A/N: Hello, people!
I don't own Sherlock.
I have no beta.
ENJOY!
Sherlock had a habit of sleeping like the dead, when a case ended. His mind would literally shut down for ten hours and he'd be unresponsive to even the most annoying of noises or touches. Nothing could wake him. But when it was over, he'd sit up, looking perfectly awake. Like he hadn't been unconscious for ten hours. Like a spring bouncing back. Always.
John Watson returned home from the clinic, to find Sherlock sprawled out on the floor, completely dead to the world.
This usually wouldn't be a problem, except that his latest experiment was burning the kitchen. Literally, the table and chairs were on fire, quickly spreading lang the wooden floor, and Sherlock was sprawled in the entryway of the room, unconscious.
The fire rose, just like John's heart rate. He shoved his keys into his pocket and grabbed his best friend by the armpits and hauled him over his shoulders, ignoring that slight pain in his scar, and proceeded to carry the lanky man down the stairs, calling for their landlady as he did so.
She bustled out of her flat, responding to his frantic tone with her own worry.
"Our kitchen is on fire! Quickly get whatever you value most, out of your flat! Try to call the fire services! I don't think I'll be able to stop it!"
He left Sherlock on the pavement outside of 221B and ran back up the stairs, Mrs. Hudson returned to her flat in a hurry.
He burst into the kitchen doorway, to see flames licking up the walls already. He ducked under the top of the doorway which looked ready to fall on him and dashed down the hall to Sherlock's room. Inside, he wrapped Sherlock's laptop and 'special hidden experiments' box, in his bed sheet. He then moved into the bathroom, turning on the water in the tub and soaking every towel in the dirty hamper.
Once his head was covered and he was nearly soaked, he rushed back down the fiery hall, happy that the fire hadn't touched him yet. He rushed up the stairs and wrenched his bedroom door open. The closet was where he kept his duffle bag, which he never unpacked. It held important stuff. The clothing except his uniform, meant nothing. After wrapping the bag in a wet towel, he hurried back down the stairs, the hall now covered in flames, which he managed to avoid by being wet and sloshing around and whipping sopping towels around his head.
The living area had only just started catching fire by then. He unwrapped his sheet bundle, adding his own laptop, Sherlock's skull and the violin and bow. He then opened the small drawer in the desk and emptied it out. It was full of Sherlock's saved memory sticks and discs. He claimed that they were important. John had no inclination as to why. He didn't care enough to think about it any longer.
By then, the flat was covered in smoke and the flames were moving along the ceiling. John immediately opened the closet and pulled Sherlock's Belstaff in with the largest bundle, before wrapping them all up and placing the towel protecting his head, over it just to be sure.
Once he was sure that he had everything, he looked around. The kitchen was pointless, all he could see was red and orange. The remaining good exit was starting to catch fire and the smoke was rising from the floor, reaching his waist already. John, took a deep breath and crouched low, grateful for all his army training. He then ducked under the burning doorway at the last second, before it collapsed and cut off his only escape route.
By the time he stumbled down the stairs, Mrs. Hudson had managed to pull her favorite chair, a large wooden chest and an old Steinway on wheels, out with his friend. In the amount of time it took him to get all of those things, she managed all of that on her own.
He settled his cargo down beside where she was sitting in the chair, rocking back and forth.
"Is there anything else you wanted to get?" he asked. "The fire has just completely filled 221B and it'll come for yours next."
She looked down and then back up. "The deed. It's in one of my kitchen drawers! In a bag full of papers."
John nodded and rushed back inside, glad that there were no steps this time. He looked around, grabbing blankets as he went and pilings things up quickly, especially her antiques that she completely left behind. He finally retrieved the large bag of paperwork from her kitchen drawer and left, not knowing what else she'd want to keep.
The fire had just reached halfway down the staircase when he made it out with her belongings.
"Thank you dear, the neighbors have been informed thanks to Mrs. Turner. You saved my crystals too!"
John nodded, taking a deep breath and coughing a bit.
People were suddenly swarming the area, asking questions, asking if they were alright. Sherlock was still out of it.
John checked him, finding his cell in the pocket of his dressing down. He retrieved it and called Mycroft.
"Dr. Watson, I am already on my way and the fire service is only a few blocks from your location. Good thinking. Sherlock will be grateful." The line went dead immediately.
One that note, he could finally hear the sirens.
John shut the phone and placed it back in Sherlock pocket. Once his friend was checked over and simply diagnosed with a bump on the head from his landing, he looked over everything he managed to rescue from the burning flat.
He'd only been in there two minutes and the fire had managed to take over one whole level of the building in that amount of time.
If truth be told, John had a fear of fire. It was so quick to destroy. He shuddered, thinking about what would have happened if he had stopped by Tesco's to get the milk, instead of coming straight home. Sherlock probably wouldn't be alive.
