicotine patches. The question John should be asking himself is just how important to Sherlock are the nicotine patches? And, then, does he need them more than he needs John?
It's a very sorry state of affairs when one's existential pondering is reduced to the contemplation of one's worth relative to nicotine patches.
:::
The rubble in the bank vault is white and powdery, like icing picked off a cake and set at the edge of the plate. Other than the rubble, the vault is empty.
Lestrade surveys the scene with a kind of hopeless resignation. He strikes John as a man who's deeply fed up that people won't stop breaking the law. Not angry or despairing about the inescapable flaws in human nature, not excited or passionate about the chase and the prospect of danger. No, just very very fed up.
Police and crime scene officers swarm about the empty vault, as though there might still be something to find, and Sherlock is peering through the hole in the wall. Lestrade and John stand back a little and watch the activity with all the dull interest of commuters waiting for the Monday morning train.
"So, I heard you and Sarah broke up," says Lestrade.
John nods. "Yeah, couple of weeks ago."
Another pause, as they both watch Sherlock disappear through the hole.
"Sorry," says Lestrade.
John nods again. "Thank you."
Sherlock re-emerges from the hole. There's white dust on the shoulders of his coat, in his hair and on his hands.
"Couldn't put up with Sherlock then?" says Lestrade.
"Why does everyone assume Sherlock has some bearing on my bloody love life?"
That was quite loud, John decides. Loud enough that lots of people are now looking at him. Probably a bit too loud.
"I just meant, well, what sane woman could put up with him?" says Lestrade. He's eyeing John a little uncertainly. Up until this point, Lestrade has accepted John as normal, against Sherlock's decidedly abnormal. He's clearly re-evaluating that appraisal.
"Vincent Spaulding, Mr Wilson's assistant," says Sherlock. "Arrest him. You'll have to hurry." That last part is thrown over his shoulder as he strides out of the vault.
"Why am I arresting him?" Lestrade calls after him. "Sherlock! Sherlock, I can't just go around arresting people because you say so!"
John sighs. "I'd, uh, better…" he says apologetically to Lestrade, and follows Sherlock out.
Sherlock is sweeping down the white marble corridors in his long black coat like he's in a gothic novel, instead of a building that has photocopiers and paperclips and egg mayonnaise sandwiches in the break-room fridge for lunch.
He doesn't slow when John follows him, even though he must hear his footsteps behind him.
"Lestrade needs some details, Sherlock," John says to his back. "Sherlock! Some of us need explanations, remember? Tiny little brains?"
Sherlock takes a sharp left into the mensroom. The door shuts. John stands outside, rocking impatiently on his feet from toe to heel and back again. The mensroom door opens again and Sherlock pokes his head out.
"In, John," says Sherlock, rolling his eyes and sounding pained that he even had to say it at all.
The mensroom is primarily for the members of staff who work the lower levels of the bank, which is obvious from the psoriatic peel of the paint on the walls, the empty paper towel dispenser and the limescale stains in the bowl of the urinals. John has seen worse bathrooms, but most of those had been in Afghanistan, and one tends to be more understanding about standards of hygiene slipping when there is a war going on.
He raises an eyebrow at Sherlock expectantly.
"You have been unbearable for weeks. I've had quite enough of it now, John," says Sherlock, before he pins John to the door and sticks his hand down the front of his trousers.
"Jesus!" John explodes.
Sherlock's hands are very clever. He's got John's zip down and his hand inside before John has chance to realise that this cannot be any part of the whole 'redheaded men and what they have to do with burgled bank vaults' mystery. John loses control of his legs and instinctively knees Sherlock. Sherlock grunts, and slams him backwards, caging him closer between himself and the door.
"You can't! Sherlock, this is a public place, anyone could, what if someone…"
Sherlock keeps him trapped all through John's scandalised, middle-class prudery, not a word of which is no or stop. There's a lot of hidden strength in Sherlock's body. John's surprised by it. He can feel it pressed along the length of his own: tight and lean and nothing soft at all. Even through the thickness of his coat, Sherlock's body radiates heat. His thigh is rubbing, catlike, against John's as he insinuates his hand in John's underwear, fingers sliding in to grip John's cock.
John makes a strangled noise, struggles while Sherlock patiently holds him still, then makes eye contact with Sherlock.
