I'm still working out what exactly my plot will be but this chapter doesn't really require me to decide on that just yet. So here's the set up.

There will be sex. I will move this fic to mature once that happens. In the meantime, it's here. I'll work on my other fic in this series on the side while working on this one. Depending on my mood, really, as the other one makes me sad.

John brought back another round from the bar and set the two heady glasses on the pub's coffee table, sliding across Greg Lestrade's while he sighed into the worn leather chair, losing half his height to the sink of cushion as the brown seating swallowed him whole. It was a busy night though less than what John would have expected from a Friday. Must have been a band in town or some other young attraction that he hadn't bothered to keep up with. Their gain either way. He couldn't remember the last time he and Greg had managed to get armchair seating away from the tables of couples popping in before a proper night out and the swarms of women palling around ruby cocktails with hair-raising cackles that echoed across the room. John much preferred the quieter atmosphere of their imagined VIP seating and toasted to their luck before his bitter swig.

"Probably could have gotten Sherlock out if we knew it'd be like this," Lestrade mused, his eyes continuing to search the limited crowd at the bar for the next Mrs. Lestrade. He wiped his mouth off on the back of his hand as his stubbled upper lip took to the foam. "Where is he anyway? Not still working that case, is he?"

John nodded, thinking back to the flat and the man sat at his microscope, occasionally popping up to pace or sit more comfortably in his chair. All cases were important until they were solved. John drew the line for tolerance of Sherlock's absurd behavior at missing persons and serial killers. Murders-though pressing in their own way-didn't require twenty-four hour attention. "We're on hour 37," John remarked, letting his annoyance color his tone. "When I get back, if he's not eating or in bed, he soon will be."

Lestrade chuckled, tipping his glass to him in a drowsy salute. "Behind every great man is a greater doctor I suppose."

John would certainly drink to that.

His own week had been the dullest of his professional life. Most of Sherlock's private cases had been trivial things requiring little to no leg work and no real need of assistance. John blogged about them all the same as Sherlock continued to share every step of his process in detail on quiet evenings in. Interesting didn't always mean time consuming, dangerous or sensational. Truthfully, they could both do with a break from the hazards of national news worthy exploits that had colored the year so far. It meant nothing more than paperwork and forms for John, however. All week long he'd logged in man-hours, listed utilized resources, typed up Sherlock's long dictations and a few of his own notes from observations of the man. For every hour of Sherlock's work there seemed an almost equivalent share of paperwork for John. If there was one things John was not, it was a typist. The work contracts had been something he'd pushed on them but his eyes were sore from staring at screens and he was seriously considering the keyboarding courses from the brochures that continued to mysteriously appear on top of his computer.

It felt good to get out. It felt good to get out with Lestrade who generally left work back at the office when he could and enjoyed a bit of life on the side. Even if they did spend most nights drunk off their tits with only a handful of numbers in the Detective Inspector's pocket, it was humanizing in a life that often focused on the ills of man rather than their virtues. Virtuous men they were not with a couple pints between them but it was good fun all the same.

A petite brunette in a short black skirt, flats and skin-tight lilac blouse, slid between the leather chairs to pop a seat down on the arm of John's. His sunken posture put his head nearly waist height, her moderate breasts just an eye slip away. He did his best to ignore her, lips to his glass, as she leaned down over him.

"Are you that detective Sherlock Holmes?" she asked, her hand immediately falling to pick through the hair of his crown. She smelled of Preppy Princess and alcohol. "I'm Susan."

John titled his head slightly to dissuade her. "John Watson; the other bloke. Greg here's Detective Inspector with Scotland Yard, though."

Susan looked over at Lestrade, smiling politely before turning back to John to lean suggestively towards him. "I saw you in the papers," she said, her ransom-red lips parting pleasantly. "You looked seriously sexy. You here with anyone tonight?"

"With a friend. Greg. Who I just introduced you to."

She wasn't the fastest server on the net. John didn't care for her blatant dismissal of Lestrade either. He leaned forward, elbows on knees to lean back into Greg's view, giving him his best 'check out this bitch' face, more than willing to ignore her as obviously as she was him. Lestrade's grimace didn't so much appreciate the gesture as it mocked his annoyance, eyes rolling as he took another drink. Moments like these were why John was going to end up buying the next round as well. Flirtatious women were going to be the ruin of him.

