A/N: This is pretty fluffy. I just wrote it on a whim.
I've often thought about why John puts up with Sherlock, one day I figured it out. John is just as bad as Sherlock is, he just hides it much better.
John often heard people whispering "Why does he put up with him?" "How could anyone stand that freak?" They were of course referring to Sherlock. He couldn't stand when he over heard these things. Of course his flat mate wasn't the easiest person to get on with, he was a bloody git and quite possibly the most socially awkward man in all of England.
"John? I've been reading your blog, I am glad you have continued it, but we need to talk about it." Ella attempted to have a soft yet firm tone as she talked to her patient.
"Oh right, I still have some cases I need to upload to it, I try to give the cases a bit of time after they are solved before I post about the. Sherlock doesn't like me posting anything about ongoing cases." He replied absent mindedly.
"John- You're blog is suppose to be about your life to help you get over the PTSD."
"Hm? I don't understand, it is about our life? I suppose I could put in just daily stuff, but then Sherlock says that's boring and doesn't like people knowing about those things anyway." Again he missed his therapist's implications.
"I don't think you understand. You have only been writing about your 'flat mate.' You never mention your work at the hospital or any of your girlfriends. You don't even mentioned girlfriends to me anymore."
"Oh, well, it has been a bit of time since the last one I suppose." His eyes now seem distant.
"What was the name of the last one?
John draws a blank and chuckles awkwardly. "Well, she probably wasn't very exciting then huh?"
His therapists gives him a displeased face. "When was the last time you even asked a girl out?"
"Well…" I can't tell her I stopped dating after Sherlock's last tantrum about me going off at night for dates… "I've just been very occupied with work."
"What work?"
John scoffs "All the cases."
"John, you are a doctor. You work in a hospital. It's your flat mate that works for Scotland Yard. "
That was a great blow to the former military doctor. " I- I! " He goes silent for a moment thinking. "I help."
"John-" John wondered why his therapist started so many sentences by stating his name first. It just seemed so utterly redundant, who else could she possibly be talking to if they were alone in the room? "John- I know that you have essentially cured the psychosomatic limp in your leg and the tremor in your hand is significantly better, but I think you starting to obsess a bit."
"I have no idea what your are talking about. Helping solve cases for the Yard help Sherlock pay the rent. I'm not some degenerate who gets off on seeing dead bodies if that's what you think."
"You keep changing the subject. You bring everything you talk about back to Sherlock."
John's eyes widened as he finally caught what Ella was trying to say. A slight blush rose to his face so he looked away trying to appear annoyed. "I am not gay! We have been over this."
"And there you are again. I never said anything about being gay. Just that you seem infatuated with the man. Your blog that is supposedly about 'your life' is about your flat mate's life. You chronicle everything about him, always bring him up in sessions. Yet whenever I ask something about him directly you always state that you are not gay."
Now John knew there was no way he could regain eye contact with her.
"You once even admitted your broke up with one of your girlfriends simply because he told you to. Not even asked, told you."
"I am not infatuated with him." His voice was barely above a whisper his eyes admit on not looking at her.
A chirp came from John's pocket. He was suppose to have his cell off during therapy sessions but he often forgot to do so. His therapist looked disapprovingly again.
"Sorry about that." He knew he couldn't look at the message, but the thought of who it might be from and what it could say was burning him from inside. What is it's a case? What if it's Sherlock? Or Lestrade? His mind buzzed.
"Oh just answer it. I can tell it's bothering you."
How's therapy going? –SH
The corner of John's mouth curled down. Sherlock had done that on purpose. He knew that he couldn't answer his phone during therapy but that he also would forget to turn it off. The git.
"Sorry about that" John coughed, hoping that the distraction was enough to change the topic they were on.
Ella was suspicious she knew who had sent the text but attempted to let it drop. "I think it would be in your best interests to start spending less time with your flat mate. That's all."
That was simple enough, John could just nod in agreement and pretend it was something he had actually considered and would do. "Alright." Was that too forced? He clenched his jaw.
