Eight days after Moriarty, Sherlock says, "You aren't as tiresome as every other human being on the planet." It's in a tone that, had John been paying attention, would have made everything that happened afterwards much less confusing.
"That's…oddly nice to hear, Sherlock." John smiles, surprised and happy, a soft sort of smile. "Thank you." Then he turns back to his stupid tabloid and continues reading.
"That's supposed to mean something, John." A swirl of coat and a huff and Sherlock sweeps out of the hospital room.
John stares after him. "Um." Looks down at his tabloid, back up at the doorway. "Bugger."
—-
"You're brilliant, you know that?" John is grinning and flushed, their first chase together since the shoulder had healed, and Sherlock says something in the same tone as the hospital declaration.
"I am, yes, and you always notice." Again, had John paid attention, the whole thing would have easier and less time-consuming.
Instead, John ignores. Just huffs and puffs a bit, makes what is assuredly supposed to be a joke about being out of shape.
"You didn't listen to me, John." Sherlock frowns, a crease down his face, and storms up the stairs into the flat, slamming the door shut behind him.
"What?" John stares after him again, uncomfortably reminded of the hospital, and makes a note to ask Mrs. Hudson if Sherlock's been acting more odd than usual to her, too, or if it's just him.
—-
"No, love, he's been normal — well, his normal, I mean — to me." She sets a tray down in front of him. "You take cream but no sugar, don't you?" She pours the cream in without waiting for an answer, and takes a sip of her own tea, which is almost certainly laced with an herbal soother or two.
"Yes, thank you, but he's been acting very strange to me ever since—" he gags a bit on the word, and substituted it, "the explosion."
"How d'you mean strange? Stranger than his standard, I suppose?"
"Yes, sort of, almost like he's trying to be nice. But then he gets frustrated and reverts to his usual self. But he's been saying things that, if anyone else said them, would be insults, but from him they're…I don't know." A sip of tea. "It's probably nothing, Mrs. Hudson. Thanks for your time, and the tea."
—-
"No, John, he's been the same as always." Lestrade peers at him. "Why, is he acting strangely? He did get a knock on the head, you know, it might be—"
"I doubt it, it's been weeks. No, it's probably just me." John sighs and settles back in the chair. "He hasn't been trying to say things that are his versions of compliments?"
Lestrade laughs, and looks his age for once instead of looking ten years too old. "No, he'd rather roast himself over a hot spit than compliment any of us. Mind," his voice turns thoughtful, "he has been more patient with me, but I think that's because I was the one who pulled you out of the pool than anything else."
It had been Lestrade, John remembers, who'd found him floating, unconscious, bleeding and broken, who'd dove in after him when everyone else was saving Sherlock from drowning.
"Thanks for that, by the way." John chuckles, because they've had this chat before, and Lestrade always answers,
"I'd have to deal with him if you bought it, now, wouldn't I? Saving my own arse as much as yours." They clasp hands briefly and John leaves, his hands stuffed in his pockets and his brow furrowed in thought.
—-
Sherlock is lounging on the couch, pouting. It's clear that he's pouting from the way he's wrapped in a dressing gown, back to the door, pointedly not reacting to John's entrance.
"I've brought some Chinese, yours is in the red box, get your arse over here and eat."
The shock of the order gets Sherlock to turn his head, and the smell of the food gets him off the couch. Five minutes in, the detective seems to have stopped pouting, more focused on shoveling in his favorite from Orange Palace — which, John desperately wants to point out, is a thirty-minute cab ride away and costs twice as much as John's meal, which is from the Lotus Blossom only a block's walk away. But it's more important that Sherlock is eating, not sulking, so John refrains.
"You know what I order everywhere we eat." Another of Sherlock's cryptic compliments.
"Yes, I do." John settles into his chair, fork clutched in one hand. "I suppose you know all of my orders, too, though."
"It's not the same." Sherlock lowers his eyes to his food again, heaps another mouthful into his gob.
If John hadn't seen it with his own eyes, he'd never believe the amount of food Sherlock can eat. It's as if he's a camel, storing up for the cases when he doesn't eat at all. "Right, because you know that about everyone."
"Because I know almost everything about almost everyone," Sherlock mumbles through a mouthful of noodles.
"Ugh, Sherlock, swallow." John shouldn't have to teach his flatmate about manners, really, should he?
Sherlock does, though, gulping, his long lean neck bobbing up and down. He repeats himself, clearly this time. "Because I know almost everything about almost everyone. You don't, you're not really clever, but you know my order at every place we go."
John thinks he might, possibly, understand. "And that means something to you, right?"
A huff, and Sherlock stuffs his face with noodles again. The rest of the night passes amiably, and Sherlock doesn't pout for a while.
—-
"Bored, were you?" John is furious, holding up his now-ruined pillow. "What the bloody buggering fuck did you put in this? It's my pillow, my favorite one, and it smells—"
"Like decomposing flesh, or like rotting garbage?" Sherlock looks excited, thrilled even. "It's for a case, John. It's important. Which one?"
John's mouth flaps open and shut a few times. "Garbage, not flesh. I don't. You. Just. No." He throws the pillow at Sherlock's feet and storms out, intending to get very drunk at the pub and spill his sorrows to the bartender, again.