Susan's short fingernails traveling up his neck put goosebumps down John's back. Combat reflexes never quite lost, he grabbed her wrist in an instant, instinctively- a tad stronger than intended but far from strong enough to harm. She hopped off the arm off his chair in a hurry all the same, the sharp tug of her arm against his grip enough for him to release her immediately. She scowled, taking a long step back. "Jerk," she seethed. She stormed off towards the bar with her chin held high while a few eyes in the room stayed pinned to John, assessing his possible threat. With a murmur things moved on, the two gentlemen in the plush leather seating forgotten in pub politics and wine.

Lestrade shook his head, chuckling into his half-empty glass of beer. "Remind me why I take you anywhere? You are the worstwing-man in the history of pubcrawls."

"Did you not hear me trying to push her off on you the whole time?" John sank back into his armchair, shaking his head in mock dismay as he gave the room a once over to spot anyone who might actually be a worthwhile pursuit for the silver-haired man. "You wouldn't have liked her anyway," he said, spying a blonde with wandering eyes over by a group of gossiping women. "Not only is she self-centered and not very bright but she recently broke up with her long term boyfriend and is currently unemployed. She's just trying to find herself a rich and important husband and no offence but I've seen your flat and rich you are not."

"Oh, god, not you too." Lestrade let his tall glass hit the wood coffee table with a hollow thunk, as much announcing his need of more as his disbelief. "How the hell do you know any of that?" he asked.

John shrugged, looking once again over towards the bar where Susan now stood with her back to them. "It's really not that impressive," he prefaced, though he couldn't help but smile inside at the opportunity to show off a little bit of what he'd been slowly picking up. "I mean…she's a petite woman wearing flats with a thigh length skirt. Most short women wear heals, yeah? So she probably lives in a tall stack of flats with stairs, no elevator. The cheap kind. Short nails but no calluses so probably a secretary or someone who types a lot. Definitely professional either way but not anyone vital to the corporate structure. Now Sherlock was breaking news three years ago and now again but she still managed to confuse me for Sherlock so she's not been paying attention to current events for at least three years. Yesterday's front page of the Sun, however, had a photo of Sherlock and me to go with the story of Moran's trial date announcement. The headline was 'Sherlock Holmes; Star Witness of Bombing Trial'. I've still got it on our coffee table. If Moran's bombing personally affected her, she'd have read the article and would be following the story well enough to have figured out by now who Sherlock Holmes was. So why does someone who has no interest in current events suddenly buy a newspaper? The internet's cornered the market in pretty much everything but there are still some companies that prefer to advertise their less impressive, lowest rung openings the old fashion way making newspapers still a good place for two things: job postings and coupons. Either way, money's an issue and she's looking for work. And, yeah, we can both tell she's self-centered just by the way she blew you off."

Lestrade chuckled, letting his head fall back on the couch. "God, it's like drinking with a tolerable Sherlock. Alright, and the boyfriend bit?"

"Sort of a guess," John admitted, downing the last of his own glass. "She came over to flirt with me based solely on the fact that she recognized me from the papers. She wants power and money or at least stature. Sort of person who's given up on love and moved on to money suggests someone who's been burned pretty badly. Could be they broke up months ago but she's still carrying the baggage from it."

"Does it scare you that you're becoming more and more like him?" Lestrade asked, taking up both their glasses to head back to the bar.

Seemed a good deduction was the cure to lady-magnet blues. John was happy to let him buy the next round. "Honestly? No, not really. It's your fault anyway. It's typing up all those damned dictations. He talks so bloody fast I have to play the things over and over and over again. Bound to learn something with that much repetition."

Lestrade shook his head in dismay and left, returning shortly after with two new tall glasses of ale. "We're going to make a detective out of you yet, John," he promised, all ills forgotten.

John sighed thankfully, accepting his with a quick 'Ta' and a tip to his generosity. "Actually.. about that. I, uh... well, with the case going up against Moran clearing Sherlock's name, my old job is recanting on its decision of letting me go. They're offering me quite a few incentives to keep lawyers out of it. Great pay. Fantastic benefits. And, you know... a career that isn't entirely based on chasing after Sherlock's coattails."

Lestrade's brows rose high on his wrinkled brow. "You really wanting to give up police work?"

