BBCSH 'Home Invasion'
Author: tigersilver
Pairing: S/J
Rating: NC-17 (barely)
Word Count: 7,800
Warnings/Summary: AU. Featuring Harry-the House Guest in all her glory and Sherlock, wibbiing a bit and quite OOC, I think. Oh, and the Minor Mystery of the Disappearing Doctor. Nothing but a bit of fun-and-fluff, this one. Not beta'd, sorry.
Monday
"Harry's coming to stay," John Watson announces, just a tad belligerently. Sherlock looks up from his laptop, blinks and parts his lips. He presses his arse deeply into the sofa cushions, feeling vaguely threatened. "This evening."
"Hmm," he mutters nasally, pressing parted lips tight together instead of spewing out the venomous displeasure he always has at the ready when the subject of John's sister arises. "Ngh." He'd suspected something was in the wind, as John had been trotting out at all hours to Harry's—and also Clara's—and had seemed distracted lately. But he'd not being paying much attention. Other items were of far greater interest. "Updating her flat, then?"
"Yes," John barks the single syllable. He scowls, rustling his paper. "For a few days. Problem?"
"…No," Sherlock comes back to it, reluctantly, for once considering someone else first. John first, specifically, because, well, John is saddled with his hellion of a sister for life through no fault of his own and it's also really no fault of John's that his blasted parents didn't simply spawn him first and foremost and bugger the spare. It's but a cruel fate and an accident of sibling birth order, as is Mycroft's whole existence on the planet. "I suppose not."
"Good. Super."
That settled satisfactorily, Sherlock feels quite superior in his artful benefice for a brief moment. Then it strikes him. "Where's she bunking, John? Because it won't be my room and in here is out of the question—my exper-"
"My room, naturally." John sends him a level look, one that brooks no back-talk. Actually no talk at all, of any kind. Certainly not discussion. "And I'll be in with you; where else?"
"Ah," Sherlock vouchsafes carefully and rather pointedly returns his attention to fiddling with his site. His flatmate's in a right strop. Better not, then. "Right, right. Naturally."
Bugger this for a lark.
He would very much like to throw a royal tizzy, to scream and shout that John should not have allowed this to happen—having Harry invade their flat. Not for one minute, much less an indeterminate amount of hours or days. She's as stubborn (no, call a spade a spade; mule-headed) as John and she's much the louder and more boisterous of the two, with none of John's natural calming reticence. And she—and Clara—are nothing if not a volatile couple, running on and off, hot and cold, sour-sweet as they do. The entire duration of the dreaded visit is likely to be fraught with blitzes of emotional mania coming from all corners and Sherlock is not best pleased.
But John. John is clearly geared up for a knock-down-drag-out, should Sherlock object. Sherlock peeps at him furtively and bites his tongue very hard, till he can taste copper. Unpleasant but effective. He'd rather not bicker with John at the moment.
In fact, he'd go to great lengths to avoid confrontation. He has a rather delicate agenda of his own to advance when it comes to one John Watson.
On the plus side, that agenda can finally be put into place tomorrow.
Tuesday
The unctuous Harry had breezed in horribly late—near eleven—and had taken over John's bedroom as if she owned it; Sherlock rather admired her calm efficiency even as he despised her intrusion into his sacred spaces. She'd brought several suitcases with her, currently strewn all over the newly polished treads of the upper stairwell, and a large lot of Tesco bags, filled to the brim.
Sherlock deduces what's happened next from a position of relative safety: his bed.
She's cleaned the kitchen overnight, scrubbed the tub out and hoovered all the floors. The tile in the kitchen practically squeaks, it's so shiny. The entire flat reeks heavily of disinfectant.
John and Sherlock, faced with a glittering-eyed female in high dudgeon over 'something' no man in his right mind dared broach, had retreated strategically to Sherlock's room at a quarter to one in the morning, tails tucked between hind legs proverbially. Had stayed there meek as wee little mice, clambering aboard Sherlock's extra-large mattress in a matter of yawning moments shortly thereafter, and, though John did eventually sleep for a few restless hours, Sherlock of course hasn't.
He's tetchy, naturally. Not that he minds the sleep-dep but it is a matter of principle. Isn't it? He broods.
"Breakfast!" Harry bellows at eight o'clock sharp, an ungodly hour if ever there was one. Sherlock jumps straight up from the lazy sprawling horizontal, startled as fuck-what?, and nearly achieves a handhold on the high plastered, rosette-embossed ceiling. John merely grunts and rolls over, stealing all the available upper layer of bedding in one fell swoop.
