Tricks of the Mind chapter 6
Title: Tricks of the Mind, chapter 6
Summary of what has happened: John, after a series of disturbing events, is coming to terms with his sexuality; however, Sherlock seems to be eager to destroy his newly regained balance. Or is he? John starts to wonder whether there's more to it than just what his mind suggests.
Pairing: John/Sherlock, more or less one-sided as for now
POV: John's as for now
Genre: Romance/Humor with occasional darker parts (come on we're all human)
Rating: M for all the fic, but this chapter's T or even K because there is like one swear word so yeah.
Word count: 2000-ish for this chapter, around 8,5k overall as for now
SPOILERS for episode 3 season 1, so if you haven't seen it yet, you might want to read this chapter when you have :)
BTW if you read chapter 5 before 10/20/2013, you might want to re-read it as I changed the second half. Explanation is at the top of the said chapter.
Previous chapters:
Chapter 5
Chapter 4
Chapter 3
Chapter 2
Chapter 1
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What was that part about friends again? When the multiple shocks wore off (John was definitely too old for such amounts of psychical stimuli in such a short period of time), John was replaying the part about friends over and over again in his head. Sherlock didn't say anything when they were in the cab, and as soon as they got to the Yard, he busied himself with the new case and John didn't dare ask.
Why did Sherlock say that word in such a weird way? It was so much not like him to leave such double-entendres for John to stumble upon in his mind.
Maybe he didnt consider John his friend? After all, the guy had arch-enemies, so maybe he also had not-quite-friends?
They worked normally, although John's mind was occupied with another case to solve. But when Sherlock was opening the envelope with just a few graceful moves of his gloved hands, John couldn't tear his eyes away from the sight. He told himself that these leather gloves were the poshest thing ever, but he felt warm just thinking of how they would feel against his skin.
The thing that Sherlock got out of the envelope was the same phone as in the Study in Pink. After yesterday's quarrel about his blog, John wished so bad that no one would comment on that, but, as always, someone had to, and it was Lestrade who mentioned the excerpt that Sherlock didn't know that the Earth went round the Sun. John cast him a look that was meant to be menacing, but luckily Sherlock didn't pursue the topic further, concentrated on his work.
John decided that he had better concentrate on it to, if he were to be of any help, and he would ask Sherlock what he had meant when they are alone. He would ask whether he meant that John was his friend, or his enemy, or more than friend. On second thoughts, John crossed out the last idea. Even if Sherlock classified John as more than friend, John didn't reciprocate. He considered Sherlock a friend and that was why he cared about him.
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The first opportunity to ask was at Bart's, where Sherlock was examining the shoes they found in their basement.
John started a small talk about the case, who the girl might be and how were they supposed to save her, but Sherlock was so focused on examining a sample under the microscope that he answered only with half of his attention. That was the only explanation for him saying what he said.
“You're not going to be of much use to her”, Sherlock muttered, as if the girl was a piece of meat and not still a living person.
“Are they tracing it? Tracing the call?”, John asked, supposing that maybe Sherlock had misheard him or that he attributed wrong intentions to him. He was simply worried about a young woman who might be dead soon because they were nowhere near solving the mystery, and what Sherlock said made him think for a moment that he considered it fun. And it was deadly serious. True, he cared about her, because she was going to die, for fuck's sake! If it was Sherlock who was dying, he would care too!
“The bombers too smart for that”, Sherlock replied and his phone beeped at the same moment. “Pass me my phone”, he added.
John looked around, searching for the phone. “Where is it?”, he asked.
“Jacket”, came the reply. It took John a while to process the word. The jacket was obviously worn by Sherlock at the moment, and John took a deep breath in order not to tell the bastard that he'd better take the phone out himself and then shove it up his ass.
Or maybe not.
John approached him, shoved his hand into the detective's jacket's pocket, earning an angry “Careful!” from him, and took way too long to retrieve the phone, as if the bastard put it that deep on purpose. He wanted to finish with it already, as he was standing so close that he could smell the damned expensive gay shampoo. He took a step back and looked at the screen.
“Text from your brother”, he said, seing “Mycroft” written in the message bar.
“Delete it”, Sherlock commanded.
“Delete it?”, John repeated. Was that another round of sibling rivalry?
“Missile plans are out of the country now. Nothing we can do about it”, Sherlock muttered, but John read the text anyway. Mycroft was asking about Westie's death. But apparently Mycroft thought otherwise as he had texted Sherlock eight times already, so it must have been important. He informed Sherlock of his doubts, and it finally tore Sherlock's attention away from the sample he was examining. “Then why did he cancel his dentist appointment? Mycroft never texts if he can talk. Look, Andrew West stole the missile plans, tried to sell them, got his head smashed in for his pains, end of story. The only mystery is this: why is my brother so determined to bore me when somebody else is being so delightfully interesting?”
“Try to remember there's a woman who might die”, John replied, wanting to have the last word in just this one argument. Were there really no feelings in Sherlock Holmes? John was sure that if Sherlock's life was threatened, he would be crazy with anxiety.
“What for? There's hospitals full of people dying, Doctor. Why don't you go and cry at the bedside and see what good it does them?”
He was doing that again. Trying to humilate him, looking him straight in the eye. Sherlock and Mycroft had something in common, after all. John averted his gaze. He wanted to ask 'would you say the same if it was me?', but before he could get the words out, as at that precise moment the computer beeped and Sherlock gave out a little cry of excitement.