Even as the sirens were blaring in his ear and men were rushing about calling out orders and asking questions, John reached out and grasped Sherlock's cold hand. A reassurance. He was safe and the fire wasn't going to harm him.
He finally registered that he was being called. Mycroft had arrived. Everything following, was a blur.
He, Sherlock and Mrs. Hudson were being escorted in Mycroft's limousine, which wasn't used often. Their belongings that had been saved, were being delivered to wherever they were going.
Mycroft assured him that they were going to be fine. He really hoped so.
When Sherlock awoke, John was sitting beside him, in the fancy bedroom Mycroft has supplied him with at his house. Mycroft's house.
Sherlock's blue eyes searched him out and he sat up suddenly, eyes looking around wildly.
"Why are we at Mycroft's?"
John frowned and sighed. He stood and pulled a white bundle from the floor, unwrapping it on the large expanse of bed.
"The adrenaline you were living on from the case, dissipated, and you collapsed mid experiment. I came home to find you on the floor between both rooms, with the kitchen half on fire. I managed to save some of our things and Mrs. Hudson's things, before it took the building completely, but not everything made it. I'm sorry."
Sherlock looked down as John laid out his Belstaff, his laptop, his violin and bow, his skull, his memory sticks and discs and his box. His most important box. Something he treasured more than anything. John had managed to save it from burning up and he didn't even know what was inside.
"What about your things?" Sherlock asked lowly, not seeing any of John's belongings in the sheet that had held his items. His sheet, he realized.
John pointed to the bag on a far chair, "Inside are my laptop, phone, medical license and uniform. I don't have anything else that I care for. I kept important things in a ready to go bag just in case. I also saved our towels, though just because I used them to protect myself from the flames."
Sherlock looked John over closely and his eyes narrowed. "When you saw the fire, what was your first reaction?"
"Huh?"
"What did you do first, when you saw that the kitchen had gone up in flames?" the consulting detective asked more slowly, eyes piercing in the darkness of the room.
"I threw you over my shoulder and hauled you down the stairs and outside, why?"
Sherlock stared some more. "You then went back into a burning building, just to get my most prized possessions?"
"I got my own too, you know," John pointed out.
"What was the first room you went to?"
John paused and sighed. "Yours."
Sherlock looked down, feeling some emotion welling up inside. John rescued the things he knew Sherlock treasured. Even the skull. Though most didn't know it, Sherlock considered it to be his first friend. His first successful case. The skull was a momento of it. And John rescued even that.
His first priority was to save Sherlock. Not their fifty something year old landlady. He then went back in, mind clearly set on Sherlock's belongings first.
"John, would you consider me a top priority in your life?"
The doctor shrugged, "I don't know. I mean, I do worry about you constantly."
"Yes. Remember Irene Adler and how I said 'amazing, how fire exposes our priorities'? How her first reaction was to look at her safe? Your first reaction was to rescue me, not Mrs. Hudson, nor your laptop or your God awful jumpers. Me."
"You're my best friend, Sherlock. Of course I would save you."
Sherlock's hand lashed out and gripped John's wrist tightly, before taking him down, onto the mattress.
"Are you sure that's all there is to it, John?" Sherlock's husky voice queried.
The doctor flushed instantly, getting the implication.
"I-I-I"
Sherlock tsked. "John, I know you stare at me when you think I'm too engrossed in my mind palace. I know you care for me more than a friend would. However you believe that I am asexual and would have gladly made yourself an emotional martyr, all for my comfort."
Sherlock's tone made John shiver, resulting in the broad smirk across the consulting detective's face. "So, you've killed for me and you've risked your life for me. And now you've risked all of your possessions for me. Would 'just a friend' do that?"
"I-I don't know."
Sherlock smirked a little wider, "I sincerely doubt that, John. You've been tiptoeing around this for the last few months and I believe I've grown tired of it. Either kiss me now, or forever wish you had."
He calculated the chances of John taking his challenge, which were rather high, considering his elevated pulse and dilated eyes. Also, John had a habit of looking at his mouth whenever they got too close to each other, and he was currently doing it again.
A swipe of the tongue over his lips and Sherlock was surprised to see John pull away from him!
And then he was completely taken by surprise, when John surged forward, pinning him to the bed and kissing him breathless. He moaned in appreciation. He hated it when his partners were gentle. Assuming that because he was thin, he was fragile. Not John though. John took what he wanted, plundering Sherlock mouth with perfected strokes of that silken tongue.
"Never give me an ultimatum like that, ever again," John mumbled when he pulled back, much to Sherlock's disappointment. "I thought you were married to your work."
"You are important to the Work. Your blog gets us more Work. Meaning we get paid. You equal payments. Meaning, you equal Work. Therefore there is nothing wrong with our relationship escalating, because I am still married to my work. Now kiss me."
John stared at him for a second, before laughing and following the order.
Sherlock smirked in victory, thankful that John found him important enough to get them both to that moment in time.
This was perfect.
A/N: Done.
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