"Hey!" Sherlock yelps, abruptly chilly. "John."
"BREAKFAST!"
"Wake up, John!" he hisses as he scrambles across the denuded bed, poking John hard in the uninjured shoulder once his heart rate's settled down again in a beat less frightening. Harry is the one who's sodding frightening, actually, and if he didn't absolutely have to cope with this home invasion, he wouldn't. He'd have her arrested instantly, for disrupting the peace. "John! It's your horrible sister! Wake the hell up before I call down Lestrade on her!"
John grumbles with inchoate displeasure and rolls out of his side of the bed instantly alert. "Bloody Harry," he mutters and stomps off to the toilet, snatching up Sherlock's robe on the way. "Hate her."
"Grr."
Sherlock scowls blackly after his mate's departure—especially the irritable bang of the door, a nice loud thump—and cowers down into the rucked-about bedding. He'll not be showing his nose until he absolutely must…and mayhap not then. Thank Christ he's his reference materials, his mobile, John's mobile, both laptops and all his half-thru' experiments safely boxed up and removed to his spacious room; he'd be livid if he had to face the destruction Harry has wrought upon their bachelor comfort first thing in the sodding morning. He's livid already and there he'd been enjoying a rather nice manly afterglow; pity, that.
Bother Harry for going and ruining it, the cunt.
"Me. Too."
He feels ridiculously spiteful. Worse yet, he can't bear to envision of the state of the fridge; must be appalling empty. All his nice bodily bits, given over by Molly, and now all likely thawing in the rubbish, oh my. He'd winced when he'd overhead the sound of the bin liner being replaced at four a.m. but he'd been a bit preoccupied at the time and not had a clear-cut chance to go on the warpath as he should've.
"So much. Dear god, paint faster, you wankers," he commands the absent workmen who'd better be nearly finished at Harry's flat. "I want my life back, thank you."
"…And my flat."
The woman's a menace. He pities John, he really does. Mycroft, even being utterly evil, would never, ever dare impose himself upon his younger brother in this manner. Mycroft would die first; no. He'd invade Switzerland and live there, in smug splendour.
It is seldom Sherlock appreciates his elder sibling; that he does at this crucial moment when John's just abandoned him for scrambled and coffee made by Harry only further infuriates him.
"Boring!"
Wednesday
Harry and Clara are plopped square on Sherlock's settee, telly on low volume and heads poked close together. John is nowhere in sight and hasn't been since the crack of dawn. Sherlock seems to vaguely recall his flatmate's muttering something about being signed up for every available shift this week in a valiant effort to steer clear of 221B. And extra shifts on A&E. He only wishes St Bart's could stand his presence at all hours without protest; he'd vacate in a shot if he'd his druthers.
But he can't. Someone has to stand guard against this massive womanly incursion. There's a pot of potpourri on the mantle now and he can't find his jackknife. The cabinets have been ruthlessly tidied and even Mrs Hudson has been sucked in to the equation, seducing into scrubbing and rubbing, dusting and the like. In fact, Sherlock nearly fell over her earlier, wafting airily at the cornices and the crown moulding with a feathery confection on a long stick and warbling happily to herself as she did so.
It was a Vera Lynne melody. Sherlock shudders; he believes he has begun to truly despise the smell of lemon oil and paste wax. He knows he despises aging singers of popular tunes.
"How long?" he demands, circling the nesting pair like a wary gazelle sharing a waterhole with two hungry cheetahs. "Till the workman are finished in your flat, Harry?"
He addresses her as 'Harry' only because she insisted and John backed her up, the little sod. The things he does for that man, oh! He could write a treatise…but he doesn't. No point.
Ergo, he is as civil as he possibly can be, asking. He's made it a goal to make a sort of peace with Harry, as it's become clearer to him John has no real intention of truly ousting his sister from his life. Clara—the ex and probably also the newly intended, judging by the way her skirt's up her thigh—eyes him warily in return; likely John's gone carrying tales to his sister and her ex of Sherlock's uneven temper.
"Harry," he repeats, tapping a well-shod foot.
Harry snorts as she rips her lovely and very familiar dark blue-eyed gaze reluctantly away from her flushing pink-toned light o' love and glares up across the room at him, not bothering to rise or leave go of Clara's waist.
"Three more days, mate. Can you bear it?" Her tone indicates that he'd better, if he knows what's good for him. It also indicates she's not his 'mate' and never will be. "Hope so."
Clearly she doesn't. She hopes he'll turn tail and leave them to it. Sherlock frowns severely at both of them, somewhat flummoxed.