Sherlock's got one hand on John's shoulder, and the other is wrapped around the base of John's dick, holding him while he gets hard, filling the curl of Sherlock's fingers, until his grip is almost too much. "Not the first time you've had another man's hand on you, is it?" he says. "St Barts. What a thorough education."
His mouth is hot against John's, not kissing him - Sherlock would never use his mouth for kissing when he could be talking, expressing every piece being put together in his brain. He thinks best out loud, and right now he must be thinking about getting John to fuck his hand.
The pad of his thumb rubs over the thick ridge on the underside of John's cock, and he watches John, intent and amused, like John's about to give himself away. And John is, he'd be babbling if he knew what it was Sherlock wanted to hear. Instead, he's wound up with panic and confusion, and the bubbling, heated want that makes his hips twitch into Sherlock.
There's so little room between their bodies that when Sherlock starts a slow, measured jerk of his wrist, his knuckles skim John's belly. It makes John's skin tingle and ache, too much sensation in one place until it's approaching painful. Sherlock's hand is moving between them, a dirty little secret between them, and John's breathing rips and frays to a more ragged rhythm, punched out of him in the dirty hollow of the bank's mensroom.
John clutches at the lapel of Sherlock's coat, smudging the white rubble dust, and Sherlock smiles like this is victory.
There's a gathering wetness at the head of John's cock. Sherlock throws a new move into the rhythm of his hand, a virtuoso adding a flourish to his performance, and sweeps the heel of his palm into it, and then the sound of John's flesh on Sherlock's is wetter, slicker, filthier.
John's body won't stay still. Just like Sherlock knows - exactly like Sherlock knows - he holds John pinned against the door, while John squirms and pushes for more, traps him so he can't ruin all Sherlock's good work. John's hand scrabbles at Sherlock's coat collar, and he twists the fabric into his fingers, until Sherlock's forced to bend even closer, until Sherlock would have to abandon his coat in order to escape him, have to leave part of himself behind, while John fucks his cock back into the harder, heavier tug of Sherlock's hand.
John squeezes his eyes shut, jaw unhitched and a low, hoarse noise rolling out of his throat as he comes. All he's aware of is Sherlock's body against his, the scratchiness of Sherlock's coat entwined in his fingers and Sherlock's breath hot against his mouth and the muscles in Sherlock's long legs flexing next to him.
There's a moment of deeper darkness, Sherlock's lips at his ear.
"She was right to dump you."
It's not the sort of sweet little nothing that John's used to, but it doesn't make his orgasm hit any less hard. His dick spurts between Sherlock's fingers. It's hot and wet and messy, dribbling sloppily over Sherlock's hand, and white drops of it bead the black front of Sherlock's coat and the pushed-up bundle of John's jumper. John groans as he comes and comes, clinging hold of Sherlock all through it.
Then his bones leak out of him, and he goes slack against the door. His knees are shaking. Sherlock makes a soft, satisfied noise and props John's full weight against the door. He steps away, and through the addled, post-orgasmic haze, John watches him at the sink, carefully blotting John's come off his coat.
:::
Well, that was all very unexpected and embarrassing.
The next morning, John feels a compulsion to apologise to Sherlock for his penis ending up in Sherlock's hand. John would like to ignore the situation, but if he doesn’t explain to Sherlock why that should probably never happen again, it might happen again, and John will be no use to Sherlock at all if he's perpetually in anticipation - with a healthy dose of fear - that Sherlock will lure him into a mensroom again to give him a good wank.
He finds Sherlock in his favourite chair at the window, knees up to his chest and his violin tucked beneath his chin like it's a peculiarly tolerant tabby cat.
"So, um, yesterday," says John. "I know you probably think you were helping, I don't know, helping take my mind off Sarah, working off some frustration or whatever-"
"It did help," Sherlock cuts in.
"No, it didn't," says John patiently.
"Yes, it did."
"No, it didn't!" says John, far less patiently. He takes a deep breath. "Look, you don't properly understand the situation."
Sherlock raises an eyebrow at him contemptuously, as if John should realise what a stupid thing he's just said and be ashamed of himself accordingly for even thinking it.
"No, look, I wasn't… See, when Sarah and I split up, it was… well, certainly partially, because of you."
Sherlock slices his bow over the violin strings, and a piercing, dramatic chord shivers in the air. John gets the impression he's being mocked.
