Summary: John decides to open his third drawer. It's time. Johnlock. Written for the f*ckyeahjohnlockfanfic Red Pants Competition on tumblr.

Rating: T (for sexual content and angst)

Genre: Angst/Romance/Drama

Disclaimer: All characters and settings belong to Sir A C Doyle, Steven Moffat, Mark Gatiss, Martin Freeman, and Benedict Cumberbatch. The instigator of the infamous Red Pants is reapersun on tumblr, so the red pants belong to her inasmuch as they belong to anyone. The clowns actually do exist; so credit to whichever perverse and artistic mind created them. Story is my own.

Author's Note: Eternal gratitude goes to the most fabulous beta ever to stalk the web, Miyako Toudaiji, who is almost a coauthor on this fic, she helped so much with stupidly fast rewrites and edits. Any remaining mistakes are entirely my own.

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When John moved in, he put the white plastic bag in the third drawer. He hadn't looked at it since.

Truth be told, he'd hardly looked at it before, either. He hadn't opened the bag since a week after he'd bought them. Then he'd sat on his bed, and took them out of the bag, and then out of the plastic, and held them up, admiring. The color was beautiful. They caught a ray of afternoon sunshine, and looked lovely, and John suddenly couldn't stop giggling. This had to be the stupidest, bravest, maddest thing he'd ever done. Even getting involved in a land war in Asia couldn't compare to this insanity.

And then the door downstairs had slammed, and John knew his flatmate had come home. He quickly folded the things (some military habits died hard), slipped them back into the white plastic bag, folded the bag around them, and shoved them into the back of his third drawer.

He hadn't opened the bag for a look since. Weeks later when he snatched it out of his drawer and stuffed it into his rucksack he'd hardly even glanced at the bag, thankful only that he'd remembered to pack them before Harry arrived. So the white plastic bag and its contents had been stuffed away, deep beneath the detritus of his life, while he and Harry packed up the rest of his belongings. It had stayed there throughout the cab ride across town to Montague Street, to his newest bedsit, until he buried it in his new third drawer for good.

But today was the day. John sat on the edge of his bed, facing the drawers, and knew that he was going to open the third one. Why it had to happen today he had no idea. There was nothing particularly special about this day; it wasn't an anniversary of any sort, he hadn't even had a nightmare last night. That last probably had something to do with the fact that last night he hadn't actually slept, but the truth remained: there was nothing to set this day apart from any of the ones that had gone before, or any of the ones that were going to come after. John still had no idea why today was the day he was going to open the third drawer, take out the bag, peel back its folds and lift out its contents. All he knew was that it was going to happen.

Once a decision was made there was no point delaying. He stood, walked over to the chest of drawers, and pulled the third one open as wide as it would go.

Even in the dim light, the white plastic had a pinkish tinge. Without hesitation John lifted the bag (cool and slippery to the touch, the contents yielding beneath his fingers), turned with military smartness, and walked back towards the bed. He was about to sit when he caught sight of the logo on the bag, a cartoon four-leaf-clover, and stopped in his tracks.

The first time he'd seen that clover had been. . . long ago. Long, long ago, in another life, another world. The afternoon drizzle had just started to turn to something more serious, and he was debating: duck into a store to wait it out, or walk the next mile to the Tube, or waste the money on a cab? The store he'd been walking past- - - the word "Lucky's" bracketed by two four-leaf-clovers- - - had a few planters in the window, and when John had seen them he'd choked on his own spit, he gasped and laughed so hard.

The planters, shelves of them filling the windows, were in the shape of clowns. Each clown had a blue sack, and out of each sack was growing a single cactus. However. The sack was held against the clown's lower body, and the clown was leaning backwards on his heels, so that it looked like the cactus was actually an enormous, prickly dick.

Decision made, John ducked into the store.

It was a riot of color and a weirdly floral scent. He was immediately confronted by racks of women's lingerie: electric-green bras with pink bows, crotchless black panties, and a number of ribbed ensembles that John didn't know the name of, but certainly appreciated.

"Can I help you?" asked a clerk, bounding over to him. She couldn't have been more than nineteen, and had very short hair dyed purple at the tips, black lipstick, a white tee-shirt for a band John had never heard of, and at least a dozen piercings in her head. She was also grinning cheerfully.

John couldn't help smiling back. "No, thanks," he said. "Just looking."

"Well, browse away, and call me if you need any help. I'm good at figuring out which of Lucky's lucky items will help you get lucky."

John assured her that he would, while in the back of his mind he was thinking that the four-leafed-clovers suddenly made a lot more sense. And was that. . . yep, it was. Half the wall on the left side of the store was covered floor to ceiling with clover-themed unmentionables. And not just lingerie, and not just for women, John noticed after another thirty seconds looking around. The front of the store was for women, the back of the store for men, and scattered throughout was an array of items that were humorous, sexual, or (most often) both.