Ella's right eye twitched a bit. She clearly didn't believe him, John knew this since he had been taking to heart all the things that Sherlock had told him about catching a persons bluff. "You know these sessions are for you right? To help you with stress? I don't just tell you these things to punish you, you do want to get better right?'
"Erm, yes, I mean, of course." His finger flipped a button on the side of his phone that made it go silent just in case. His suspicion was confirmed when the screen lit up in a few seconds. Another text. John's eyes naturally gravitated down to the phone.
She's boring. Come back home – Sh
John stifled a soft smile forming and looked back at Ella. "I've been much better lately. You know that."
"I'm not sure you have been actually."
"Wha-"
"John- don't interrupt. You have been slowly mentioning Sherlock more and more, and no one else. You use to come in quietly, smiling at the receptionist in the hall, even engaged in small talk. But lately you act as if it's all beneath you. You talk about Sherlock's work as if it's your work and how inferior everyone is to Sherlock's logic. The past few sessions you say they are even beneath your logic. You're shutting the worl out John, it's very concerning."
John let out a frustrating sigh.
"The man sounds absolutely infuriating. You have even said he is yourself. Why do go so far out of your way to bend for what he wants?"
John tried to regain his composure at Ella's harsh words. Or perhaps they only seemed harsh to him. "Because he is my friend." A moment of pause before he continues in a slightly muffled voice. "and I'm his only friend."
"You're his only friend? How can you tell?"
"He tells me all the time actually."
Something clicks in Ella's head. "John, how many friends do you have?"
John thinks this is a rather silly question at first. "I dunno, a few, why?"
"I don't mean acquaintances or how many people you have in your phone book. How many friends do you go and hang our with?"
The answer was immediate in his mind, but not on his lips. Again he tried to find an excuse "Well I'm just very busy these days with-"
"With work?" Ella finishes John's sentence.
"Yes. Work."
"And by work you mean following your flat mate around so you can spend your free time writing about him?"
"Yes, I mean no!"
His phone lit up again.
Your therapist has been living alone for the past five years and owns three cats. I thought this information might be useful if she questions you in a manner you don't like again. – SH
Sherlock was thoughtful in his own way. John couldn't help but let out a snicker as he tried to sneak read the text.
"John, you have been very disconnect from everyone other then Sherlock. Perhaps you should try harder at dating again?"
"I don't need anyone else in my life right now. I'm… I'm happy as is." He barely recognized the words coming from his own mouth. He had a string of meaningless relationships when he had first moved in with Sherlock, names and faces that faded in and out of his life. They always seemed so important while he dated them, yet he never mourned the loss of any of them whenever he was dumped- usually for being distant towards them. "And besides, it's not as if I've been living alone for years." A small smirk was quickly hidden by a fake cough. "or live with a bunch of cats, that sort of thing."
Ella's eyes narrowed. John had no way of knowing she lived alone with three cats after her ex fiancé left her. "John, let me see your phone."
He looked like a child caught in a lie, "um what? Isn't that against patient doctor protocol?"
"He's been texting you hasn't he? You keep looking down at your phone thinking I haven't noticed." She puts her fingers to her temples in frustration. "Just, stop alright?"
The phone lit up again.
Emergency, come home now. - SH
John was timidly responded, "Uh… he says there's been an emergency…. I think I have to go."
"No John! You need these sessions. You constantly complain about him tricking you into going all over the city on frivolous errands. Didn't he once tell you to come home immediately to send a text for him? He's just playing with you John."
John knew Ella was probably right.
Please? -SH
Sherlock never said please. Not when commanding him home over an emergency anyway.
It was fifteen minutes before John came rushing through the door of 221B. He knew it was not an emergency, who says 'please' during an emergency? But had come home anyway.
Sherlock sat gun in hand shooting at the wall. The gun now clicked, out of bullets.
"Please don't tell me the emergency was that you were bored. You know I have to go to therapy Sherlock." The latter part of what he said sounded forced in his mind.
"Am I boring?" Sherlock didn't make any form of movement, he didn't even look up at John. His voice was flat with no emotion in it.
John laughed. "Of all things that you are, trust me, 'boring' is not one of them." This was by no means a compliment, but he wasn't too sure Sherlock would understand that or not.
