PG-13, John/Sherlock, 1200+ words (set before The Reichenbach Fall)

Prompt: “How’s about if you write something so fluffy I am going to die.” — Anonymous (after I demanded my followers to please give me a fic prompt)

Summary: Sherlock says love is a dangerous disadvantage. John says he’s missed the point.

“I imagine John Watson thinks love is a mystery to me, but the chemistry is incredibly simple and very disruptive.”

—

He brings it up after a case that ends up with the murderer being the widower, the motive revenge. Of course — much too simple, he notes, adding, love always leads to irrational behavior. Inconvenient. How could anyone stand it? John shakes his head and walks away.

Sherlock stays and contemplates the empty room. He’d absolutely kill for a cigarette right about now.

—

Earlier that day, John nearly takes a bullet for Sherlock. The shooter misses. That’s besides the point.

Back at the flat, he stays silent, stretched on the couch for about an hour, hands clasped together.

He only ever stirs when John bids him goodnight and retires for the evening. He adds another nicotine patch to his arm.

—

“Would you do me a favor, John?”

John ponders on this for a moment. “I think by now we’ve established that I’ll do any ridiculous favor for you, even the ones you don’t bother to ask for, which I still go ahead and do anyway, regardless of my own safety or interest.”

“Duly noted.”

“So, what do you need?”

—

The same day, over dinner he asks, “how would you describe our relationship?”

“We cohabitate, solve crimes together, and have to put up with each other’s idiocy nearly every second of every day?”

Sherlock takes John’s fortune cookie, opens it, and frowns at the slip of paper. John grabs it from him. He reads it out loud, and they can hardly contain their laughter.

“Your everlasting patience will be rewarded sooner or later.”

When people begin to stare at the two grown men in the corner of the restaurant giggling over a strip of paper, Sherlock finds that he does not mind at all. John, on the other hand…

—

That morning, Sherlock asks John if he could please-please have a cigarette, please.

John sighs, rolls his eyes at him, and updates his blog:

URGENT!!!

Sherlock is about to go mad. If anybody has a case that needs solving, Mrs. Hudson and I would appreciate if you could contact us as soon as possible.

We beg of you, please! The flat’s suffered enough!

I’ll take anything.

—

When John wakes up in the middle of the night, he nearly reaches for the gun in his sidetable drawer. Sherlock is sat on a stool by the end of the bed.

He tries to calm himself down before asking, “okay, what’s wrong?”

“You’re going to leave one day.”

John sits up and flicks the switch on the lamp. “Yes,” he says. “Probably.”

—

In the afternoon, Sherlock finds himself reluctantly introduced to one Mary Morstan. Natural blonde but dyes her hair brown, middle class, piano teacher, dabbles in beekeeping as a hobby.

John does that thing where he introduces himself to some woman he happens to find attractive by saying something endearing and charming.

Sherlock walks past between them, wordlessly.

—

“Are you saying you—”

“I haven’t said anything.”

“But you’re implying that—”

“Oh, come on, John, are you really assuming that—”

“But do you?”

“Do I what?”

“You know what I’m asking.”

“Yes.”

“Yes to what?”

“Yes. I know exactly what your question is and the answer is yes. Not in the traditional understanding but in every other sense of the term, from what I understand of it, yes.”

“So you…”

“Yes, John, okay? Yes.”

Sherlock sets the violin down onto the floor, violently. John worries about Mrs. Hudson waking up over the racket. Now here’s something people will definitely talk about.

There used to be a time when the living room was the least uncomfortable part of the flat.

—

“I was right, John.”

“Uh…what?”

“About love.”

“What about it?”

“It’s a disadvantage.”

John makes a mental note that this is not the oddest conversation he’s had at two hours past midnight. He frowns at Sherlock’s bare feet and walks into the living room. “I’m going to have to disagree with you on that.”

—

John’s still trying to make out if he’s in a really mundane lucid dream or if Sherlock really has been on that stool by the foot of his bed all night. Tea, he thinks. Tea would be nice right about now.