"Oh, don't get me wrong, I love running around with Sherlock like excitable children and all but I just… think I need to have something that's mine and not just ours." John wasn't sure how better to word it without sounding as though he was complaining. He wasn't. There were very few things he enjoyed more than keeping to Sherlock's mad hours and running here and there on whims and inference with a few cab stubs and a shared take-away to show for it most nights. He'd glorified it in his past when the danger was no longer a part of his life and vilified it when he was in the middle of it, fingers stained in residue with socks soaked in sweat. It was a rewarding hobby but John's kind of career involved a job he could retire from many years down the line that was stable in income and never out of need. "Detective work is his thing," he explained, crossing his left leg over his right knee as he reclined. "I'm just in it because he's fantastic and it's a rush. Medicine has always been my thing, though. About time I went back to it."

Lestrade nodded gravely before looking up with a quirked smile. "So what's her name then?"

"Excuse me?" John paused, his glass poised against his bottom lip.

"Come on."Lestrade sat on the edge of his seat as he leaned forward. "Wanting to get some distance from Sherlock? There's a girl, isn't there. You don't want him scaring her off. So what's her name? She a nurse or a doctor?"

"There's no girl."

"How many weekends have we spent going out to the pubs and you don't even take one number home?"

"I'm supposed to be your wing man."

"The ladies practically throw themselves at you and you don't even bat an eye. I mean, quality ladies. What was the one from last week? Jessica? Jennifer? The ginger with the rack."

John shrugged. He didn't keep track and he didn't bother to remember.

Lestrade rolled his eyes, inching even closer as though his confidence could be purchased with just that millimeter less space between. "Come on. I know you've got a girl, John Watson. What's her name?"

John put his glass to his lips, speaking down into the head. "His," he corrected, face feeling slightly warm.

"Eh?"

"Hisname."

Lestrade's brow pinched further, his face finding new places to fold in with incredulity. "No. Really? You?" He sat back, arms opening wide to perch his elbows over the back of the chair. "Wow..." He looked every bit as shocked as he sounded, falling slack-jawed and stammering in the silence. "It doesn't matter to me or anything but.. wow. I mean I always thought you and Sherlock might, ya know, but never thought you'd be like that with some other bloke."

John nearly choked on his draft. "What? No. No no no no no. Not some othe- It is Sherlock. Jesus."

"Oh, thank Christ." Lestrade exhaled deeply, laughing a bit to himself as though the sigh alone hadn't done enough to alleviate his discomfort. "Not that there's anything wrong with it," he reiterated, "but that would have been just a bitweird."

John leaned his face against his palm, not quite insulted but getting there. "How is it lessweird that it's Sherlock; someone you actually know?"

"Because it's Sherlock. I mean, he's not exactly one of the guys, is he? S'like his own... subspecies. Super-species. He's different. Hell, if he weren't such an annoying prat I might have fancied him."

"That's... disturbing."

Lestrade was far from caring, his courage lubricated with the final swig of his third drink. "So what's it like?" he asked, scooting in closer once more.

John felt himself leaning further back into his seat in response."…What's what like?"

"Dating Sherlock Holmes."

"It's… pretty much exactly the same as not dating him." John admitted, though whether or not that was a bad thing was still up for personal debate. Neither of them had really wanted things to change. They loved their life together and complicating relative perfection had seemed risky. Not that they talked about it. Sherlock was king of only talking in great detail about other people's lives and problems, staying painfully tight lipped about his own concerns. Familiar physical territory was fine while they adjusted to the new level of emotional involvement between them. That's what John told himself and thus far he was accepting of the excuse. Slow was good. Slow was fine. Sherlock had the brain of a sixty year old, the maturity of an eight year old, and the physical experience of a twelve year old. It averaged out to a fine age but John still felt sure Sherlock would rather test the strength resistance or flight capacity of a condom than put one on.

"So you two haven't...?"

"If we had, would you seriously want to know about it?"

Lestrade shrugged, backing up just a bit. "Well, not in like detail or anything. But you know. Someidea, maybe. Just to know if he's really human. How come I haven't read about this in your blog?"

"Because my blog is very obviously far from private and it's not anyone's business." Certainly not with the press once again buzzing over potential courtroom drama in the weeks leading up to Moran's trial. There was hiding from the press and then there was simply hiding thingsfrom the press. John liked to think he and Sherlock were quite skilled at the latter. It was still good publicity to be turn up in the papers after all—as Susan had so adequately proven.

"Well, come on then." Greg gave John's knee a pat of encouragement, the night seemingly taking a steep change from bird watching to confessional. "Tell me how it happened. Who asked who? Was there alcohol involved?

John let his breath hum through his nose, not really sure he cared for a long version of the retelling and less sure how exactly the short version worked out. "No one asked. He said he loved me, I was a dick, and a week later I told him I loved him too. Then we had dinner and went home. That's pretty much it." In a nutshell; a very small, inadequately sized nutshell.

