Impressive 2/2
Response to this prompt on sherlockbbc_fic: John notices that everywhere Sherlock goes, people know him. He's saved this one from gaol, returned stolen property to this one, rescued someone's cat, whatever. At first, John assumes Sherlock just works a lot.
Then he realizes Sherlock is, in his dysfunctional way, trying to impress him.
Impressive
It was halfway through the eighth month that everything fell completely into place. They had run into yet another former acquaintance of Sherlock in the morning, on their increasingly habitual bagel run. This one made John long for the people who lauded Sherlock with thanks.
“Sherlock Holmes, as I live and breathe!” A man exclaimed, stopping them outside their usual bakery. Sherlock went tense all over, but John doubted that anyone but him would notice.
“Andrew.” He said, giving the man the same polite nod he gave everyone and trying to move past him.
“Not so fast, Holmes, old boy!” Andrew said loudly, pushing out a hand to prevent Sherlock from entering the shop. “Aren’t you going to introduce me to your friend?” he gave John a once over, then smirked. “Well, I say friend, but you don’t really have friends, do you?”
Sherlock didn’t respond and John pushed his hand out. “Doctor John Watson. His friend.” He said firmly, gripping the man’s hand tightly.
“Really now?” Andrew asked with an incredulous chortle. “That hardly sounds like the freak I remember from Uni.”
‘Oh great’ thought John ‘another friend from Uni.’
“Yes, good to see you again.” Sherlock said briskly, trying again to move past him.
“Oh come now, don’t you want to know how I’ve been?” Andrew protested, a big fake grin still plastered all over his face.
“I can assure you that not only do I already know, but I don’t particularly care.” Sherlock snapped back.
“Ah yes, your magic trick. How could I forget? Can you read my success from the state of my shoes or something?”
John smiled to himself, looking forward to Sherlock’s forthcoming response.
“Hardly.” His friend drawled. “As a matter a fact, the state of your ring tells me you’re married but unhappily so. You wife has frequent affairs which you like to pretend you don’t notice because you know she’ll leave you if you make her choose. You work at a prosperous company, but are not as wealthy as you would like to be. The root of your financial difficulties is your gambling habits, and you may have better luck if you didn’t bet exclusively on red. You’re hoping that your wife doesn’t find out that you just got back from pawning her jewelry and that has put you in a bad mood. You were hoping to improve it by calling out an old acquaintance, and making your life seem better in comparison. In that regard you have failed. Now, if you don’t mind, my friend and I would rather like a scone.”
He pushed past Andrew, who was standing there with his mouth open, and into the bakery.
“Nice to meet you.” John smirked, following his friend.
Sherlock didn’t look at him as they made their way to the line, staring at the menu he had no doubt already memorized.
“That was brilliant. As usual.” John offered. Sherlock didn’t respond, but John saw the corners of his mouth twitch up in a small smile.
--
That, of course, was not what alerted John to the situation, though it was the catalyst for it. What tipped him off occurred later that afternoon.
When they left the bakery, Sherlock insisted that they take a long walk around the city. The weather was cold and John’s leg was aching slightly, psychosomatic or not. He didn’t protest, though, figuring that Sherlock could use a relaxing stroll after that morning.
Somehow, in the course of one hour, they ran into sixteen incredibly grateful civilians, all of whom insisted on waylaying them to offer thanks.
‘It’s lucky’ John thought ‘that there are all these people around to confirm Sherlock’s sense of himself, after what happened this morning.’
The thought, which had flitted only briefly through his mind, made him stop abruptly.
“John?” Sherlock asked, having gone several more paces before realizing that John wasn’t with him and peering back with concern.
“Nothing.” John said quickly, shaking his head and resolving to think on the matter later.
--
‘It can’t be a coincidence.’ John thought to himself, staring absently at the skull on the mantle. He was hardly going to talk to it, but it did make a decent conduit for his thoughts. ‘He knows them all be name. He’s never surprised to see them. He’s already proven that he can get in touch with them when he needs a favor.’
He glanced at Sherlock, who was pacing absently across the carpet.
‘Is it to boost his ego? Restore his confidence? Neither of those seem right. His ego and his confidence hardly seem to need any outside help, and he never cares what others think of him.’ He frowned in thought. ‘Is it for me?’
The thought was so absurd that it made him bark out a laugh. Sherlock startled, as though he had forgotten John was even there.
“Sherlock,” John began, because he may as well ask. It was highly unlikely he would ever be able to interpret the man.
“Hm?” Sherlock encouraged, but didn’t stop his slow, methodical strides around the room.
