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1.
“What’ve we got here?” Sherlock asked, stepping into the room and peering at the wallpaper. John squeezed past him to get at the dead body; he nodded at Anderson, who rolled his eyes and backed off.
“Sheryl Barron,” Lestrade introduced the corpse. “Her neighbour called it in last night: She said that it sounded like Barron was having a domestic. Her boyfriend’s got a solid alibi, though, and we haven’t found anyone else who appears even remotely connected to the crime.” He shrugged. “Everyone seems to like her.”
The woman’s nose was crushed into her face; John peered at the angle and made an estimation of how much force was used. Anderson crouched beside him and pointed at a wound in her temple. “The murderer stabbed something through her brain,” he explained. “Looks like a rod of some sort.”
“Anderson, why are you still here?” Sherlock drawled as he approached the body. “I thought we’d trained you to heel weeks ago – is he slipping his leash, Lestrade?”
Anderson bristled, but Lestrade motioned for him to just leave. Sherlock took the man’s place beside John and glanced at the body. “Cause of death?” he asked.
“You can’t tell? Nose hit, Sherlock,” John replied, gesturing to the woman’s face. “Someone hit her hard enough and at the right angle to drive the bone into her brain. The wound to her temple was made post-mortem; someone really didn’t like her.”
“Excellent.” Sherlock straightened and turned to Lestrade. “You’re looking for a martial artist. She’s almost certainly from Waterloo, and she has an appointment at a dentist coming up this week.” He strode out the door, and John hurried to follow.
They passed a glaring Anderson in the hall, and Lestrade appeared in the doorway to call after them, “How can you possibly know that, Sherlock?”
“It’s obvious; just look at the carpet!” The front door closed behind them before Lestrade could say anything else.
2.
John shifted his weight in the hall and glanced at his watch again, trying to ignore the stench of the skips he’d sifted through on his flatmate’s whim. Sherlock had been in the bathroom for over an hour already, and John really needed a shower before he headed off to work. As it was, he’d have to rush and take care of the bare minimum if he wanted to arrive on time. He banged on the door. “Sherlock, are you about finished in there? I need to go to work!”
“Only a few more minutes, John!” the infuriating man replied. John grumbled under his breath and leaned against the wall to wait. He’d just have to call Sarah and warn her that he would be late; he couldn’t work smelling like he’d swum through the sewers.
After five minutes and several more shouted comments, John huffed in irritation and fetched the screwdriver. The hinges only took a few minutes to remove, and he budged the door out of the way. “Damn it, Sherlock; if you’ve been doing some experiment of yours this whole time,” he threatened.
But, there were no grotesquely dismembered body parts – human or otherwise – littered over the counter. There wasn’t even a hint of a stain from some chemical reaction. The only thing out of place in the bathroom was the man staring at him with wide eyes from beside the sink. “I told you a few more minutes!” Sherlock snarled, regaining his composure.
“What were you doing in here for an hour?” John asked, glancing around the bathroom. He felt his ire rising at the apparent lack of reason for his time spent in the hall.
To his surprise, Sherlock averted his gaze and turned to the mirror, glancing at John’s reflection rather than at the man himself. “I was performing an examination,” he replied, bringing a hand up to prod at something on his face. “It appears that I have a skin condition.”
“You’ve got to be joking,” John muttered, stepping past Sherlock to gather his toiletries for the shower. “You seriously just spent an hour in the bathroom, checking your face for spots? When did you turn into a twelve-year-old girl?”
Sherlock shot him a dirty look but didn’t remove himself from the sink. John really didn’t have time to reaffix the door and lock Sherlock out before he took his shower – he was already almost fifteen minutes late – so he sighed and moved closer to peer at Sherlock’s face. When Sherlock started to pull away, he grabbed his head and held him still as he investigated.
There was a freckle on Sherlock’s forehead. The entire situation was nearly ridiculous enough to make John laugh: Sherlock Holmes was having a fit because he mistook a freckle for a pimple. “There’s nothing wrong with your face,” John said, patting the lunatic on his head. “Now get out so that I can take my shower.”