"And now you're dating?"

"More or less." John sunk down in his seat, feeling oddly comfortable despite the candid topic of conversation. There were few people who knew Sherlock and himself well enough to get it. Perhaps he'd been looking forward to the chance to talk about it to someone not Mycroft or the skull. The skull was always on Sherlock's side, besides. "I mean we live together so we do damn near everything together anyway. I just have better leverage in arguments now and less personal space when he decides my lap is a pillow. But, you know, still separate rooms and violin wake up calls at two a.m. and body parts in the kitchen appliances."

Lestrade's modest face turned shocked, fingers stroking the sides of his mouth as his lips formed an 'o'. "Separate rooms? You're joking. Aren't you?" He laughed, shaking his head. "I hate to break it to you, John, but you and Sherlock aren't dating."

John opened his mouth to start in on him but Lestrade's raised hand stopped him.

"No no no. Two people who love each other, live together, bicker all day and never have sex? John, you're not dating, you're married."

"…Oh…" John looked at the bottom of his empty glass, watching the while bubbles and undrinkable amber liquid that pooled in the circle's rim. "Yeah, probably," he said.

"Knew it'd be you," Lestrade quipped, waving down an aimless waitress for two more. "I mean, not that you would. But for him, I mean. You or no one. Just do me a favor, alright?"

John nodded, settling in for part two of the protective older brother speech from the detective inspector. Blood or not, Lestrade was someone who'd looked after Sherlock when he'd most needed someone to care about him. Friends tended to become more like family with Sherlock. You learned to love him one way or another, John suspected. Sherlock was truly the marmite of men.

"Don't tell him I said so," Lestrade started, leaning over the arm so as not to have to raise his voice, "But just to see if it helps make him a somewhat more tolerable prick, I need you to shag his fucking brains out, alright?"

John's face had never been stained a deeper, more permanent shade of red.

The whole ride home in the cab John tried to wipe his mind free of the whole conversation, scrubbing furiously at the candid request that in a separate context would have been laughably acceptable from a friend. It was just one of those things blokes said, one of those phrases that people passed around. Someone is cranky, someone's being a bit of a bitch, you tell them to get laid. There were several instances in which John had made the joke himself about Sherlock, especially when Irene Adler had been in the picture. 'You know she fancies you, yeah? Go on, then; it'd probably do you some good.'It was demonstrably different when the person left with the task, the other party in the joke, was John himself; like it was his job to tame the shrew with a few good knocks of the headboard.

John had to stop again to rub his face, peeling off the flush with his sweating palms. Oh, god, if only it was that easy.

Home at last he quietly walked up the stairs to their flat, not at all surprised to hear Sherlock hard at work at the kitchen table, a pair of plastic protective lenses strapped to his head, forcing his hair to part in off directions like a confused potted plant.

John leaned in the doorway, quite sure by the way the lights haloed that the frame was almost as necessary for his stability as the railing to the stairs had been. "That's two days, Sherlock," John noted, pointing towards an invisible watch not strapped to either of their wrists.

Sherlock hummed, not raising his gaze from the glass beaker in his hand.

"We talked about this. Your experiment will still be there in the morning."

"And a murderer will still be free as well."

John sighed, rubbing the back of his neck. He hated these arguments and the way they never seemed to resolve. Sherlock was a creature of habit, falling into his familiar routine no matter how many times John implored. Rules, requests, promises, begging. He could only ask in so many ways for the man to invest in his own well being.

On the counter by the sink, however, was an empty plate and on top of the trash the container that had at last he'd seen contained the leftovers from their last take-away. John smiled a little to himself. One habit at a time, perhaps.

"If it's going to keep you up anyway, then."

"It will." Sherlock's eyes flickered up from his work for a moment, undoubtedly looking for and catching the upward turn of his partner's lips. He settled back into his slouch, eyes glued once more to his work. "Good night, John."

John nodded, giving the doorframe a pat as he pushed off to walk down his hall, another night spent alone, lulled by the tinkering of his partner in the next room. "Good night, Sherlock," he said, waving to him as his hand trailed along the refrigerator and continued across the wall.

Shag his brains out? John chuckled to himself, tugging the buttons of his shirt through their holes. A good ol' romp in the sheets was hardly the cure for all that ailed them in their uncertain relationship.

But John wouldn't have minded giving it a try.