And that was when Molly stormed into the room, and John knew that he had just spent probably the only time alone with Sherlock for at least several hours on quarelling with him and trying to communicate his worries about a stranger instead of asking what he had been planning to.
But it was true, he was worried about a total stranger. And he was worried about Sherlock too, when something bad was happening. So the feelings were more or less the same; he knew Sherlock better, so of course he cared more. So maybe Sarah had been wrong; maybe it's not that he cares particularly for Sherlock, but that he cares for people in general? After all, he's a doctor and doctors should care for people...
After Molly came in, a guy who was obviously wearing a T-shirt that was a size or two too small for him, and Molly presented him as Jim from the IT, her new boyfriend. As always, she forgot John's name, which he gladly provided, still blaming himself a bit for losing so much time, quarelling with the detective.
Sherlock lost interest in Jim after a brief look, but Jim was apparently very excited about Sherlock. His voice was strange and he was making uneasy gestures with his hands, and talking all the time, and John could almost see Sherlock's annoyance gauge filling up as he listened to the guy with one ear.
“Gay”, Sherlock stated, casting a glance at Jim.
“Sorry, what?”, Molly asked, the wide smile fading from her face.
“Nothing, um, hey”, Sherlock corrected himself, which was clearly a sign of social inclusion of the sociopath - he didn't want to hurt Molly's feelings in front of the guy. Jim smiled at him and leaned onto the table, knocking off a metal tray. He apologized at once with a nervous laugh, but John knew that Sherlock's annoyance gauge had just reached the red zone. He didn't want to look at what happened next. Luckily, Jim didn't linger there an more but left promptly, having agreed with Molly about their date later that night.
“It was nice to meet you”, Jim said before he left. Sherlock of course didn't reply, but the guy wouldn't leave without it, so John said: “You too”.
“What do you mean, gay? We're together”, Molly asked when the door closed after Jim. That's how you ask people things. That's what John should have done earlier this afternoon, ask Sherlock what he meant by this “friends” thing straight away and not rely on small talk which caused Sherlock to belittle John's feelings.
“And domestic bliss must suit you, Molly”, Sherlock replied in his deep voice, “You've put on three pounds since I last saw you”.
John saw Molly's chin twitch and he decided to act as Sherlock not only had just called her boyfriend a homosexual, which of course he would prove in a second, but moreover told her she got fat! That's not something you should tell a girl, even if her boyfriend made you hit the ceiling with his gayness. Today was apparently Sherlock's male PMS day.
“Two and a half”, Molly made an attempt at regaining her self-esteem.
“No, three.”
“Sherlock”, John tried. Sherlock was apparently intent of making someone cry that day, and as he didn't succeed with John, he turned to attack Molly.
“He's not gay”, Molly exclaimed, her voice already almost a sob. “Why do you have to spoil...? He's not!”
John thought for a moment that Molly would hit Sherlock on the head with the heavy microscope.
“With that level of personal grooming?”, Sherlock asked. Molly was panting, at a loss for words.
“Because he puts a bit of product in his hair? I put product in my hair!”, John said to give Molly a moment to regain her balance, and immediately regretted it as he thought of the bloody shampoo.
“You wash your hair, there's a difference”, Sherlock replied at once with a smirk. “No, no, tinted eyelashes, clear signs of taurine cream around the frown lines, those tired, clubber's eyes, then there's his underwear”.
“His underwear?”, Molly asked, an expression of disgust clear on her face.
“Visible above the waistline, very visible. Very particular brand”.
John almost burst out laughing at the thought that Sherlock paid attention to other men's underwear, but first of all that was part of his job, and second of all he didn't want to trigger a similar deduction about himself.
“Plus the extremely suggestive fact that he just left his number under this dish. I'd say you'd better break it off and save yourself the pain”.
Molly stormed out of the room, furious. Sherlock looked after her, not astonished at all.
“Charming, well done!”, John commented, hoping that this situation taught Sherlock something.
“Just saving her time, isn't that kinder?”, Sherlock asked, turning towards John with a genuinely perplexed frown.
“Kinder? No, no, Sherlock, that wasn't kind”, John told him as he would tell a kid or a puppy.
As a kind of topic change, Sherlock presented him with one of the shoes that they collected from the basement. “Go on then”, he said. As John didn't catch what he was supposed to do, he precised, “You know what I do, off you go”.
John pointed at the shoe, questioningly, and said “No”. It was his turn to voice his refusal. If Sherlock wanted to behave like a spoiled brat, he would treat him as one.
“Go on”, Sherlock wasn't giving up.
John finally said one of the things he wanted to say. “I'm not going to stand here while you humilate me while I try and disseminate-”
“An outside eye, a second opinion”, Sherlock insisted. And John had already been so proud that he managed to express his feelings in such a clear manner. But there was no way out of it. At least Sherlock wanted to do something together, which was a signal that he probably didn't consider him an enemy. He looked Sherlock in the eye for a long while and he didn't see there any will to humilate him. It wasn't an apologetic look, but it wasn't menacing either.
And so he lost another chance of confronting Sherlock on the topic of his strange behaviour. And besides, Sherlock was totally concentrated on the case. So it might not have been such a good idea at that moment. John postponed the confrontation until the next opportunity.