The Invisible Army
"You know-"
"Probably."
"You know, you had to have had a girlfriend at some point."
Sherlock groaned, sinking lower onto the sofa.
"Or a boyfriend," John added, looking at him thoughtfully. "You have to have had."
Sherlock pulled the magazine up a bit to bury his face below the pages. "Don't know what gives you that impression."
"Because you are infinitely curious," John said proudly, as though it were really something that he should be proud that he kept harping over, Sherlock's sexuality. Sherlock was frankly content to let the whole thing go. "You can't tell me that when everybody in sixth and uni was off boinking their partners that you weren't curious about the whole thing. You can't tell me you went through without trying it at least once."
Fingers seized around the glossy pages of the magazine and for a moment, only a moment, it wasn't the magazine beneath his fingers but skin and sheets and sweat. Sherlock shook his head a little; John was surprisingly very close to the truth and, as per usual, Sherlock did not want to talk about it.
John seemed to take his silence as affirmation. "I knew it," he said, throwing the newspaper down. "I bloody well knew it. This virgin thing, I knew it couldn't be true. So who was it? A guy, girl?" He paused. "Both?"
Sherlock scoffed, throwing the magazine onto the table and getting up.
"Oh, no, you're not getting away." John was just as immediately on his feet. Sherlock recognised the look on his face, determined and... teasing. Because, according to John, that's what mates did: talked about sex. Whyever that was apparently in the job description of 'friend', Sherlock didn't know. He wasn't compelled to hear about John's or tell John about his own past, meagre though it may be.
"I'm going to get tea," he deadpanned, winding around John to step into the kitchen.
"Come on, Sherlock, you've seen my past. At least, since I got back from Afghanistan, and I didn't do a whole lot of dating beforehand, well, okay, maybe, but you know everything about my girlfriends and I still don't know if you've even had any-"
"For God's sake, John, I'm asexual!" Sherlock may have set the kettle down a little harder than he intended. It wasn't a big deal. Truly. John just wore the thing into the ground, was everyone like this about sex? (He knew that answer.)
"Asexual?"
"Asexual," Sherlock repeated tonelessly. "Without sexual feelings or associations."
"I know what asexual means," John replied.
"Do you?"
"Yes," John retorted, glowering at him from his spot next to the table. "But... now I've been acting like an idiot, why didn't you tell me?"
Sherlock smirked slightly, turning around with his mug of tea. "You always act like an idiot."
John huffed a little, crossing his arms. "Yes, well... I try to stay away from borderline insulting, unlike some people."
"I don't insult, I merely describe."
John didn't seem to find it very funny, even if it was accurate; instead he was just looking at Sherlock with an almost scary level of inspection on his face. Was this what John felt like when Sherlock deduced him? And yet... while he was certain that John could deduce nothing from his face... the overwhelming urge to turn away and find anything else to do was pulling at him.
He did not look away, although he did turn his attention back to sipping his tea instead of staring down John.
"All this time, everyone's been ribbing on you about your sex life. Irene Adler, even your brother, so why-"
Sherlock shrugged. "I'm used to it." This time, he did turn away, taking his tea back to the sitting room. He was used to it, used to it since before sixth form, if he were being honest.
John was right; Sherlock was infinitely curious and when people started exhibiting those signs of sexual attraction and the events that followed it, he'd been curious. He had done his experiments. One had been boring all the way around; the other he had established some sort of rapport with his partner and perhaps they had kept it up for awhile before Sherlock had discovered why he just didn't care. He didn't feel the same things. He had no interest in sex, and that had been the end of it. None of his experiments had ever gone awry, which, he supposed, he ought to have been thankful for.
"That's not a good excuse," John said, following him. "Why didn't you just tell us all to piss off?"
Sherlock shrugged. "Because I don't care what people label me as." Simple as that, what people said didn't-
"Oh, cut the crap. You know as well as I that's not true," John interrupted. "Don't think I haven't seen the faces you make when people talk about you sometimes."
Sherlock stopped with his tea halfway to his lips. Faces? He made faces? "I don't know what you're talking about."
"Yeah right." John sighed. "So. Um. Uh, sorry, for... you know." He pressed his fingertips into his palms and threw himself into his chair. "Well, I've been a right git."
Sherlock shrugged a little. "I never told you, how were you supposed to know?"
"Thinking back, that first conversation at Angelo's might have been a big enough hint."
The conversation at Angelo's? Sherlock didn't remember exactly what he'd said. Only just that he had taken John's interest in his life as flirting, and besides that, it was a bit of a frazzled mess. He'd been on a case, the only thing he'd cared about at the time.
He hummed noncommentally. "Besides," he added, "there seems to be a large percentage of people who think asexuality is invalid and imaginary. It's less tedious to try and explain if I don't bother mentioning."
"A large percentage of people are stupid and annoying."
Sherlock smirked into his mug. "True."
John shook his head slightly and sank onto the sofa next to Sherlock. "Everyone's valid. Doesn't matter their sexuality. Everyone's valid, and important, and if they opened their eyes to that, they'd realise that people definitely aren't as broken as the world seems to think."
Sherlock's mug shook slightly. He blinked and tightened his grip around it, and set it aside when that didn't help.
Broken.
Sherlock hated that word, in every way, shape, or form.
"- plenty of other things to be worrying on about... oi! Am I just talking to myself here?"
Sherlock swung his gaze back around to John. "I'm listening."
"You're always listening, but that doesn't mean you're hearing me."
Sherlock cracked a smile. "Yes... I do seem to do that sometimes, don't I?"
"Sometimes?"
Well, enough of that conversation. "Hmmm." Sherlock hauled his feet off the floor and stretched out on the couch, sliding down against the armrest.
"Get- Sherlock!" John swatted at his feet. "Off, now."
"Tired," Sherlock said.
"Then go to bed!"
"Don't want to."
"You just said you were tired!"
"Shhh." Sherlock wiggled his toes beneath John's leg.
"Sherlock, you prat! I am not your bloody foot warmer!"
"Your silly drama's about to come on," Sherlock pointed out, nodding at the television.
"Oh, damn!"
Sherlock smiled to himself, grabbing at the pillow to shove under his head. That had gone far better than he anticipated. Not that he expected anything... considering it was John... but still. The fact that John may have reacted poorly... no, no.
He wasn't dwelling there.
He turned his attention away from John and to the TV as well, and there were no other tedious conversations the rest of the night (only tedious television that Sherlock secretly adored).
A/N: I was re-watching TAB while I wrote this, so excuse typos if there are any. Somehow, it again didn't turn out as well as I wanted, despite the fact that I watch the greenhouse scene (and giggle) but sit there thinking asexual Sherlock asexual Sherlock! over and over in my head. In my 'verse, asexual as though he may be, he's still completely insecure about it all; hopefully that came across well enough.
(Also invisible army because asexuality seems to be part of the 'invisible' sexualities, army because... because, well I should have something clever but it was a TAB reference so I went with it, ahaha~)
I do not own Sherlock. Thanks for reading!