"Sherlock, this is serious. Sarah dumped me because she thought, well, she thought maybe we were a little too close, if you see what I mean, and-"
"I do see what you mean," says Sherlock gravely.
John's voice is having to get very loud to carry on over all of Sherlock's decidedly unhelpful additions to the conversation. "And so when you do things like… what you did yesterday, it just complicates the situation between us."
Sherlock blinks at him. "Really? I rather thought it made things a lot simpler." He rolls his eyes at John's blank look. "Oh do follow along, John." He ticks his points off on his long fingers. "Your girlfriend dumps you because of the presumed nature of our relationship, everyone instantly assumes it's because of our relationship, and you've been fretting since it happened about the exact nature of our relationship. I would have thought that the nature of our relationship is now abundantly clear."
That's a lot of repetition of the word 'relationship'. He wonders if Sherlock is trying to make a point. And then he wonders some more, wonders if it's just somehow possible that he's in a relationship with Sherlock bloody Holmes, a kind of accidental signing on the dotted line, just like how Sherlock swept him from introductions - unbalanced as they were - to living in a flat shared with Sherlock and his accumulated dust and curios.
Sherlock stands up, violin hanging in his hand in the kind of loose grip a child uses to hang on to a teddy bear, and crosses to the window. Birds flying across the sky outside look like pieces of laundry ripped loose from washing lines. Sherlock leans against the glass, sunlight on his face.
Somewhere in the distance, a police siren raises its voice in a wail.
"Do hurry up and finish processing that thought," says Sherlock. "I think we might be going out soon."
He is. John's in a fucking relationship with Sherlock bloody Holmes, probably has been for weeks.
And the kicker of it all, the thing John objects to more than Sherlock - the prospect of Sherlock, of capturing Sherlock's interest, of mattering to Sherlock, of Sherlock's surprisingly strong and unsurprisingly deft hands, of Sherlock's need to be assisted away from saying things that make him sound more heartless than he actually is - is that when Sherlock clearly decided he had to take pity on John and let him in on the secret, he'd chosen the shockingly unsubtle method of sticking his hand down John's trousers.
John's mobile buzzes. Lestrade.
"What's the address?" says Sherlock, setting his violin aside and sweeping his coat on in one balletic flourish.
"Suffolk Street, the Philippine Embassy," John supplies. He's still frowning as Sherlock walks out. He feels the need to make something very clear, but the object of his frustration is halfway down the stairs. He follows him out, continuing his attempt to talk this out with Sherlock, even if he's only got his back at which to argue. "I'm not an idiot you know. Sherlock, listen, I'm trying to talk to you."
Sherlock bounds out of the front door and hails an approaching taxi. "I'm sure it's fascinating." He gestures John towards the taxi. "Come on, John. I don't want to miss anything."
"Sherlock," says John. And he stops moving.
Long-suffering, Sherlock looks back at him.
"I'm not an idiot," John says. "I don't need everything reduced to its simplest terms."
The taxi trundles to a halt beside them.
"Yes, you do," says Sherlock. He gets in the taxi and leaves the door open.
John stands on the street.
He's still a little shellshocked by what's happening, but one thing is very clear to him: he doesn't have to get in the taxi. Sherlock can't force him. Sherlock may have ambushed him in the mensroom, but John's ready for it now, and John is a soldier for god's sake and if he can fight a bloody war with only minimal psychological and physical scarring, he can turn down Sherlock fucking Holmes. He can make that rejection as straightforward as simply not getting in the taxi.
The taxi chunters on the spot, nasty fumes roiling out of its exhaust. John considers it, the indistinct and glassy profile of Sherlock within it. John could as easily go back up to the flat and pretend to do a little job-hunting while he actually watched The Jeremy Kyle show, as he could get in the taxi.
But the problem with not getting in the taxi is this: there's nowhere else on earth that John wants to be. Even if it means proving Sherlock right yet one more time.
With a sigh and much rolling of eyes, John gets in the taxi. He shoots Sherlock a displeased look.
"Do you have to be so damn smug about it?" he says, and the twitch of Sherlock's lips grows to a smirk.
As the taxi pulls away from the kerb, toward whatever the latest scandal or crime is, and John finds he can only fervently hope that Sherlock will keep him fully briefed on all future developments in their relationship.
~end