Chapter Text
To John’s complete bewilderment, Sherlock carries on behaving in his newly cagey manner over the next several weeks; clingy and tactile one minute and holed up in his bedroom for hours on end the next. John heavily suspects that it has something to do with Irene Adler’s sudden and un-spoken of departure. Whenever he attempts to broach the topic, however, Sherlock shuts it down immediately.
Even more curious is Sherlock’s frequent aborted attempts at… something.
It takes a few instances for John to notice, given Sherlock’s mercurial nature and absurdly inconsistent attention span. Every so often, (generally following another failed attempt on John’s behalf at addressing the mystery of Irene Adler) the detective turns his eye on John rather intensely before making as if to announce something. John always braces himself for some cutting remark, or wildly offensive diatribe, only to be left entirely flummoxed when Sherlock instead flushes and stammers some obvious last-minute fabrication, instead of whatever it was he’d meant to say.
John can’t imagine what on earth he’s on about, but whatever it is… if Sherlock is embarrassed about it, he’s not sure he wants to know.
“Have you seen my blue jumper anywhere?” He calls out to Sherlock as he rummages fruitlessly through the landing cupboard. “You know,” he elaborates, “the one with the stripes.”
When there’s no reply forthcoming, he makes his way to the kitchen doorway to check if Sherlock’s still absorbed in the experiment he’d been working on when John had gone up to get ready. Sherlock looks up from his microscope and sweeps his eyes over John in that calculating manner that always makes him squirm awkwardly in his own skin.
“Ah yes. That jumper,” Sherlock dismissively resumes peering through his microscope. “I binned it.”
“You what?!”
“Well, I didn’t think you’d have much use for what was left of it. I borrowed it for an experiment I was running testing the level of protection provided to human flesh by the natural fibers of wool against various acids.” Sherlock clucks his tongue disparagingly as he adjusts the focus of the microscope and notes something in the notebook on his right. “Not very much it turns out.”
“Damn it Sherlock! How many bloody times do I have to tell you to stay the hell out of my things?” He growls in frustration “Is it really that difficult of a concept for you to grasp, that not everything in this flat belongs to you?!”
“Oh no, you’ve made that really quite clear,” Sherlock spits back with an inexplicably disproportionate amount of bitterness, then stops to draw in a harsh breath through his nose before continuing on in a suddenly cool, but placid manner. “And besides, it hardly matters what you wear in any case,” he shrugs offhandedly.
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” John demands thunderously. Sherlock lets out an irritated huff and slaps his notebook shut, giving up on whatever the hell he’s doing with his goddamn microscope for the time being. Propping his elbows on the tabletop, he presses his palms together, prayer-like in front of his chest and angles his chin up at John haughtily.
“Well seeing as her interest in you lies primarily in your status as an Alpha doctor, your appearance is little more than a pleasant fringe benefit. Frankly, you could show up in a clown suit and she wouldn’t be deterred,” Sherlock sneers and John finds himself taking an involuntary step backward in surprise. Sherlock’s always been casually disdainful of the women John’s dated, but there’s a flash of spite in his eyes this time that John’s never seen before.
“She’s tired of working as a secretary and wrongly assumes that, as a doctor, you must be well enough off to keep her. She also happens to be carrying on a rather lacklustre affair with her married boss and resents the amount of time he spends with his wife, so either way she’ll happily take you to bed if only to get a bit of her own back,” Sherlock clicks his tongue sharply on the final consonant, and stares up at John defiantly.
But there’s nothing for John say to all that. He certainly isn’t about to ask for the usual explanation on how, exactly, Sherlock’s deduced all of this. And telling him off will only vindicate his obvious compulsion to alienate others as a defense mechanism.
With little more than a growl he turns on heel, snatches his black jacket from the wardrobe, and yanks it on before storming down the stairs.
Maybe this time, for once, Sherlock will be wrong.
Of course he bloody isn’t.
Michelle is just as fit and bubbly as he recalls her being at the pub, but even he can piece together what it is that she’s after with all the seemingly innocent questions she asks about his career, and the number of none-too-subtle hints that she drops.
It doesn’t help the situation in the slightest that the entire meal, his mind stays hopelessly fixated on Sherlock, rather than the beautiful woman sitting across from him. He hasn’t the foggiest what it was that put such a bee in Sherlock’s bonnet this time, but that glimpse of bitterness he’d caught in Sherlock’s eyes leaves him shaken.
He’s determined to stick it out anyways; part sheer stubbornness, part desperation. If he isn’t given to making crap choices, after all, then his name isn’t John H. Watson.
So what if she’s only interested in him because of his job, or for a bit of a revenge shag? At least he’ll get a leg over, which Lord knows he needs. If there’s anything that might help his traitorous brain with its fixation on Sherlock, it’s that.
Un-bloody-likely, but there’s a chance.
If Michelle notices his distraction at all, she doesn’t comment on it, happily chattering on about... well, he has absolutely no idea what. He forces himself to focus on her words, only to discover she’s in the middle of what— he assumes from her giggles— is a particularly humorous story about her boss.
She also happens to be carrying on a rather lacklustre affair with her married boss, he hears Sherlock’s smug voice echo inside his head, and he sips deeply at his wine to hide his wince.
Naturally, when she inevitably invites him back to hers after dinner, he agrees.
She excuses herself to the loo as soon as they get in, which gives him entirely too much time to fidget alone in her sitting room, desperately trying to ignore the leaden weight in his gut. He halfheartedly welcomes the snog she initiates when she finally joins him on the sofa, trying his damnedest to convince himself that the overwhelming sense of wrongness is nothing more than nerves.