He didn’t leave, of course. Sherlock scowled at him and gestured to his forehead. “Your observational skills leave a lot to be desired,” he grumbled. “Clearly, I am suffering from a pustule; it’s only a matter of time before the condition spreads to cover my face.” He shuddered theatrically, and this time John did laugh.
“It’s a freckle,” he informed Sherlock. “There’s nothing wrong with your skin – you just spent a bit too much time in the sun last week.” Sherlock still looked uncertain, so he reassured him, “No zit, Sherlock.”
It took a few more minutes of compliments and subtle nudging, but Sherlock eventually left John to his shower. John glanced at his watch and sighed before taking it off and propping the door up against the jamb to give himself a modicum of privacy. Thirty minutes late: Sarah was going to kill him.
3.
They’d just returned from yet another harrowing adventure involving daring stunts, hostages dangling over spiked pits, and Mycroft; John groaned in bliss as he toed off his shoes in the doorway. It wouldn’t have been so bad if it weren’t for the last: Mycroft had appeared just as they were wrapping everything up and riled Sherlock into a frenzied state of righteous indignation. John moved out of the way as the rabid man stormed by, nearly upsetting three separate pieces of furniture with his waving arms.
“How dare he?!” Sherlock snarled, pacing back and forcing John to dodge again. “That smug, lazy git – what gives him the right to minimize my work and efficiency? He wouldn’t know efficiency if it typed on a Blackberry and followed him around all the time!” He swung around, knocking a lamp off of a side table with a sharp elbow. John lunged and barely managed to catch it before it shattered against the ground; Sherlock continued without missing a beat.
There would be no peace in the flat for hours, John knew from experience. He sighed and rolled his head around on his neck in an attempt to ease his tension, ducking around his flatmate’s erratic movements to fully enter the sitting room. The armchair looked wonderfully plush and inviting, and it was with a nearly euphoric sense of anticipation that he made his way over to rest and watch Sherlock wear himself out.
“No sit!” Sherlock shouted suddenly, waving wildly at John with a panicked expression on his face. John froze mid-motion, supported by his hands on the arms of the chair, and stared at him in surprise. “Get up, now!”
John didn’t have enough time to really register the demand, much less act on it, before Sherlock heaved him up and away from the armchair. “Sherlock,” he said, voice much calmer than his hammering heart. “What did you do?”
“There was acid on your seat,” Sherlock explained, already kneeling beside the cushion and examining the nearly-invisible stain. “I put it there this morning to examine the rate of decomposition of this particular fabric: The material is faring surprisingly well.” He glanced up at John. “Your trousers, on the other hand, are made of an inferior fabric and would almost certainly have given way to the acid very quickly. It would have eaten through to your skin within minutes.”
Sometimes, John had to wonder why he continued to live with a madman who thought that putting acid on his chair without telling him was acceptable behaviour. He took a deep breath through his nose and closed his eyes, willing himself to calm down and explain to Sherlock that no, it was emphatically not acceptable, when Sherlock’s first outburst popped into mind.
The sheer lack of grammar from poised, collected Sherlock was actually rather amusing, and John felt his frustration fade a bit under the humour of Sherlock’s words. “‘No sit,’ Sherlock?” he teased, lips twitching up into a grin despite himself. “That’s not exactly something I’d expected to ever hear from your mouth.”
Sherlock glared at him before blinking and tilting his head in confusion. “I put acid on your chair, and you’re more concerned about what I said to warn you?” he verified, eyebrow rising. “John, I think you need to get a new therapist: Your priorities are a bit misplaced.” Ignoring John’s sputtered protests, he turned back to the chair. “If you’re not going to have an episode, though, would you fetch me the kitchen shears? I need to cut out a swath of this fabric for examination.”
4.
John wasn’t sure if it was because Sherlock was related to Mycroft and therefore used to everything turning out his way, but he seemed to think that buying tickets in advance was for ordinary people. Naturally, the concert was sold out by the time they arrived. Sherlock proceeded to spend the trip back to Baker Street in a snit, complaining about the rude ushers (they had actually been rather polite, considering), the ridiculous prices the ticket touts had advertised (they weren’t that much higher than the original prices), and the audacity of the theatre company for not planning for a larger audience (the concert was taking place in one of the larger theatres of London).