"Three days?" He hates repeating himself but this is a situation that demands it, sadly.
Clara smiles at him rather tremulously.
"Yes, sorry," she says. He snaps his teeth at her.
"Oh!" she gasps and Harry has the temerity to actually snarl at him.
"That long?"
He stomps down the incipient puerile whinge rising up his throat only with great effort. Three days is bloody nigh on eternity. He wants his house back. He wants John situated in the newly reupholstered wingback chair (so that was what they'd been up to this morning? Or was it last night? He only knew there'd been twittering and the rustling of fabric; bah!) where he should be. And he desperately wants the smell of bleach to leave go the hairs of his sensitive nostrils. How normal people can function this way, he simply can't comprehend. Don't they ever become tired?
"Why so long? It's only a paint-and-paper job, surely? John said-"
"Wiring issues," Harry grins evilly. "Didn't expect them. Rotten luck, what?"
"Yes, rotten." Clara nods and ventures to address Sherlock directly once more. Her voice is soft and sweet and quite attractive.
"They discovered it when they took down the switch plates, don't you know?" She flutters her fingernails, as if of course Sherlock is cognizant of wiring in walls and especially of the wiring in Harry's walls and what a mess it must be. He's not, but not because he couldn't be if he chose—because he doesn't care to. "Now poor Harry's forced to budget in an electrician. It's such a pain."
"I see."
Sherlock briefly-very briefly—contemplates texting his elder brother right that moment. But no; Mycroft wouldn't thank him, not that he cares for that so much. It's just he's a future request for Mycroft, a favour he needs, a little something from the family strongbox to present to John, and he's not calling in any markers till he absolutely must. And he can't afford legwork, not now. With John not here in situ, someone has step up and man the manly battlements.
"Hmm."
That the battlements have effectively shrunk down to encompass only his private sleep space are immaterial. He will guard them, damn it, with his very sanity if necessary.
Why? He imagines a concerned or frankly curious observer asking—perhaps Lestrade, who is generally only a step above useless. It's bloody obvious, isn't it? he'd state. He has plans for John and he simply won't have them upset at this late date, not even by John's devil of a sister. Specially not by John's devil of a sister, the tw—
"Bugger off, then, if you're going," Harry smirks at him, flapping a careless hand at the door. Her manicure's perfect; she wears gloves when she's tidying. "Laters, genius. Run along now."
"Oh, I shall, believe me."
He huffs discontentedly at Harry's barely disguised expression of evil glee; who does she think she's fooling, anyway? But the fleeting image of Lestrade is actually a good one.
He dons his coat in a hurry, as if he meant to do that all along. Which he may have done; he's not certain now. However, Harry's urging him out the door's not a half-bad idea. In actuality he can guard the flat's battlements just as well from a distance as he can up close; indeed he may as well—as it's rather plain he's not making much headway in uprooting Harry no matter how hard he glares nor how long he sulks.
He spares a brief stab of envy for John, who at least has a valid, manly excuse to flee. Sometimes it's a royal pain being self-employed.
"Have a sodding brilliant day, then," he grits, "ladies," and bolts off down the steps to freedom.
Thursday
"Sherlock," Harry demands the next morning, again at the ungodly hour of eight, banging on Sherlock's bedroom door with a fist of steel, "get your airy-fairy arse out here, you wanker. Where is my brother? Tell me!"
"Ah."
Sherlock is beginning the think the flat's haunted—by the ghost of John Watson. Day in, day out, he's not there, corporeally. He's at his locum job, doctoring the wayward and the useless. And then he's on shift at St. Bart's A&E, where Sherlock tracked him down just last evening out of needy desperation. Where ever he is, though he's not 'at home', not as he should be, not as is required for Sherlock's personal comfort. It's buggering irritating to have to go forth and chase the man down when he requires to see him—John's cell is turned off in St. Bart's-and it has Sherlock in furious fits, internally. There's only one redeeming feature to this catastrophe in the form of a militant female Watson that had befallen his house—only one. Single. Benefit.
"As to that—"
Because when John is home, he's in bed with Sherlock. By which Sherlock means they're fucking.
Friday
"Aha! There you are, you sly bastard! Come out to finally face the music, then?"
Harry and Clara are canoodling on the couch again. It's abysmal, really, but Sherlock bites his tongue (it hurts from all the biting he's been subjecting it to recently) and swishes toward the door. He's propelled by a great sense of urgency. His temper is very thin indeed and he simply must retain control of it—for John's sake.
