Chapter Text
In a pub not far from the de Vries murder site, Sherlock nursed an old-fashioned and glared at the pockmarked wood of the bar. Silently, he rehearsed the reasons for his current mood, assigning each of them to a dent in the wood as though to an itemised list.
1: Withholding the solution of a case from Lestrade wasn’t enjoyable in the least so long as the detective inspector failed to notice he was doing it.
2: The Yard had finally cleared away from the scene of the crime, but flashing lights and fumbling efforts left a very effective neighbourhood-wide paranoia in their wake. Even Sherlock couldn’t charm his way into the building in which the murder had taken place.
3: He’d slept in John’s bed. It was meant to be an expedient, nonverbal way to foreclose a conversation in which John might persist in talking about feelings—or worse, sexual exploits. Instead, it had turned into an interminable and at the same time far too brief six-hour period of listening to the slow tides of John’s REM cycles. He’d spent the entire time drawing and re-drawing a mental map of the points of John’s body that came closest to touching him every time the doctor shifted in his sleep.
4: The same flatmate (whose sleeping patterns Sherlock now had engraved into the front door of the mind palace) had been sporadically launching into bouts of falsetto singing for nearly two days now. This was undoubtedly due to John’s recent success at achieving orgasms with a woman he’d managed to pull while wearing clothes Sherlock had selected and insisted John purchase.
5: Sherlock should have burned the clothes as soon as the undercover work that required them had been completed.
6, and perhaps most infuriatingly: Not only did Sherlock now know every word to John’s pop tune of the day, he also knew several made-up versions of the lyrics that John had produced to narrate his progress through the morning’s housework.
And he had been unable to keep from noticing that John had a tendency to lift his chin when he stretched to reach the higher pitches. It resulted in absolutely deplorable embouchure. Still worse, Sherlock found it cute.
Cute. A hopelessly stupid word, not fact or observation or anything clever at all. Still, every time John pushed his chin up into the air to hoot about never, ever, ever cleaning Sherlock’s dishes, the word was there, inescapable, etched on the underside of his stubble-rough jaw.
In a swift, jerking motion, Sherlock whipped his mobile from a pocket and opened a blank text, angry with himself for allowing John to derail the listing exercise.
Surely a mind like his could come up with something, anything, to free him from thoughts of John Watson altogether.
Unfortunately, he’d got into the habit of thinking quite a lot about John Watson ever since the little crackshot in a jumper had materialised in his life. For weeks, he’d been giving his imagination free rein, stealing a minute here and there for idle fantasies. Spinning out what might happen if John looked sideways at him one day and said “Do you know, I’ve just realised I’ve been gay all this time” or “How about a shag, just to see what it’s like” or even just “D’you want to read that article on skin disease over here so I can see it too?”
Stupid. One utterly chaste night in John’s bed was more than enough to demonstrate just how stupid he’d been. His desire for John was unrequited, yes—Sherlock grimaced but forced himself not to un-think the word ‘desire’, just this once—but his need, the bone-deep necessity of John Watson to Sherlock Holmes, was returned in full. John needed him just as he needed John; their perfect, unwavering complementarity was the force that drove John’s cane into the bottom of a closet and Sherlock’s cocaine money into a savings account. No feelings of any kind which might muddle that bond were to be entertained, even for a minute.
Sherlock rapidly typed and sent a text to Molly. On her embarrassingly dated phone, it would probably pop up as three separate messages.
What’s wrong? came her response.
On a case. Want your opinion.
Surely that would work. She was always asking questions about his investigations.
No you don’t. That’s just a riddle you made up in half a minute, isn’t it?
The detective growled into his glass. Damn Molly. Damn John. And damn Mike Stamford, come to that. While he was at it, damn all doctors. The lot of them could go hang.
His phone buzzed again.
If anything really is wrong, Sherlock, I can come and get you. Won’t ask any questions. But if you’re out getting pissed because you’ve had a spat with John or something, I recommend you sort it yourself.
Sherlock raised his eyebrows.
How can you tell I’ve been drinking? SH
You forgot to sign a text.
Sherlock looked back over the exchange. Bollocks.
Before he could respond with something likely to turn out to be very rude, an inquiring voice piped up next to him.
“You all right, man?”
Sherlock looked up. The speaker was a man on the fitter side of average, late twenties, not a native Londoner but clearly a long-time resident of the city. Gay. Owner of a ginger cat. Out with friends, but not close friends, probably for someone’s birthday. Bored by the group he was with, therefore more likely to start a conversation with a stranger. Purely because it didn’t matter one way or the other, Sherlock decided not to ignore him.
