Title: Of Tea Kettles and Kisses
Summary: By all accounts, it shouldn't have happened at all.
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: ~2000
Characters: John Watson, Sherlock Holmes
Pairings: Johnlock (John/Sherlock)
Warnings: swearing, shouting, kissing, eyeballs
Disclaimer: Sherlock is a production of the BBC and is owned by Mark Gatiss and Steven Moffat. The original Sherlock Holmes stories were written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. I, the author, am making no profit or money from the posting of this fan-fiction.
Author's Note: Hahaha, I don't even know what I'm doing… Second time writing for the Sherlock fandom, so I hope it's alright. This is for fuckyeahjohnlockfanfic's contest, where the prompt was to write between 1,000 and 2,000 words about John and Sherlock's first kiss. I just barely squeaked by, haha! Beta'd by my lovely roommate, but she didn't Brit-pick, so if you see any mistakes, let me know! Feedback is always appreciated.
By all accounts, it shouldn't have happened at all.
If John was to look back and be completely honest with himself, he never thought he'd meet someone like Sherlock in the first place, never mind racing with the mad genius through busy London streets and finding body parts in the kitchen of their shared flat. Growing up, John had always thought he would go to school to become a doctor, work in a surgery or a private practice, fall in love, get married, maybe have a kid or two, and retire somewhere in the country, perfectly content with his life. He hadn't planned on joining the army initially, nor had he anticipated how much his time in the service would change him. He hadn't realized fighting a war and being shot at while trying to save someone's life would make everyday tasks seem so utterly boring, make his future plans seem so clichéd and dull. He never wanted to be drawn to danger, but then there was a bullet in his shoulder and a tiny depressing bed-sit in London and a man called Sherlock Holmes whirling into his life like an unstoppable force, and John was ensnared.
If Sherlock was to look back and be completely honest with himself, he never thought he'd meet someone like John either. John was an enigma, a puzzle that couldn't be solved and that Sherlock hoped he'd never find the solution for. Growing up, Sherlock had become used to being treated differently, to being called a freak and hated by his peers. He knew he was smart and knew he was talented and knew their opinions shouldn't matter, but deep down it had always hurt. He hadn't planned on turning to drugs, nor had he anticipated just how much he would come to rely on them. A jab of a needle could calm his buzzing mind or bring everything into sharper focus, the sting of insults falling away until all that mattered was his deductions. He hadn't realized he was wasting away until Mycroft barged in and forced him to make a choice, the drugs or the work. Sherlock knew he would never survive without the work, but the inability to turn to narcotics when the world became too much nearly did him in. He thought he might implode, but then there was an ex-army doctor limping into the lab at St. Bart's and suddenly it didn't matter how much he craved the escape or what others thought of him because John Watson thought he was brilliant, and Sherlock was hooked.
They had been locked in each others' orbit the second they met and neither one of them knew how to pull away. They didn't want to. Sherlock was more than happy to share his work with John, and John found the adventures he craved with Sherlock. It didn't matter what the world thought of them or that they didn't always agree or that sometimes the criminals would win, as long as they had each-other, they could do anything.
John and Sherlock were the missing pieces to the other's soul, and it didn't take a genius to see what would eventually happen between them. Ironically, neither of them could have predicted it, but then again they were always surprised by one another. Maybe they couldn't see it coming because deep down they knew it was inevitable. Maybe they just weren't as bright as they thought they were.
It didn't even happen the way most people would have hoped. They weren't gasping for breath after another chase, high on adrenaline and laughter. They weren't standing around another crime scene for the Yard, deductions and biting remarks about police incompetence only slightly faster than the awe John could lavish on Sherlock's every word. They weren't even eating out in celebration after a successful case, stealing bites off each others' plates and leaning close to share jokes.
They were in 221B, shouting at each other after the fourth straight day of long hours at surgery and no new mysteries to solve.
John had come home, exhausted from work, to find the world's only consulting detective sprawled across the couch and abusing his violin. The noise was not helping the doctor's growing headache, but Sherlock's only response to the snappish request of "cut it out" was to increase the volume of the instrument's wailing. John wanted to punch him, but he railed the impulse in and stomped off to make tea instead. Or he would have made tea if the kettle hadn't been full of –
"Sherlock… Sherlock. SHERLOCK!" The violin's screaming stopped abruptly. "What the HELL is this in the kettle?"
"Experiment," came the vague reply, disdain dripping from Sherlock's voice as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. The screeching resumed, louder than ever.
John noted distantly that his headache was moving towards the front of his skull. "Is there a particular reason you decided to put this specific experiment in the kettle?" When he got no response, he pinched the bridge of his nose and counted to ten. "SHERLOCK!"
"What?" the detective barked, annoyed.
"I would like to know," John started calmly, standing between the kitchen and the sitting room and glaring at the consulting 12-year-old he called his flat-mate, "WHY you decided to conduct an experiment with EYEBALLS in the tea kettle…"
Sherlock frowned, looking almost as if John's stupidity hurt him in some way. It probably did. "The last time Lestrade and his buffoons conducted a fake drugs bust, Sergeant Donavan ruined the test I had going in the microwave. I finally got around to starting it again, and the kettle was convenient."
