Greg Lestrade sighed, annoyed, before shouting at the six boys on the opposite side of the net, "Again! Now, Holmes, I need you to pay attention to the server on the other side, your form is off, and if he decided to serve closer to the middle of the net, you'll never get there on time. Ready positions! Let's go!" Greg served the ball overhand and the team, like clockwork pieces and almost perfectly in sync, sprang into action.
"Lestrade is a fool." Sherlock announced as the tired, sweaty group of boys made their way back to the locker room. "He does not seem to understand the fact that, no, I do not need to pay attention to the server opposite, as they are all extremely predictable and serve to the same weak spot on our team constantly. That would be you, Anderson."
The boy in question sneered, "Fuck off, Holmes. Don't feel so bloody entitled just 'cause your brother shags Lestrade." He stalked off, muttering "freak" under his breath. Sherlock glowed with smug satisfaction at the discomfort he'd caused until he felt a should bump his arm. Looking down, he found John Watson looking back up at him, grinning slightly, "Lay off him, Sherlock. I'm sure it's not his fault he's terrible at volleyball, maybe if he actually practiced once in a while, he'd actually be able to bump the ball to the setter like he's supposed to, instead of to me."
The two boys entered the locker room laughing and jostling each other to get to their lockers first. When they mostly finished changing and were putting their shoes on, Sherlock looked at John's face, twisted in concentration at getting his shoelaces untangled, and felt a twist deep inside of his stomach. He felt himself blush as John returned his penetrating stare with a look of inquiry. He quickly shoved the feeling away, locking it into a room in his mind palace labeled "Feelings- Do Not Enter" for later inspection and muttered "Nothing" before sighing and untangling John's laces for him.
As John got dressed to go to bed, he mulled over the weird reactions Sherlock had been giving all afternoon. It was Friday, and Sherlock usually spent the night, claiming that he could only take Mycroft sweet talking a cake for so long before he went mad. So he came home with John and proceeded to enact a take-over (of sorts) the way only Sherlock Holmes could. He also, in a rare show of kindness, offered to help John with his weekend homework, if only for the fact that he couldn't stand it when John was paying attention to something other than him.
Today, however, Sherlock had declined John's offer of an overnight, claiming he felt ill. Which John would've believed, had he not seen Sherlock's brilliant performance during volleyball practice after school. He had looked slightly flushed, though. Maybe he has a fever. Or maybe he was sick of hanging out with you. John told himself not to panic, after all, this was not a big deal. People got sick all the time. But not Sherlock. Sherlock probably just got bored with you. John shook his head, dislodging the anxious thoughts clustering in the back of his head.
John willed himself to calm down, it would not serve any purpose to get anxious over something that was, frankly, ridiculous and probably little more than a cold. He decided, after he was finished getting dressed, that he could call Sherlock and offer some words of sympathy and hopefully ascertain whether or not his fears were true. God, he hoped not.
Sherlock was wondering how to ask John out in a way that didn't make him sound like a demented pervert or an annoying dork when his phone rang. "Hello?" he answered, not bothering to check his caller id. "Sherlock? How are you feeling? Do you want me to come over?" Shit. John. Sherlock hadn't thought about his caretaker tendencies. God, sentiment was making him ridiculously stupid. "Erm- actually, I'm feeling alot better, John. I just, I- uh- I don't feel up to anything today. Is that okay with you? I- ah-" Shut up Sherlock! his brain screamed at him. Find a way out of this mess, if he didn't think you were a dork before, he certainly does now!
John replied, startling Sherlock out of his thoughts, sounding slightly put out, "O-okay, I guess. If you're sure, I'll see you." Nope, good bye. Sherlock's brain stated, leaving his head seemingly empty of things to say. "I- erm. Sorry, okay yes. I'll see you soon, tomorrow, in fact. Yes, uh, tomorrow." Hanging up the phone in the middle of John's reply he sighed, laying on the bed, his phone clutched in his hands like the holy grail. "Shit." He breathed. He loved John Watson and he didn't know how to say it.
Fucking sentiment.
John looked at his phone in shock, his mouth gaping wide. Sherlock hung up on him. It shouldn't bother him so much. After all, the genius had cut him off many a time in the middle of a sentence. Once, on a particularly memorable occasion, when John was trying to lightly chastise (they both knew he didn't really mean it) Sherlock for not paying attention to Lestrade during practice. Again. When Sherlock abruptly started talking over John, starting to explain his new experiment involving lentils. Which he was startled out of when a group of four teens started laughing at what he said, one of the teens, a girl with extremely curly hair gasped, "Oh my god, remember the lentils?" Causing another girl with her golden brown hair in braids to break out into peals of laughter, leaning against a slightly shorter, pretty korean girl and smiling at a gawky boy almost as tall as Sherlock, built like a twig, with a poof of thick hair at the top of his head. (John had teased him about being so ruffled for weeks.)
But Sherlock had sounded really upset, and the worries that he had been suppressing since the locker room came flooding back. Why was this so complicated? Because you got attached, his brain replied, sounding smug and surprisingly like Sherlock, because he deigned to get down from his cloud of brilliance and spend some time with your ordinary person, and you got attached to that brilliance and now he's done with dealing with your stupidity.
And you love him.