“Mary Morstan.”

John scratches his eyes and yawns while simultaneously asking, “what about Mary?”

“You exchanged phone numbers earlier today and you’ve already been texting, in fact you’ve already made plans to ask miss Morstan out for dinner.”

“Sherlock…” John’s had his privacy intruded on so many times that he’s past being offended about it. “You’re not my mum, I can text whomever I choose to text.”

“I know.” Sherlock quietly gets up from the stool and heads towards the door. Before leaving, he mutters, “you’re very keen on miss Morstan.”

“Would that be a problem?” John still asks, even though the answer is painfully obvious, especially to him. 

“Yes.”

Sherlock walks out and closes the door behind him.

—

John only stops himself from pointing out that Sherlock’s actually used please this time because, well…

“Please. Don’t. Leave.”

“I heard you the first time, okay? No need to make it sound like a threat.”

—

In the middle of the day, Sherlock finds the cigarettes stashed inside one of the earpieces of the headphones placed on the mounted goat head by the writing desk.

He opens the window and tosses them out onto the street.

John’s just come from the kitchen and nearly misses it. Sherlock can hear John muttering to himself, “littering…”

—

Two o’clock in the morning is a perfectly fine time to begin playing Tchaikovsky’s Meditation. Sherlock keeps playing even as he hears the door upstairs creak open.

He puts down the bow once John’s made his way into the living room. Now he’s just plucking at the strings of the violin.

Pluck. Pluck. Pluck.

“Sherlock?”

Pluck. Pluck.

“Sherlock…”

Pluck.

“For god’s sake, if you’re not going to say it—”

“I was right, John.”

John blinks. “Errr, what?”

“About love.”

—

“Would you do me a favor, John?”

“You really don’t have to ask, you know.”

“Please don’t leave.”

—

John only tells Sherlock that he’s already asked Mary Morstan out for dinner, and that she’s already declined, the morning after. When he does, Sherlock pretends he’s already figured it out.

—

“So will you?”

“I, well…”

“Yes or no, will you please, as a favor, not leave, John, do you really have to stretch these things out so insufferably?”

“Do you notice yourself talking faster than usual when you’re nervous?”

“Oh god!”

—

“What do you mean not in the traditional sense?”

Sherlock begins to run through a mental list of the most, in John’s opinion, inanely saccharine expressions of love. Although, admittedly, he’s been prone to at least half of the things on the list Sherlock’s rattled off on. He’s almost offended for himself.

“—and flowers.” He finishes.

“Oh. Well..” John pauses to lick his upper lip, trying to choose his next words carefully.”

“Well?”

“It’s just that you’ve left out—”

“I know I’ve left that out.”

—

They watch the sun rise from the couch. John sits up to have a better look, but Sherlock pulls him back down.

—

“Is this the part where you take me into your arms and ravish me?”

“Oh, for god’s sake.”

—

John wakes up with a start when he hears a knock on the balustrade. He gapes at Mrs. Hudson, who only stares back, gaping and wide-eyed. She whispers, “I’m so sorry, I was hoping you boys wouldn’t hear, I was just coming up to take something from the kitchen and…”

“It’s fine, Mrs. Hudson, really.”

“Well it’s good you’re both decent enough to put your clothes back on—”

“Mrs. Hudson, we didn’t actually—”

“I mean, I was actually thinking that one of these days I would have walked in on you two being completely—”

“Okay! Okay!”

“Sorry, dear.” Mrs. Hudson finally relaxes the hand clutching the rails and makes her way down. A few seconds later, John hears her call out from downstairs, “about time, you two!”

John shakes his head and wonders how far and fast Mrs. Hudson’s network of gossip mongers operates.

—

“Those are my trousers.”

“So they are. I was wondering why they were so loose.”

“Sherlock…”

—

Do you notice yourself talking faster than usual when you’re nervous?

“Just don’t leave. Ever. Please. For me?”

“Wouldn’t dream of it.”