“How is it that we always seem to run into more of your grateful customers when we don’t have a case, or when something bad has happened?” The first time they had run into more than one person in an afternoon was after Sherlock had been too late to save a young woman from being killed.
Sherlock came to a complete stop, mouth falling open slightly. He doesn’t answer.
“Because I’m starting to think that you do it on purpose. What I can’t figure out is why?” he gets to his feet, staring at Sherlock. Sherlock stares back, his chin raised as if in challenge. “I don’t think it’s for your benefit. For one, you never seem to need anyone else’s praise.”
“I don’t mind yours.” Sherlock mumbles, and that makes John stop. They’ve never talked about John’s occasional compliments, not since the first case they worked. The admission sounds personal, raw, and it makes John flounder for a moment, trying to stay on topic.
“Right. Except mine. But you admit you don’t seek them out for yourself.” It’s not a question, but he still looks for confirmation. Slowly, Sherlock shakes his head no. “But you do seek them out.”
He’s staring into Sherlock’s eyes, and he can’t even begin to understand what the look in them means as, even more slowly, Sherlock nods.
“And you always take me with you.” John continues, beginning his own pace, a counterpoint to Sherlock’s sudden stillness. “Which means it’s about me. Somehow.” He doesn’t look at Sherlock now, doesn’t want to be distracted. Or denied. “But why? To make me see how clever you are? I already know that. To make me see how clever people think you are? Because I know that too.”
He looks at Sherlock now, and the detective is still watching him, grey eyes warm.
“I do know that, Sherlock. You’re the most clever man I’ve ever met.”
Sherlock grins, “Of course I am.” His voice is all confidence, but there’s still a challenge in the tilt of his chin.
“So it’s about me.” John begins again, his feet picking back up a pattern. He wonders, absently, if Sherlock has rubbed off on him more than even he knew. He’s even deducing like him. His gaze flits around the room, as though there might be a clue he can sort out.
His gaze falls on a large beaker on the mantle. It’s full of dingy water and mostly wilted roses that Sherlock had brought back almost two weeks ago. He hadn’t let John give these to Mrs. Hudson.
He spins on his heel to face Sherlock, his mind not being able to deal with the conclusion it just reached. “Were you trying to impress me?” he demands, tone incredulous.
To his amazement, he sees blood rise to Sherlock’s cheeks, a barely there flush that’s as good as a confession. John gapes at him, mouth opening and closing.
“All these people complimenting you, was that your way of trying to get my attention?”
Sherlock straightens, chin tilting just a bit higher, more a defense than a challenge now. “It’s logical to prove that I would be a good partner. You’ve no doubt heard negative things about me. I was merely providing alternate opinions.”
“Because you were trying to impress me.” John’s still stuck on that delightful point. The very idea that Sherlock, the most brilliant and stunning (if incredibly irritating) person he’d ever met, was trying to impress him, ordinary John Watson, was mindboggling. “Hang on!” John almost shouts, another realization following. “All these dinners and long walks and the bloody roses,” he gestures at the pathetic stems on the mantle, “was that you trying to, to,” he grapples for the right word, because the only one he can think of is too outlandish to say “to woo me?” It slips out anyway. Dammit.
Sherlock shuffles his feet and looks uncertain, possibly for the first time in his life. “I should have thought that was obvious.” His gaze flickers away for a moment, then back again. “Was I doing it wrong? Because I’ve never done something like that before. It was quite a lot of work, I don’t see how you ordinary people handle it-“
“Sherlock.” John says firmly, moving closer while Sherlock is all fluttering hands and nervous words.
Sherlock’s eyes snap to meet his, startled at John’s sudden proximity. “Yes?”
John grins, wide and elated. “Shut up.”
He covers Sherlock’s mouth with a kiss before the detective can respond, feeling the words falter against his lips. Then their mouths are moving together, and it’s quite obvious that Sherlock’s never done this before.
It doesn’t matter though, because it’s full of passion and wanting and caring, and all the other things that John had convinced himself that Sherlock couldn’t feel.
“You were trying to impress me.” John murmurs as he pulls away, reveling in the way that Sherlock leans forward against him to try and keep the kiss going. Amused irritation flashes across Sherlock’s face.
“Yes.” He says patiently, “We already covered that.” Matter apparently settled, he leans down to try and press his lips to John’s again. Their lips slide together for several moments, raising hairs on the back of John’s neck before he pulls away again.
“Yes, but you were trying to impress me! Don’t you know how much I try to impress you. Every day, how hard I try?”
“Do you?” Sherlock asks, and John wonders if he should be insulted, but decides not to be. Sherlock’s gray eyes are searching his and whatever Sherlock finds there makes him grin, delighted and beautiful. “Good.”
End