Sherlock’s indignant rant was actually endearing for the first ten minutes, John found, in that it was somewhat satisfying to be able to laugh at one of Sherlock’s harmless mistakes for once. It got old pretty quickly, however; John cut in when Sherlock wondered why the theatre company hadn’t made an exception for him and given them entrance.
“No seats, Sherlock,” he reminded him, but Sherlock scowled in response.
“We could have stood,” he argued. “People stand all the time on buses; we could have stood for the concert.”
“I don’t know about you, Sherlock, but I don’t want to stand still for a three-hour orchestral concert.” John winced just thinking about it, and the taxi pulled up to their flat. He was certain that he didn’t imagine the cabbie’s relieved expression when they got out. “Sometimes these things don’t work out,” he reassured Sherlock as they made their way up the stairs. “Now you know: Buy tickets in advance, and we won’t have this problem.” He made for the stairs to change out of his suit, but Sherlock grabbed his arm.
“I really am sorry,” he admitted, releasing John’s sleeve. “You’d never been to the symphony.”
He looked so guilty that John had to smile. “Sherlock, I’ve never been to the symphony because I really don’t give a damn about it. I went because you wanted to go. Personally, I’d be happier just sitting here and listening to you play than going to some high-society event and pretending that I was actually interested.”
“Oh.” Sherlock blinked. “I see.” He shook his head. “Well, you might as well change out of your clothes; they’re not tailored to fit, and the armpit must be chafing by now.”
John rolled his eyes – yes, the armpit was chafing – and escaped up the stairs to his room. He stripped off the suit with a sigh of relief and dressed in his pyjamas and dressing gown. It was only when the rustling of fabric quieted that he heard the sound of a violin from below.
“He can’t be doing what I think he’s doing,” John muttered to himself, staring warily at the door. Shrugging, he went back to the hallway and peeked down the stairs into the sitting room.
Sherlock was standing on the table, still in his suit, and tuning his violin. John shook his head, bemused and slightly flattered, and made his way down the stairs. “I’m getting a free concert?” he guessed.
“Something like that,” Sherlock agreed, adjusting the tension of the last string. He held the violin at his side and dipped into a shallow bow, gesturing with his bow for John to take a seat on the sofa. “At least we know that there are enough seats in this venue.”
Chuckling softly, John relaxed into the sofa and watched while Sherlock contemplated his violin as if wondering which tune to play first. Apparently decided, he brought the instrument to his chin and struck the first note almost violently before diving into a frantic prelude.
The melody softened and transformed, and John felt a smile play at his lips. The scene itself may have been strange, but he was infinitely more comfortable watching his flatmate play on the table while he lounged on the sofa in his sleepwear than he would have been watching a professional orchestra in a stifling theatre, trapped by a poorly-fitted suit that chafed at the armpit. It was unconventional, but it worked for them.
5.
“I’m going to kill him,” John decided, staring at the bloody, mangled mess in his room. “I’m going to kill him, and Lestrade won’t even bother arresting me because it’ll be entirely justifiable.” He half-turned towards the stairs and called with relative calm, “Sherlock?”
“Busy,” came the muffled reply.
John pressed his fingers to his temples, took one last despairing look at what used to be his bed, and went down the stairs to find his errant flatmate. “Sherlock?” he said, finding the man lounging on the sofa. “What have you done to my bed?” He was mildly surprised to realize that his voice remained even.
“Oh, that?” Sherlock cracked an eye open and glanced at him before shutting it again. “Experiment.”
“Yes, I had gathered that,” John replied. “Why is it on my bed, though?” He still couldn’t hear any of his fury in his voice. Perhaps he was in shock?
“Your bed is the only place in the flat that receives the optimum amount of sunlight,” Sherlock explained. “It was necessary.”
“You put a dead hound on my bed, Sherlock.” John closed his eyes and took a calming breath. “One that was run over, by the looks of it.”
“I needed to determine the rate of decomposition in a certain level of sun exposure.” Sherlock opened both eyes to stare at John. “Problem?”
“Yes, Sherlock: I sleep there! I can’t sleep in my bed if there’s a bloody dog lying there.”