There were penis-noodles. There were vagina-bow-ties. There were boob-goggles. There were neon vibrators. There were penis-straws. In the first five minutes John found more variations of the Kama Sutra than he had previously known existed (the Kama Sutra for Beginners, for Dummies, for Experts, for Expats, for Storm Troopers, for Threesomes, for Gay Couples, for Office Workers, for Bibliophiles, for Hobbits, for Dragons. . .). John giggled and picked up The Kama Sutra for Government Workers, imagining giving it to Greg for Christmas. Or, better yet, getting Sherlock to smuggle it into the Yard and leave it anonymously on Greg's desk. Or- - - better and better- - - just sending it to the embodiment of the British government, to let him know what it appeared many of his employees were doing.

Then he realized he was considering sending the same copy of the Kama Sutra to both Greg and Mycroft. John decided this was not a thought he wanted to be thinking, so he stopped thinking it.

Ostensibly waiting for the rain to let up, he vaguely poked around the store. For half an hour he wandered, quickly making his way through the women's lingerie, which confirmed his recent suspicions: while he was still definitely appreciative of the female form, it didn't hold quite the same. . . fascination. . . as it had for most of his life. He made his way past the clover-themed shelves (torn between laughter and horror when he saw a clover-shaped cockring), and was startled to find his mouth watering when he lingered over a few racks of candy underthings. It was just because he was hungry, hadn't eaten since breakfast, he told himself firmly. Never mind the fact that the strawberry bras didn't hold his attention, never mind that even the men's pants weren't distracting him. No, what he was most definitely not staring at were the blueberry briefs that did not in any way remind him of the blue silk boxer-briefs he was occasionally bullied into including in his own laundry. Definitely not salivating over those.

The first relatively normal thing he found was at the back of the store, tucked away in the very corner like the owner was ashamed to sell something so understated. John stood in front of the floor-to-ceiling racks of pants and giggled again. The pants themselves were mostly normal, he supposed, but only compared to the rest of the store. However, in any other setting, they would have been ridiculous. Yes, they were normally cut, and appeared to have no hidden surprises, agendas, or features. However, they came in all colors of the rainbow. The corner practically glowed with pants that were yellow, green, blue, purple, orange. . .

John knew the moment he laid eyes on one particular pair. He had to have them.

Hell, nothing else had worked. Maybe a pair of these would help him get up his courage, his nerve, his gall. He blamed the sudden whimsy on the fact that it was a Monday, though why that should affect anything he truly had no idea.

Red pants. Red fucking pants. They were special, they were perfect. They would work; God alone knew nothing else had. They were silly, and considering everything else going on in their lives just then (what with the return of Satan-Spelled-With-An-M and the trial and all) they could use a bit of silly.

He wasn't really sure how they'd work, or what he'd do with them once he had them. Wear them and nothing else? Put them on under his bathrobe, stride into the living room, and fling both caution and his bathrobe to the wind? Leave them lying around to be found? Just wear them, and see how long it took. . . ah, him. . . to deduce that John was wearing naughty panties? Put them on under his clothes and wait to see if Sherlock ever figured it out?

Yeah, that was who he was doing this for. John was finally going to seduce Sherlock.

He could have made it more romantic, more tender, God only knew John could have. How many times had he wanted to gather Sherlock to himself, wrap his arms around that body and tuck that face against his neck, tell him all the wonderful things John had ever felt about him and simply hold on? How many times had he wanted to just grab Sherlock by the shoulders and kiss him? How often had he dreamed of telling Sherlock he loved him, was in love with him, wanted him so badly it hurt, before proving it to him with hands and mouth and eyes and an achingly slow slide of skin against skin?

Maybe once that would have worked. Maybe, if things had gone on as normal, he would have eventually found the courage. But Sherlock was emotionally fragile at the best of times, and John was something like emotionally paralyzed, and they only stood a chance of making it through the sort of emotionally charged encounter John dreamed of if everything else in their life was stable.

But now. . . but now. . .

Now, with the world gone mad and terrifying around them, John and Sherlock needed each other more than ever. They couldn't handle being apart, yet they also couldn't handle the drama it would take to bring them closer. They were so busy being brave about Moriarty that they had no bravery left for each other; expended so much energy keeping their balance in the crazy-spinning world they'd suddenly found themselves in that they couldn't handle being on anything less than firm, well-established ground with each other. Neither of them could work up enough left-over courage to handle the possibility of rejection. Neither could find the strength to change anything so fundamental in their life, to make anything new, to add something else they would be unsure of.

This, though. This, this was brilliant. This was red pants. It was perfect. It was. . . dumb. Stupid. Childish. Silly. Even if Sherlock wasn't interested in sleeping with John (which John doubted, but not enough to be unafraid of rejection), they would both still laugh their arses off about this. It was so out of character for John, so unexpected, Sherlock would be delighted. And, John couldn't help repeating in his head, it was so, so stupid. Funniest thing he'd ever done.

They would laugh, and skip the emotional intensity altogether. Either Sherlock would reject him, or he wouldn't. In either case, the pair of them would carry on exactly as they had before.

The dramatic, romantic proclamations, the sweet worship of a pale body and the most brilliant mind John had ever encountered. . . those were nice to dream about, but they were unnecessary. The only thing John needed was Sherlock, no matter how he got him. Everything else could wait.