You keep your head in a crisis. - SH
John groans.
no time to be cryptic, Sherlock. - Dr. John Watson
Not being cryptic. Verifiable fact: in a crisis, you keep your head. - SH
"Bugger this," and John shuts his phone off as he slips into the pub.
—-
"You don't threaten to leave."
John opens his eyes, bleary and hungover and suddenly very aware of the fact that he's nude. "Um. Sherlock," he scrabbles for a sheet to cover himself, "one, it's rude to wake people up like that. Two, I wouldn't leave."
Sherlock doesn't move, just stays leaned up against the door, quiet and still.
"I wouldn't, Sherlock. You're no picnic, but you're…" He's not sure how to end that sentence. "You're you, and no one else."
"That was a pointless sentence."
"I mean you're not trying to be anyone you're not." John finds a pair of definitely-not-his-own boxers stuffed under his pillow — no time to think about it now — and feels marginally more normal once they're on.
"Why would I?"
"Exactly." John stands, having found a t-shirt that is probably his at the foot of the bed and pulled it on. Despite all your," he waves a hand in Sherlock's direction as if to encompass all of it, "I, well, I care about you. I've killed for you, and I'd do it again." John's face settles into its normal expression, and he realizes just how much he means what he said. He'd do it again, gladly, without hesitation or question, if Sherlock needed him to.
Instead of replying, though, Sherlock stepped carefully out of the room and left John feeling foolish, which was so close to normal as to not be uncomfortable anymore.
—-
"You're complimenting me."
Sherlock looks up from his microscope, face still and blank. "Oh?"
"Yes, you are, and it's taken me forever to figure it out because I'm apparently even duller than you think."
"You're not dull." A pause. "Well, you're not any duller than anyone else."
John laughs, a bit, because it's still a compliment in Sherlock's own way. "Why are you complimenting me?"
"I'm told," Sherlock looks back down into his microscope, "that when one intends to express romantic interest in another, one should begin with complimenting the attractive attributes of that person."
John is dumbstruck for a few seconds. "What?"
A huff, and Sherlock swivels his chair to face John. "My research has produced results implying that romantic interest is best received in an atmosphere made more conducive by the use of compliments." He frowns. "Which part don't you understand?"
"Um. Romantic interest, first."
"I find you attractive. Not just physically, although there is a definite physical component. But generally, I find you attractive as a whole despite your lower intelligence and other failings."
"A hint, Sherlock? Maybe don't insult me when you're trying to hit on me."
Sherlock frowns again. "I'm not insulting you."
"You just did! You called me stupid and mentioned other failings, those are insults."
"No, I said that despite your failings, I find you attractive. That's a compliment."
John throws up his hands in defeat. "Fine, all right, have it your way."
"Ah, lovely. Since the romantic interest is returned, I—"
"Wait, wait. You told me, you said, that first case, you said you were married to your work."
"Yes, I did."
"So then why—"
"I'm devoted to my work, John, but recent events have shown that I cannot allow work to consume me." A sigh. "He, Moriarty, he was right. I do have a heart, and I have found that, unusually, you have reign over a part of me, namely, the heart."
A long pause, during which Sherlock returns to his microscope. John is beginning to suspect that Sherlock is using the microscope as a shelter, to hide from this conversation. He pulls the detective's chair away, spins it to face him, and holds it there. Their faces are inches from each other, and John is only barely capable of not moving those few inches closer and kissing Sherlock. Instead, he says, "So you looked up flirting techniques, and you complimented me."
"Yes."
"What is it that you want, Sherlock? Sex? A relationship? What?"
"Ideally, both. If I have to choose between them—"
"No, no." John smiles a little, heat prickling the tips of his ears. "No need to choose. Just, maybe, can we talk this through? Figure it out?"
Sherlock looks crestfallen. "Of course, John. Certainly." Makes the move to turn away, but John's hold on the chair is too firm, and then John's lips on his are too solid, and then and then and then.
—-
They never do get around to talking it through, not really. They do, however, talk about many other things, including but not limited to walking back through the misinterpretation of cues that led John to think that Sherlock was asexual and Sherlock to think that John was straight.
John had laughed loudly and for far too long at that revelation. "You didn't know? Sherlock, everyone else who knows us knew. Everyone! Sarah knew, after—" he still can't say the name, "the explosion, when I broke it off. Jesus, Sherlock, Lestrade knew! Everyone knew but you."
"Bugger off," but Sherlock is laughing, he doesn't mean it. One of the things, it turns out, that changes once John and Sherlock start shagging regularly, is that Sherlock is much less quick to take offense when John teases him.
Another thing that changes is that they move into John's bedroom after the first awkward conversation with Mrs. Hudson about echoes.
The last thing that changes is that Mycroft sends them on holiday. Well, technically, John wins a decent amount of money and two first-class tickets to the destination of their choice in a sweepstakes he never entered, but it's the same thing. They go to a resort in Thailand and Sherlock burns terribly and John gets bitten by a spider, but it's still marvelous.
When they get home, there are six cases waiting and Lestrade has brought coffee, and it's all back to normal, unless anyone starts to think too hard about the way that Sherlock, every once in a while, says something to John that almost translates to "I love you," if the listener happens to speak Sherlock.