And his own. Because, do recall, he does have a delicate Plan in the works. Working, actually. He's focussed entirely on the excellence of his Plan as Harry bellows:
"Hold up, boyo." Harry's stentorian tone could call the cows down from Skye. "Not so damned fast."
"What?"
Sherlock halts, fumes, fists a hand. Spins to face them and averts his eyes immediately.
"Whatever d'you want now, Harry?" He pauses, remembers his manners, drilled in by Mummy. "Er. Good morning, Clara."
There's something about the familiarity of Watson features in a face that is not John's that somehow…hurts. He wants John here of a brilliant sunny October morning, not Harriet. Harriet is never good enough. It's always been in the dark, in the night, and he's still (horribly) unsure. He doesn't know if John's only sharing sexual favours because there is no other option. Because John's a physical man and he fancies himself a physically-minded lover, one with like appetites and limbre. Because he's willing as fuck and has expressed himself willing as fuck, and he's right there, convenient, in the place in which John is currently camping out. Or if it's some other motive John has, for better or worse, and he's not reading it properly because it isn't his area.
"My brother," Harry begins, ominously, beetling blonde brows at him. "My brother, he's—"
Sherlock flinches; yes, alright, her brother. His lover. His sometime lover? His…?
"My brother is where, exactly? Because I've not seen hide nor hair of him since I arrived here, Sherlock, not to speak to, really, not to share a meal with, nor to chat, and if I find he's avoiding me because of your skinny arse, you scheming little wart, I'll not be a very happy chickie."
"Pardon?" Sherlock's not listening. It's much better for his fragile state if he doesn't, he finds. "So sorry—already late, you know. Must run. Expected."
He shrugs, buttoning up his coat as fast as he can one-handed, the doorknob twisting in the other.
"Sherlock Holmes." She sneers it, the name; Sherlock pays no heed. Really, he needs to go—now.
He's almost made it out the door. His escape hatch looms blessedly before him—when he's struck by an additional notion. A rotter of a notion, it knocks the breath fair from him, makes him gasp at the blank panels of wood between him and blissful escape from his compromised flat.
"Oh, no, you don't!" Harry rises aggressively, Clara twittering behind her. "Stop right there, brain bags, and answer my question. Where. Is. John?"
What if this is only special circumstances? A John who was home at the flat—at the normal flat, sans nasty sibling—would likely say exactly what was what and no fibbing…and clear up this particular query as to his motivations for shagging Sherlock. Or at least be deducible.
"What have you done with him, git?" Harry accuses, her blue eyes stormy as the North Sea. "Scared him off for good?"
"Hardly!" Sherlock snaps, because he hasn't. He hasn't.
"He's gone, isn't he?" Harry sneers. "He's—he's hiding! You must have something to do with it; you're the only one who's even seen him to talk to! So…what did you do, boyo? Fess up."
"Why must you blame me for that?" Sherlock counters snippily, because, really, why? "Why would I know, for fuck's sake?" It's not Sherlock who's responsible for this upheaval at 221B, it's Harry. All Harry. "Look to yourself, you bit—Harry. It's not- I'm not the one who's forced him out of his own home and onto the streets." The only relief is when she toddles off to her job, when she ever consents to. "This situation is all on you, Harry Watson. John would be here where he belongs if it weren't for you."
"But that's not true," Clara's voice is soft but it's adamant. "Sherlock." She shakes her head and Harry nods along with her, agreeing with Clara fatuously before she even goes on to say aloud whatever maggot's stuck in her tiny brain. "It isn't. John's been to Harry's and to mine a lot recently. I mean, dinner. We've done dinner and watched—well, you hardly care about that, but. It's. We're…we've all been rubbing along just fine, Mr. Holmes. In fact, he's taken a huge interest in helping Harry here with her flat, really stepped up to the mark, just like a real brother would, so…I don't know why you'd ever insinuate he's avoiding us. He's not."
"No," Harry agrees, smug as cheese. "He's not. All sorted."
"Well, it can't be me!" Sherlock stops his string at the door and shoots his other arch-nemesis a nasty look. "He likes me! He's quite fo—he's not unhappy with me, alright? That's not on, is It then? Try again, yeah? And you're both drop-dead wrong, aren't you? Did you even know?"
Wait…can it? Might it? It's possible, he supposes. But…he'll save that line of enquiry for another time, when he can think. Because here—he can't. No one can; the odour of bleach is just too overpowering.