“Fine,” Sherlock said, closing his eyes again. “Take my bed instead.”
He really wasn’t getting the point, was he? “I don’t want your bed, Sherlock. I want my bed.”
With a tortured sigh, Sherlock rolled off the couch and led John to the downstairs bedroom. “Your bed’s occupied. You can either take my bed – I’m not sleeping tonight, so I won’t be needing it – or kip on the couch and try to ignore my wanderings throughout the night. Your choice.”
It was already dark, John realised. There was no way that his bed would be habitable before he needed to sleep. “Fine,” he grumbled, crossing his arms. “I’ll take your bed. This had better not happen again, though: My room is off-limits unless I give you explicit permission. Understood?”
“Of course,” Sherlock said, rolling his eyes. He pushed his bedroom door open and stood aside for John to enter.
John sat on the bed, judging its give and wondering if he’d be able to fall sleep in it. He ran his hand against the covers and blinked, realizing that something was missing. “No sheet, Sherlock?” he asked.
“Why bother?” Sherlock replied, leaning against the door jamb. “It provides almost no extra warmth, and it’s slippery enough to allow the useful blankets to slide off to the floor.”
A fair point, John had to acknowledge, but he could also see a pair of Sherlock’s silk pyjamas hanging from the inside of the door. He rubbed a finger against the bottom blanket and winced at the coarse material. All of his blankets and sheets were covered with blood and dog fur, though; he really didn’t have a choice. “It’ll have to do,” he agreed.
Still, he was in for a long, itchy night. He only prayed that Sherlock would deign to be quieter in deference to their closer proximity that evening.
6.
“You don’t make sense,” Sherlock snarled, glaring at John. He’d gotten into one of his rare insecure moods, and he seemed to believe that John had some sort of ulterior motive for his continued companionship. “I ruin your furniture, I inconvenience you constantly, I ignore common social conventions in ways that should have you squirming with discomfort, I’m selfish and self-centred, and I frequently endanger your life. By all rights, you should have moved out months ago! Why are you still here?”
Setting aside his cup of tea, John set about systematically dismantling Sherlock’s attack. “I believe you were the one who mocked me for coming immediately when you said ‘danger,’” he reminded him. “I’ve given you a category of your own for social behaviours, so I’m fairly used to ignoring anything that would disturb me from anyone else. You’re not totally selfish and self-centred: You gave me your bed after you destroyed mine, remember?” He ignored the fact that Sherlock had destroyed it in a selfish act. “What were the other ones, again?”
Sherlock huffed and paced the sitting room. “None of that explains why you haven’t fled my company,” he objected. “If anything, it only proves that you should. You’re constantly making concessions for me.”
“I really don’t mind,” John told him. “It’s fine.”
“It’s not fine! No sane person would willingly subject himself to that kind of constant abuse; not unless he was aiming for something else. Tell me, John Watson: What do you want from me? Influence? Information? What?!”
“All I want is your company and someone to split the rent for the flat.” John picked up the teacup and took another sip.
“You’re lying,” Sherlock accused, scrutinizing his expression for further reaction.
“I’m not.” His pulse sped up a bit at the close attention, and John shifted nervously, damning himself as he did. He took a sip of tea to cover his nerves.
There was a moment as Sherlock catalogued his movements, and then he breathed, “Oh.” His eyes narrowed and his stance hardened. “You want sex.”
John nearly spat his tea across the room. “You – How – What?!” he sputtered, coughing on the tea he’d swallowed. “No, Sherlock. I’m not here just because I want to have sex with you. Christ, I’m not stupid.”
That seemed to calm Sherlock a bit, oddly enough; the tension in his shoulders eased, and he tilted his head to watch John. “So, what is it?” His eyes widened suddenly, and he collapsed back into the sofa across from John’s armchair. “Oh. You love me.”
Ignoring the way his heart raced, John forced himself to roll his eyes and huff a laugh. “No shit, Sherlock.” He smiled uncertainly across the table, but he didn’t really relax until Sherlock hesitantly returned it. “Is that enough of an ulterior motive for you?”
“I think it will do,” Sherlock agreed.