“Yes, sorry.” Sherlock cleared his throat, waved ruefully at his mobile. “Just, I’ve got idiots for friends.”
The man laughed easily, then cocked his head toward some men who were clustered around one hapless individual—banker, low-level, soft around the middle, would be bald before he turned thirty-five. His celebrants were attempting as a group to force a pink plastic tiara onto his head. It seemed the birthday festivities, as Sherlock had suspected, were in full swing.
“I can empathise,” said the man.
Sherlock tilted his mouth up at the corner, which was apparently enough of a show of solidarity that the man felt inspired to clap him on the shoulder.
“Hope your night gets better,” he said, and then made his way back to the roiling mass of bodies that comprised his less than compelling social engagement.
Which left Sherlock to observe he had a passably nice arse. Useless information of course, but so long as Sherlock was amassing data that was not John Watson, he might as well notice. Sherlock added it to a temporary file on this man, presumably to be deleted later.
Another text from Molly materialized, pulling his attention back.
*Is* everything all right?
Fine. SH
It’s not a spat with John. SH
A pause.
Sherlock, whatever’s happened, I’m sure it’ll be fine. Just go home and sort it.
Sherlock scoffed. Sort it. Vague, simplistic. Unwelcome adjectives were slipping onto John’s golden skin, catching on the edge of his jaw, on the stray fibers of his jumpers, on the rough skin of his hands. How did people normally “sort it” in this kind of situation?
The point, of course, was that sorting was entirely out of the question. Sorting was impossible because sorting was logical, organized, explicable. With regard to John, though, everything had gone completely out of proportion. Unsortable. For God’s sake, the most powerful observational skills in the world (most powerful, yes, Mycroft could fuck right off because he might be cleverer but Sherlock had better eyesight) were devoting themselves to deducing the length and thickness of one single non-criminal English army doctor’s vocal folds.
Sherlock rubbed at his temples.
One mustn’t lose a sense of perspective. This was what John’s silly pop songs were about in the first place. Love and sex made a person feel as if everything had gone out of proportion, when in fact nothing about the physical world had changed at all. The human brain was, unfortunately, a solipsistic and therefore fallible apparatus. He could recognise this weakness and overcome it.
The hard edges of his phone, clenched tightly in his hand, brought Sherlock back to thoughts of Molly. Safer territory.
Yes. Molly. Sherlock thought of her lab coat with cat-claw punctures at the breast pocket, her flat roundish shoes, the way she had apparently liked being called “Moll” by friends during university.
Conclusion: Molly was a fairly ordinary thirty-something, naturally attractive enough to balance out an awkward sense of humor and unfortunate taste in jewelry as well as pets.
What might Molly say, then, average human being that she was? If his... problem was such an ordinary affliction, perhaps all Sherlock needed was an ordinary solution.
Bits of overheard conversation scrolled through his head, sorting themselves by relevance. Then, aha, yes: Molly with a phone to her ear in the corridor at Barts, shoulders hunched, feet shuffling. The unmistakeable stance of someone being chastised. Her quavering little voice saying, “Thanks for listening, Mum.” Then, in the tone of someone repeating instructions, “Get over him. Yes, I know. I will. Or I’ll try, anyway. I promise.”
Mulling the memory over, Sherlock signalled for another of the same. The barman nodded once in acknowledgement, and Sherlock spared a moment to appreciate the simplicity of the interaction. If only all communication could be so clear. Economical, even. “Get over him,” indeed. What, after all, did “getting over him” entail? Molly’s side of the phone conversation had afforded no specific instructions. “Getting over him” afforded about the same level of the linguistic finesse as her earlier suggestion to simply “sort it.”
It was entirely possible Sherlock would have continued to scoff himself into three to four more drinks, then simply gone back into his flat alone. Except then John’s favored pop song careened onto the pub’s sound system with all the subtlety of a rugby tackle. Unbidden, Sherlock’s imagination unfurled a very vivid image of John’s Adam’s apple bobbing, the muscles of his jaw flexing.
The same shock Sherlock had come to expect from every time their fingers brushed over a mug of tea or a mobile phone raced up Sherlock’s arms, followed closely by a familiar dull ache in his chest.
Which meant his little problem was beginning to manifest without direct physical stimulus of any kind. Sherlock sighed. Perhaps it was time to give the ordinary solution, imprecisely as it might be formulated, a try.
Next question, then, would be how one traditionally went about “getting over” a romantic attachment. A few creative Google searches on his phone turned up several sources which recommended sexual activity with an individual who was not the object of one’s unrequited attachment. The practice was infantile at best, simply diverting attention from one thing by placing a similar thing nearer by. But the partial success rate suggested by the internet did outstrip Sherlock’s so far fruitless attempts to simply think himself out of it.