"To wit, it's not as though he's never here at all," Sherlock babbles on in an effort to spike Harry's guns. He just know she's something smart to say; that expression's a dead giveaway. Whatever it is poised behind her lips, it must be boring—boring! And he doesn't want to hear, no. "He sleeps here, doesn't he? Every night—with me, thank you. And thank you again, but I can't be bothered to track him down for you at this very moment. I'm busy, Harry. I've a—a case. NSY needs me. You want to know where he is any given minute, you keep tabs on him. The man's at work; go harass his arse him there."
"Like you do, Sherlock? Hmm. Well."
Harry presents him with a leveling stare that is definitely pity. Not sympathy, just pity. Sherlock scowls, dark as thunder.
"John's not at work, Sherlock," Harry continues, light as she pleases. "I can't believe you fell for that. He's lying through his teeth if he's told you that rot; I know my Johnny."
"He's absolutely at work, you stupid bint!" Sherlock is highly insulted. "He had his kit with him this morning; he's gone to the clinic. He'll catch the 3:22 tube and go to St Barts after, arriving at four p.m.; he's taken along his hospital ID badge in his pocket—I saw the bulge!"
"So—"
"I'm not one to miss details, may I remind you?" Sherlock tacks on snarkily. "Who's the consulting detective in this room, exactly?"
"So you say."
"Er...Harry?"
"Hush, love." Clara's hand is gently patted by a soliticious Watson; Sherlock sneers as evilly as he can manage. Soppy twits! "Let me handle this."
"Don't bother."
Harry snorts at Sherlock's raised chin, stepping back a pace. Clara falls silent, watching them both with eyes wide and worried.
"Well, okay," she allows, and flings two hands wide apart, in a mock-expression of acceptance, "he is at work now, yes, but he's not always at work, Sherlock. That's all I'm saying, so draw your own conclusions, won't you?"
"Exc—"
"Have you even thought about where else he might go?" Harry's voice overrules him neatly. Sherlock snaps his canines at her in temper. "Because he's not always where you think he is, boyo." She's mocking like all the bullies there ever were in a long ago schoolyard and Sherlock vaguely notes Clara pinching her arm in repeated warning; Harry only shushes her and shrugs it off. "He's often somewhere else entirely. And you don't know."
"Pardon?"
Sherlock stomps down the brilliant, blinding surge of nameless jealousy the same way he obliterates self-doubt: firmly, sadistically. He can't afford to spare needless feeling on a premise that's utterly ridiculous. Of course, it's as if these two horrendous women know a secret he doesn't and that drives him mad. They don't. They can not know anything he doesn't know first.
"Oh, never mind. I've no time for this."
It's inconceivable!
"Really, now?"
Besides, there's no way he's mistaken about John's whereabouts. He can spot—and smell—signs of the clinic and St. Barts in his sleep he's so well accustomed to them. That's where John's been all this time; that is where John will be. The only other places John would go would be the corner store, the Tesco's several blocks away, the park for a constitutional or the pub. Sherlock accompanies him every other place they frequent. And he's not been to any of those places on solo recently; he's been working too late to bother.
"I've no idea what you're implying, Harry, but whatever it is, that is not John," Sherlock's convinced. "John's at least honest. He doesn't lie."
Harry's lying; she must be.
"Now, I really must go."
"Just think about it, Sherlock-Sodding-Holmes."
He passes it off—the whole pointless brangle—with a wave of a pale hand, turning back to the on-latch door of the flat.
"Nonsense," he throws over his shoulder repressively, simultaneously opening it and twisting his scarf in an approximation of his usual style. "Utter bosh. Nothing to think of. You've no idea what you're talking about, Harry. John does not lie. Fact. And—if you're quite, quite finished, then?" He curls a superior lip at her. "Some of us don't have time to waste, lolling around other people's living rooms, leaving nasty stains on the cushions as if they own them. At least clean them whilst you're tidying everything else into oblivion, will you? Good day."
He clatters down the stairwell loudly and triumphantly, making certain to slam both doors, and hails a cab. He's had the last word, hasn't he? And against a rude Valkyrie, no less.
…John wouldn't dare try to hide things from him….would he? John is where he's supposed to be, every time.
John couldn't hide things from him! Not possible! He'd know in an instant; he's the detective, as he's just taken pains to remind the contrary, deceptive, conniving, lying females cluttering up his flat.
Buoyed up by his renewed certainty, Sherlock goes off to NSY, primed for a morning of nagging after Lestrade for a go at the archives. He doesn't have a case, no, but he soon will.