"The kettle was convenient, was it?" the doctor snapped, patience sapped by a day full of sick children and over-protective mothers. "I suppose the various containers we set aside for your experiments were inconvenient, then? Or couldn't you be arsed to GET UP AND FIND ONE? How the hell am I supposed to make tea now?"
"Irrelevant."
"Irrele – sod it, I'm chucking everything in the bin. Every single fucking body part in the fridge, ALL the dangerous chemicals, those bacteria cultures you don't think I know about in the bread box, your bloody microscope… All of it. Out."
"Don't you dare," Sherlock snarled, surging from the couch like a tidal wave and crossing the sitting room in three long strides. "If you touch ANY of my equipment…"
"It's a KITCHEN, Sherlock, not your personal laboratory!" John roared, turning around to the table, snatching one of Sherlock's notebooks and hurling it at the approaching detective. "Is it REALLY too much to ask that I be able to use my FUCKING KITCHEN for its intended purpose? I'll put up with the insults and the violin torture and the thumbs in the bloody vegetable drawer, but when you use MY KITCHEN APPLIENCES for your stupid bloody experiments, you cross the line. I thought we had sorted this all out, Sherlock! I thought you understood the boundaries. Or was that conversation something you DELETED later?" As he ranted, John started to gather all the lab equipment he could see into a pile on the table, not caring if things broke as he threw them down. "I can't even make myself a fucking cuppa without tripping over three different biohazards and finding eyeballs in the kettle… It isn't SAFE, Sherlock, never mind sanitary! Humans can't live like this!"
Sherlock, for his part, was trying to put everything John was moving back where it had been. "You are ruining weeks of work right now, John. I do hope you realize in your miniscule brain that multiple criminals may go free because you couldn't handle a day without tea…"
"YOU AREN'T WORKING ANY CASES!"
"I'm always working cases," the detective hissed, righting a rack of (empty) test-tubes. "I imagine it might be difficult to grasp, but I am constantly working because my mind is constantly working. It must be such a pleasure for all of you to be able to turn your brains off whenever you feel like it."
Across the table, John lost it. "OH, FUCK YOU, SHERLOCK! So you're the cleverest person in the room; do you want a fucking medal? The world isn't as slow as you think it is, Sherlock Holmes, and I am NOT the idiot you think I am. And if you think I'm going to stand here and listen to you complain about how dumb 'all of us' are…" He stalked around the table and grabbed the detective by the front of his dressing gown, voice dropping to a dangerous growl. "I have seen unbelievable sacrifice, Sherlock. I have had to watch good people die under my hands because they were doing what they thought was right, and I swear to God if you think you're somehow better than them because you can tell how someone takes their coffee by their left shoe, I will strangle you right now. You may be clever, but in the end you're just the same as anyone else; selfish and self-serving and arrogant and a sodding IDIOT. You are a HUMAN BEING, Sherlock, and human beings need to sleep and eat, and don't run crime laboratories out of their kitchens or keep fucking EYEBALLS IN THE TEA KETTLE."
John was breathing hard, his chest rising and falling in time with his angry breaths. The look on his face would probably peel plaster if Sherlock believed such things to be possible, and the detective found he couldn't look away. This was John, who had gone to war wanting to help people; John, who became a doctor to save people; John, who shot a cabbie on the first day he had known Sherlock because it was the right thing to do. He may constantly remind Sherlock of his short-comings, constantly complain about trivial things, constantly nag Sherlock to eat and sleep and breathe, but this was John, the one person who saw Sherlock for what he truly was and stayed anyways. Sherlock found he was breathing hard as well.
If you were to ask, neither of them would be able to tell you who initiated it. One moment they were glaring at each other, and the next they were moving forwards together, eyes closing, mouths meeting, and hands clenching in hair and on silk dressing gowns. John tilted his head and Sherlock fought a moan as the doctor's lips moved against his, warm and wet and achingly human. It was harsh and not entirely pleasant, but at the same time, it was the most perfect thing Sherlock had every experienced and he didn't want it to end. John pressed into him, and the detective found himself being backed against the wall, still kissing his flat-mate.
The doctor pulled back, a frown on his face. His eyes were sparkling mischievously. "Why do I feel like I'm rewarding you?" he muttered, shaking his head. "What have you done to me, you brilliant nutter?"
"It's what you've done to me," Sherlock answered promptly, smiling shyly. "You're still here. Even after the head in the fridge, even after the shooting at the walls, even after dashes across rooftops and down alleys. You're always here, John, and that will always remind me of what I really am. In the end, you're all I need…"
John chuckled and rested his forehead on Sherlock's. "We're both mad, aren't we?"
"Completely insane," came the dry response.
The stood together in silence.
"…John?"
"Mmm?"
"I'm sorry I used the kettle instead of one of the approved containers. I'll move the eyes and clean it properly before breakfast tomorrow."
"It's fine. I'm sorry I shouted and threw things… I shouldn't have lost my temper like that."
"You couldn't help it," Sherlock replied, smirking, "you're only human."
Their laughter faded into giggles which faded into nothing as Sherlock leaned down to kiss John again. The doctor hummed pleasantly.
By all accounts, it shouldn't have happened at all… but sometimes even geniuses can't anticipate fate.