Back in the present, holding the Lucky's bag and unable to open it, John sank to the bed. She promised, he thought. She promised.

"Good choice," the clerk, the same one who had greeted him when he walked in, had said when John went to the register to pay for the pants.

"Five quid for a single pair? They'd better be," he said without venom.

She smiled at him. "I said I could always tell which of Lucky's lucky items will help you get lucky. And I guarantee these for you. They're perfect."

John cocked his head. "How do you know?" he asked, genuinely curious.

She shrugged, fingers flicking over the register. "You're handsome, but you dress simply. You don't think too much of yourself, but you've got just enough confidence to not be a basket case. Just about anything in here would be too much. But these- - - these you'll carry off perfectly. They're normal enough for you to feel comfortable, which is necessary if you're trying to get laid. But they're also unusual enough for you to feel a little bit naughty and a little bit cheeky, which is also necessary."

John just stared at her. He spent so much time around Sherlock he occasionally forgot that normal people were capable of making perfectly sound deductions, too.

"Don't worry," she said, handing the white plastic bag containing the red pants to him. Her smile was kind. "They'll work. I promise."

"If they don't I'm returning them," John said with a smile.

"We don't do returns. But you come back whenever you need to and I'll help you pick out something else, too."

"For when these don't work?"

"For when they do." She winked.

Feeling ten feet tall, John strode out of the store and rain be damned.

Walking through the rain with the plastic bag tucked inside his coat, John couldn't remember the last time he'd been so happy. Not because of the red pants, not really. Yes, they were funny, but they weren't what he was thinking about. No, the one thought on his mind was the one thought that was always there: Sherlock.

There was no telling how this was going to go. John still didn't know exactly how he was going to use the red pants to get into Sherlock's pants (he rolled his eyes at his own internal childishness), and briefly debated going back to Lucky's to ask the clerk if she had any ideas. But no, this was between John and Sherlock. He'd have to figure it out on his own.

He slipped into the flat and up to his room, not ready for Sherlock to know about the pants just yet, and sure he would see John's stupid grin and badger him till he figured out the reason behind it.

He'd known for months now that he, Capt. Dr. John Hamish Watson, was going to spend the rest of his life with Sherlock Holmes. Once he realized that, he hadn't dreamed any further. Hadn't bothered imagining it, because it was going to happen anyway. They had a good thirty, forty years left to be together. In his darker moments John saw years spread in front of him covered with a scattering of body parts and acid-based experiments. In his lighter moments he saw decades ringing with laughter and adrenaline and the easiest, most comfortable companionship he'd ever been lucky- - - no, honored- - - enough to share.

But now. . . but now. . .

Now he imagined; couldn't stop imagining. A week, a year, a decade from now, kissing Sherlock's temple before he left the flat. Saying anything that popped into his head, because he'd no longer have to worry about giving himself away if he told Sherlock what he really thought of him. Imagined, not just Sherlock's mouth bracketed by wrinkles and his eyes lined with crow's feet, but running his fingertips over the creases and telling Sherlock that he was still beautiful. More beautiful, even. Was the most beautiful thing John had ever seen. More hours than John could count spent learning every detail, every contour of Sherlock's body. They were young, yet; they had so much time.

Forcing himself back to the present, John sat on the edge of his bed and made himself open the bag. He drew out the red pants, set the bag aside, and spread them on his knees, smoothing his hands over the material.

They were bright red, with white stitching and edging, and a red stripe through the white elastic band at the waist. The material was soft, almost silky, beneath his fingertips. He wondered what they would have felt like clinging to his hips and cradling his nether regions.

It came back to him, what he'd thought when he finally got home after. . . after. He'd been sitting in his armchair in the living room, though how he came to be there he still had no idea. The one and only thought in his mind he'd been able to bully the English language into expressing was, "But I didn't even get to try them on."

He should have been braver. Should have been quicker. Maybe, if Sherlock had known, if they'd been together, if John had been brave and good and done as Sherlock needed him to do and he actually had just taken the lanky genius in his arms and told him he loved him, loved him madly, had loved him always and would love him no matter what, maybe if he'd done that Sherlock never would have. . . never would have. . .

They were supposed to have decades. The red pants were going to work, he was going to spend the rest of his life with Sherlock, she promised, she promised.

It was supposed to be different. Kisses made sloppy by laughter, friendly gropes in the hallway and on the settee, Sherlock's hair beneath his fingers, bedroom romps and years of bickering and. . . and. . . and John was going to seduce him. He looked down at the pants in his lap, realizing they were suddenly spotted with moisture, and they were supposed to work. It was going to work and they were going to have sex and they were finally finally finally going to love each other and be in love and it was going to be the best fullest life either of them was capable of having and it wasn't supposed to end, it wasn't supposed to go this way, they were young and they had all the time in the world, but John hadn't loved him enough and Sherlock had killed himself and John couldn't breathe, hadn't been able to breathe for weeks, couldn't see the red pants when he brought them up to cover his eyes.

They were supposed to have so much more time, it wasn't supposed to be this way, it wasn't supposed to be this way. . .

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