Saturday
"One more day," John sighs, staring blankly at the crack in Sherlock's ornate ceiling. He blinks and rubs his eyes tiredly. "Think on it, mate—one more day and we're home free."
"Where have you been going, John?"
Sherlock's not one for bushes, nor beating around them. He could—should he choose to—sort this out without ever asking, but it's ever so much better if John wants to tell him.
"Mrs Hudson's," John replies promptly, rolling over. "Why?"
Mrs Hudson's—of course! It's always something. Sherlock roll his eyes dramatically.
"Your sister," and now Sherlock's speaking through his clenched teeth and jaw and feeling quite, quite murderous toward one Harry Watson, unwanted house guest, "is trying to imply you are," he gulps, blinks and steels his nerve, "unfaithful."
"Hah!" John explodes into giggles, the infectious sort that Sherlock would dearly love to share. But…
"Why are you hiding down at Mrs Hudson's?" he demands, likewise rolling over. "John, why go there, for god's sake? She's—she's not our housekeeper!" He extends a hand out to grasp John's good shoulder and attempts to look fairly pathetic...or at least winsome. It's a tactic that's worked well before. "And why didn't you invite me along?"
Because that's the crux of the matter, really. John had an excellent bolt-hole lined up all along and he's neglected to tell Sherlock his intentions from the start. It's rather…well, it pangs, just a bit. Did John…has John wanted so much to be without him? Has John…had enough? They've only barely begun.
Sherlock looks winsome and pathetic for real, as he's feeling that way and there's no reason John shouldn't know it. His feelings—he despises them, but they are, rearing their ugly heads—are deeply bruised.
"I'm sorry, love," John says immediately and gathers his gangly boy—boy?— man friend (Sherlock shudders internally; 'boyfriend's such a mundane boring descriptor; he prefers a word more…exciting. 'Lover', maybe? No….'mate', like in the documentaries they watch. John's mate; that's what he'll be, for ever after) into his arms. "Didn't mean to leave you out in the cold, Sherlock. It was just. I mean, I didn't want Harry to—and then there's you, Sherlock, and I could just see it coming—like a speeding lorry, straight at me."
"What, John?" Sherlock scowls, but he doesn't move away. "What was coming?" In fact he slides neatly into John's side, fitting himself to the juts and curves and the overly-poky elbows John never knows quite what to do with when they lie on their sides, facing each other full on. "What about Harry? Other than she needs to leave our flat, posthaste, and fuck knows if she doesn't I'm texting my brother. He'll sort her out in a trice and I won't even mind paying the price for—"
"Oh, bosh! Sherlock!" John's mock-appalled. "For chrissake! She's off out tomorrow, first thing; has sworn to go, actually." He blinks across at Sherlock, settling his bad shoulder into the shared pillows. "She and Clara...well, they've come to some agreement, you know how people do."
"I don't," Sherlock reminds him. "I really don't."
"The two flats thing, the divorce, yeah," John's burbling along, like the kettle. "It's just not working out. Never really did, all this time."
"Not working out?" Sherlock's puzzled, honestly, but then the love affairs of boring mortals are ofttimes puzzling to him. Not that he cares. "How so? It's a divorce, John. It's already been worked out—via court writ! They've separated permanently—they're no longer a pair. It's hardly a matter one can just simply not bother wi—"
"No, no," John shakes his head and drops a fond kiss on Sherlock's crinkled brow in passing. "They've decided it wasn't working for them, the divorce thing. They're practically living together again anyway; have been for months now, so—well, Clara's offered Harry to come to hers. To stay. Tomorrow," he nods thankfully, rolling his eyes up at presumably a beneficent invisible god floating somewhere above Sherlock's bedroom ceiling. "Tomorrow our flat's ours again—finally."
"Oh, thank fuck," Sherlock breathes, twitching as John runs a soothing palm down his ribcage. He nestles closer; he can never seem to be close enough to satisfy. "Thank bloody fuck. Couldn't bear it a day longer, John, not if you paid me."
"Oh, poor baby," John coos, drawing back enough to twinkle at Sherlock, which instantly makes him scowl in irritation. "Harry been on your case, love?"
"Humph!" Sherlock flares his patrician nostrils in a fine display of thoroughbred temperament. "As if I care ought for what she said, John! Woman's an outright, in-your-face, blatant cow; a bi—"
"My sister," John interjects both swiftly and sternly. "Is indeed…difficult. But, Sherlock?"
"Hmm? What is it, John?"
"Haven't we rather talked enough about my sister?" John says winningly. "Mayn't we concentrate on something…else?"