It’s just been too long since you’ve taken anyone to bed, he tells himself firmly, willing himself to think of anything but the last person that he did.
When she slips her hand down to the front of his jeans to palm his oddly disinterested prick, he knows for certain there’s absolutely no way that he can go through with this.
She rubs against it, undeterred, but regardless of the pleasant, coaxing pressure, his body remains frustratingly unaroused. His mind keeps comparing her small, dainty hands to long-fingered, masculine ones. Which starts him thinking of long, pale limbs, spread out underneath him; sharp cheekbones and dark curls; deep, baritone moans spilling from plush lips in the dark.
That, on the other hand, gets his prick interested.
She purrs with approval and presses in closer against his chest, sliding her mouth down to nip at his jawline. He catches her scent then; light, sweet and somewhat floral. Perfectly lovely.
Except for the fact that it’s also completely and utterly wrong.
It makes everything Alpha inside of him recoil in revulsion, his cock immediately going soft as he fights against the urge to gag.
There’s nothing for it but to quickly make his excuses and leave.
He takes the tube rather than a cab, allowing himself the extra time to panic. If it wasn’t before, it’s undeniable now; in spite of his best efforts, he’s well and truly gone on Sherlock bloody Holmes. Because of course he had to go and fall completely, hopelessly in love with the one person who’s entirely out of the question. Well done Watson.
Christ, but he’s a mess.
This isn’t what he’d signed up for when he’d agreed to Sherlock’s heart-stopping proposition; he’d never agreed to irrevocably change his life like this.
Sure you did, his own voice berates him mercilessly inside his head. What in the hell did you honestly think was going to happen? That you’d be able to share a heat with Sherlock, have him in every possible way you could think of, and then what? Go back to normal?
Right mate, good one.
You knew this was going to happen, and you did it anyways. Because you wanted him.
“Fuck!” He shouts, bending forward to cradle his head in his hands and tug ruthlessly at his hair. The older woman sitting across from him startles, shooting him a scandalized look across the carriage. “Sorry, sorry,” he offers, shamefaced, before he gets up and makes his way up the aisle to wait by the doors as they arrive at the next station.
It’s two stops too soon, but he gets off anyways and walks the rest of the way home.
When he gets arrives home to Baker Street, the screeching of Sherlock’s violin assaults his ears the moment he opens the street door. Christ. He spares a second to hope that Mrs. Hudson is out, and hasn’t been subjected to that all evening, before he sets himself to stomping furiously up the stairs.
As he reaches the landing, the unholy racket cuts off abruptly, Sherlock pausing his abuse of the poor instrument to turn and stare at him expectantly. He stands in the doorway, trembling slightly and stares back.
The sudden silence hangs heavy between them, only the harsh sound of his own breathing and the crackle of the fire in the grate filling the emptiness. For a beat, he’d like nothing more than to lay into the detective; to vent all his anger and frustration, to demand why.
You must have seen how I felt about you... how I’ve always felt. You see everything. Did you even realize what it would do to me? Did you care?
But there’s something oddly vulnerable in Sherlock’s eyes that stops him.
He gives himself a hard inward shake as he realizes what he’s doing. The angry Alpha entitlement he’s allowing to simmer away below his surface. He’s no right to put any of this on Sherlock. He’d warned John, that very first night on Northumberland Street, that this sort of thing wasn’t his area. And the mystery of Irene Adler notwithstanding, he’s certainly never given John any reason to believe otherwise.
No; it's not Sherlock’s fault that John went ahead and made the mistake of falling in love with him.
So he says nothing. With a long, shuddering breath of defeat, he turns and makes his way up to his bedroom.
The bloody jumper on the other hand is definitely mad bastard's fault.
It isn’t until he gets up to his room that the violin starts up again; soft, and achingly beautiful this time, instead of the discordant screeching of before. He tries desperately to cling to his anger and resentment, but his resolve quickly melts away under the warmth of the unspoken apology carrying up the stairs.
Despite his heavy heart, when he finally drifts to sleep some time later, it’s with the shadow of a smile on his lips.
Neither of them mentions the night before the following morning, but there’s an easy, tacit truce between them. And that afternoon, for whatever reason, Sherlock surprises John and Mrs. Hudson both by inviting her up for tea, over which he imperiously announces his decision to quit smoking. John can’t imagine what brought on this sudden change, but he’s not about to look a gift-horse in the mouth.
Of course, the endeavour to actually keep Sherlock from buying cigarettes is easier said than done.
It’s Mrs. Hudson who suggests the idea of paying every seller in a two-mile radius, which seems entirely impossible to John at first, but in the end turns out to be a simple matter of texting Mycroft. Apparently the release of additional funds from Sherlock’s trust fund, outside of his monthly allowance is perfectly acceptable for the purpose.
The only condition of the exception is that John accompany Sherlock on his rounds, in order to ensure that none of the funds are reallocated for anything untoward. Which seem frankly a bit accusatory in John’s opinion, but Sherlock kicks up surprisingly little fuss over it, so John holds his tongue.
And if the realization that Sherlock’s trust fund can accommodate the bribery of dozens as John’s pocketbook might the purchase of an icelolly is hardly shocking, given the bespoke suits he swans about in day to day, it’s still a bit… jarring.
But in any case, the campaign proceeds swimmingly, with only the minimum number of meltdowns one might expect. At least until the dearth of cases drags on and Sherlock starts climbing the walls in boredom.
The afternoon that Sherlock bursts into the flat covered in pig’s blood, John know’s it’s come to a head. With Lestrade, or even Mycroft, unable to offer up any suitable distractions, he’s dreading the worst, and in short order. So when Henry Knight shows up and faints in their sitting room, John’s never been more pleased to see a basket case in his life.