Sherlock turned in his seat, stealing a glance in the direction of the raucous birthday celebration occurring near the back of the bar. The man who’d spoken to him before was easy to pick out, though his back was turned. His stance was relaxed, though he refrained from returning in kind the thumps on the shoulder and generally boisterous comments bestowed upon him by his fellows. He was out to his (mostly) heterosexual friends, then, but not so thoroughly comfortable as to share in the banter about sexual exploits and such things.
Sherlock considered. After weeks of staring down John’s towel-clad arse every time his flatmate walked from the shower to his bedroom, sex was becoming an increasingly appealing prospect. And even if it wasn’t coming from the individual he primarily wanted, perhaps the act would nonetheless provide some much-needed release.
Idly, Sherlock wondered if he would be any good. Having deleted all of his previous sexual experience in favor of storing more useful information, he had no way of knowing whether his previous sexual prowess had been instinctually or experientially acquired.
All this was, of course, presuming that the man was interested in the first place. It would require a touch of personality suppression on Sherlock’s part, probably, but that was easily done.
The tilt of the man’s head suggested his drink was nearly gone, so Sherlock stood, refusing to give himself time to falter. Surely negotiating a casual encounter could hardly be difficult; idiots like the chap finally drunk enough to consent to wearing the pink tiara did it all the time.
When he reached his target, he lifted one hand to the man’s shoulder. The muscles beneath his palm did not tense at the contact—civilian, upper middle class, unused to danger, accustomed to encountering friends and acquaintances in public spaces. He rotated into the touch to turn around. His face registered surprise at seeing Sherlock standing there.
“I wondered if you might let me buy you a drink.” Sherlock pitched his voice low. He may have deleted sexual experience, but he retained the list of which of his traits people tended to find attractive.
Someone whistled. Sherlock raised an eyebrow, mostly to highlight his disinterest in the rest of the group, but also because it might call attention to his eyes, which were another item on the list.
The stranger smiled, still surprised, but doing a passable job at recovering. “Sure,” he agreed.
The man detached himself from his fellows, a few of whom seemed to have been knocked a bit sideways by Sherlock’s approach.
“I seem to have startled your friends,” Sherlock remarked when they had new drinks in hand.
“You sure did.” The man touched his glass to Sherlock’s. “Forget them. I’m pretty sure two of them are closeted as fuck.”
Sherlock smirked. Three, actually, but not far off.
-
Sherlock woke when the weight on the bed shifted. Sun filtered through his bedroom curtains. Morning, but early still.
“All right?” he inquired without thinking. It was odd of him, but—ah. Instinctive, he realised. Increased fondness in the aftermath of shared orgasms—the result of hormone levels, brain chemistry. Funny that it should work that way even between two people who barely knew one another.
“Ah, yeah. Just having a piss, back in a minute.” A hand dropped onto his ankle.
“Here.” Not bothering to open his eyes all the way, Sherlock dropped a hand to the floor and scooped up a pair of pyjama bottoms. By way of explanation, he added, “Flatmate.”
“Thanks.” A warm hand on his, then the swish of fabric pulled over skin. The door clicking gently shut.
It was odd again that Sherlock should feel gratified by it, the simple fact of another man in his pyjamas. It was neither entirely about the sex nor entirely about the clothing, though it had something to do with both. Sex, sleep, shared clothes. It was satisfying, in a deep-seated, inarticulable way, thinking of someone else’s skin inhabiting fabric that belonged to him.
Upon exiting the bathroom, the footsteps faltered. Brief moment of uncertainty—sleepy disorientation, bad sense of direction. Sherlock smirked indulgently as the telltale squeak of floorboards announced his companion taking a wrong turn.
“Oh! You must be Sherlock’s flatmate.”
Sherlock’s head popped up, freeing both ears to listen. John must already be up, already installed in his chair, already flipping through the paper. The very thought of John zinged up his body, cold and hot at once. John’s feet, bare, flat on the wood floor. John’s fingers, smudging the newspaper print as he flipped each page. Distracting—the best and achiest kind of feeling. Sherlock’s skin felt tight.
Ah. So. Sex with another person obviously did not dissipate attachments to blond, medically trained, hopelessly heterosexual flatmates.
It filtered into Sherlock’s consciousness that an unusual amount of time had passed in silence. His brow furrowed in confusion. Then, as if on cue, two voices spoke at once.
“John?” said one.
“What the hell are you doing here?” said the other.