"Ah…yes?" Sherlock's fairly sure that is the correct answer. "Yes." As John is smiling widely at him, his confidence grows. "And?" he adds, impatient. "What is it? You have one, right?"
"And?" John echoes.
"Your point?"
"Well," John ducks his chin and tucks his head neatly, so he's nestled under Sherlock's jaw and Sherlock loses all chance of seeing his expression. "You had, I believe, something to say to me."
"I did?" Sherlock replies, blankly. Er, what? What had he missed? What's John expecting of him now? He has a Plan but that's not what…"What're you talking about, John?"
"Sherlock, fine," John replies patiently, tightening his lips, "yes, alright. Let's review."
"Review," Sherlock blinks, completely at sea. "Yes. Alright."
"Monday? Monday, you shagged me. Right?"
Light begins to dawn.
"Right," Sherlock replies rapidly, his eyes going three shades lighter in budding excitement. "And Tuesday you shagged me."
"Exactly," John grins. "On Wednesday—"
"We practiced that position you insisted on referring to as 'sixty-nine'," Sherlock interposes severely, like the ascetic he pretends he is, sometimes, "and which is actually a pleasant form of mutual fellation. I recall I enjoyed the episode very much."
"Right-ho," John's looking quite chuffed. "You definitely did. On Thursday, then, we—"
"Shagged each other," Sherlock blurts out, glad to know the correct response. "Twice, in quick succession. At one and then at quarter till two. And then your damnable cunt of a sister—"
"Harry insisted on having our sheets right out from under us to wash them, right," John nods. "Said we were noisy animals, with no good sense and less aspirations—"
"To cleanliness!" Sherlock crowed, delighted. "It's not true," he added earnestly. "We both washed our hands, John, before. And showered."
"Yep," John nods happily. "That was the blowjob I gave you, after. Very sanitary. And then yesterday—"
"I fucked you again and we banged the headboard up against the wall—there's a mark, John, see, just there?" He points proudly. "And then your damnable cow of a—"
"My sister," John says swiftly, "banged on the wall again and shrieked at us to stop breaking the furniture at all hours of the day and night—"
"Which is hardly fair and not at all correct, as you've not been here during the day, John, as you've been—" Sherlock gulps and returns to the kicked-puppy dog look—"gone."
"Right," John agrees firmly. "And, Sherlock, you know why?"
"NO!" Sherlock wails, "and I don't understand it at all!" And promptly buries his head into John's neck. He huffs, which tickles, and John refrains from laughing for fear of damaging Sherlock's fragile feelings. "Why would leave me alone with her, John? Have you no pity?"
"Sherlock?" his lover of one lone week prods carefully, after a long moment. "Are you—did you—have I upset you?"
"Well…yes," Sherlock mumbles. "You have." He'd thought his Plan was proceeding apace. That John… John was. "Rather."
"I'm sorry," John cuddles him, which is no mean feat. "So sorry, but—"
"But?"
"I had to, to save my sanity, and because I couldn't stand it, seeing her here, even though I said she could. It's ours, this flat, Sherlock, and she doesn't belong."
"Damn right."
"Harry's very possessive, Sherlock, and then so are you, and the two of you—well. I didn't want to be stuck in the middle so I thought it best to get straight out. You know?"
"You left me."
"Not really," John grins. "I was just down the steps, all along. Which you'd have known, if you'd thought—"
"I couldn't think, alright?" Sherlock howls, rolling over abruptly to stare anywhere but at John. "I could not think! The bleach and the lemon and the hoovering and the—John, how you could?"
"Sherl—"
In for a pence, then in for a pound, what? Sherlock's feeling mildly fatalistic.
"Look, John," he insists, rolling back over, reaching out. "John, look—see, please. I was thinking only about you, alright? When you were here, with me, it was all you. John Watson, in my room, in my bed—mine. And I—I. I was happy, bound up in that. When you weren't, it was all rather blank and buzzy, like I was having a bad dream; Harry was the nightmare I couldn't wake from, and I couldn't wait to leave and go—go anywhere at all, because you weren't here. Where you're supposed to be—with me. Here, John. Do you see?"
"Like I said," John grins, "didn't you have something to speak to me about, earlier?"
Sherlock decides he's in for a boatload of Euros, the way it's going; he'll be like Greece next. He rolls fully atop John despite that and smashes him into the mattress, sending up a miasma of lemon-freshened Tide and lavender-scented fabric softener.
"Make it official, then," he bites out, beyond irritated. "Tomorrow, eight sharp. They can be witnesses; I don't care. But make it so, John. And don't ever lie to me again, not even by omission. You know what you do to my head."