"What do you talk to her about?"
"Who?" The question threw John off at first.
Sherlock scowled. "Who do you think I mean? That… woman."
"Oh, you mean my therapist? Ella? Just things. What I'm doing."
"She can read the blog for all that."
John's mind went back to what Ella had said to him, that he only writes about Sherlock in his blog.
"Sher- uh, I just have to… you know I have some problems."
Sherlocked turned at looked at him. John could literally feel him do this so sat on the couch and tried to look away as he spoke.
"I still have those dreams." He didn't notice his left hand had started shaking as he talked, Sherlock had. "I can't…" he sighed quietly, there was no point in explaining he no longer could connect to people. He had tried so hard when he was first released from the military. Faked his way through dates, relationships, even small talk. He didn't care about the people around him. He had wanted desperately to care, so much so that people really did believe his act. But in the end, he just didn't care about other people.
He looked up at Sherlock, he hadn't noticed until know that the taller man had silently gotten up and was now hovering over the couch near him, an unusual look on his face that John didn't recognize. He's a sociopath, he's never cared about anyone, how could he understand why I care that I don't care? John thought as he realized the answer.
"Oh." Everything clicked in John's mind. He was as bad as Sherlock, he was just batter at faking he wasn't. It was Sherlock's honest lack of interest in people that had appealed so much to John. Whenever Sherlock had laughed at one of John's jokes, thanked him for something, said something he had done was 'good' or 'bad' for that matter, it was genuine. The man had no ability (or perhaps it was need) to fake a falsified emotion.
For Sherlock it was the opposite. John seemed to be just an average mundane man at first, slightly above average intelligence, possibly valuable medical knowledge. But something had always driven him to find out more about his short flat mate. He had realized it two months after John agreed to move in with him. The man faked his way through life pretending he cared about other mundane things that he so clearly hadn't. If he was actually as frustrated with Sherlock as he often claimed to be, then he would have moved out, not followed the detective on every life threatening mission he possibly could. Even stranger to Sherlock, John did care about one person at least.
"John, you can always talk to me if you need to." His voice was almost a whisper.
"You're not… jealous are you?" He looked up at the looming face before him.
"Well, I did text you as an experiment to see if your morals for your therapists rules were greater then loyalty to me." He smiled as he realized he had won the wager.
A bead of sweat fell down John's face as his mind drifted back towards the reason why he had a therapist in the first place, his hand shaking all the more, "You can't just snap your fingers and tell me to leave again like that. This is important Sherlock." A strange though popped in his head. Am I actually mad? Or do I think I should be mad? He hated when he had thoughts like this. He looked at Sherlock giving his best 'annoyed face.' Sherlock's eyes softened. Damn. He knows I'm faking.
Sherlock understood. John was his equal as well as his opposite. He knew John was pretending as hard as he could, trying to believe that he was really feeling things when he was actually not sure.
Sherlock leaned uncomfortably close to John's face. The shorter man was to stiff with surprise to lean back away from the sociopath.
"Sherlock, what are you-"
Sherlock stepped over the arm of the couch and quickly wrapped his arms around his blogger who fell on his back laying on the couch, Sherlock on top of him. They lay wordless in each others arms.
Sherlock hid nearly every emotion he had ever felt, convinced that they couldn't be real. He acted out his pretend life as a sociopath when in reality he felt emotions very deeply, but was unsure what any of them meant, convincing himself that they weren't real.
John gave in. He pushed his head into Sherlock's shoulder as his hands found their way up to Sherlock's black curls. He no longer questioned if what he was feeling was real or not. He knew in this moment at least, that everything he was thinking was real.
"I know it's important. You are important John. That's why it hurts that you tell a total stranger all these things about yourself and not me." He paused before a flushed look came over his face "I didn't mean that… I meant that…" it was too late, the ruse was up. Sherlock cared.
John smiled up at the detective, his detective. "I thought you were married to your work."
Sherlock's blush deepened. "You are my work."
A/N: This is a one shot unless someone really wants me to continue it. Yes, I am still writing my other fics.