Sunday
"Is it even open, on a Sunday?" John asks in the cab they're all squashed into. "The Home Office? I mean—"
"Well, duh," Harry snaps snarkily, tossing her coiffure and bathing them all in a cloud of hairspray. "Sherlock's brother's the government, isn't he? Of course it's open, twat—for him. Must be nice."
"Now, Harry—" Clara pats her. "It's their special day."
"Do shut it, please," Sherlock retains his thinned out patience, but barely. "Both of you." He's fumbling for the special license and poking John with very sharp elbows all the while. "Fuck! I can't find it—John?"
"Have it," John pats his breast pocket, very natty in a suit Harry handed over first thing n the morning, when he was stumbling off to the lav. "Right here. Calm down, Sherlock. It's alright, really. Just breathe."
"Brilliant," Sherlock leans forward and raps the partition peremptorily. "Cabbie!" The cabbie glances over his shoulder and ceases his annoying off-key whistling of 'I'm Getting Married In the Morning'. Sherlock scowls at him, feeling murderous. "Go faster, man. It's a clear shot to the Home Office from here—it's bloody Sunday! Sunday!"
"Steady on, Sherlock," John leans into him, using his elbow and upper arm to pointedly nudge his seatmate back against the filthy squabs. "He can't go any faster than he already is, can he?"
"He's just not trying, John," Sherlock mutters discontentedly. "For god's sake, we could run there faster!"
"There's rings, too?" At the registrar's office, staring at his newly bedecked finger, John has that same tone of disbelief in his voice as he had earlier. Sherlock frowns again, though he's much more in charity with the universe presently.
"Of course there's rings. Mycroft brought them; they're very old."
"Oh," John says. Grins wide as a plaster garden gnome and presses an impulsive buss into Sherlock's very closely-shaven cheek. "That's nice."
"I rather thought you might appreciate it," Sherlock replies ever so suavely, bridling a bit, as befits a genius at the top of his game —an act completely ruined when John hurls his person forward a few inches and wraps his arms round Sherlock's neck, hauling his supercilious smirk downward so he can smash it into oblivion with his lusty tongue. "Oh-ah, Jo—John!"
"Yes." A long moment later it's obvious to all with eyes in their heads—that would be Lestrade, Mrs Hudson, Mycroft, Anthea (not), Harry and Clara-John's got smug sorted; he's a genuine Holmes, down to the bone. "Oh…yesss. That I do, love."
"Gngh!" Sherlock's knees threaten to buckle. He staggers a bit, as if buffeted by a perilous gale.
John may or may not lean back and away from Sherlock's convulsive hold and indulge in a bit of a juvenile fist-pump; Sherlock doesn't observe as closely as he should. He's preoccupied, just a bit. The fit of his trousers is well on its way to ruination.
"John. John-John-John!"
He flushes hotly, all over; he's trembling in reaction and there's a chemical riot run amuck in his veins.
"John, may we please, please leave now?" he begs harshly, enfolding his new official civil partner close and closer and muttering into his shell-like but very manly ear. As with everything else about John Holmes-Watson, it excites him unbearably, the ear. "Because I want to shag you, John. I want to drill your luscious little arse right through that wall over there with my cock, John; right this moment I want to, and I'll do it, too, if we don't hurry this bleeding business the bloody hell up and shift our arses out of this mausoleum!"
"Oh…my," Mrs Hudson, who has the sharp ears of a sugar glider and a vastly sentimental nature, fans herself with the fringe of her Liberty-print scarf, colour staining her wrinkled cheeks. "Oh, my boys, my dear sweet boys! How adorable!"
"Lamentably so, Madam," Mycroft agrees softly.
"Hah!" Harry snorts. Clara pinches her wrist sharply.
"Hush, Harry!"
"Oh, you idiot." John grins. Devilishly.
"I'm' not an id—!"
John promptly stifles Sherlock's fidgets by kissing him again. Mycroft looks away, pointedly. Toward Anthea (not; today she's Olivia), who is hovering near the doorway and who presumably is busily texting a last-moment rearrangement of the newlywed's train reservations, moving them up by an hour or more in an effort to keep her bosses' manky little brother happy and off the high-vaulted ceiling. DI Lestrade meanwhile clears his throat loudly and promptly engages Clara in some sort of meaningless pleasantries.
The registrar scuttles away to file the paperwork.
And Harry Watson snickers into the fist that clutches her de rigour wedding handkerchief, somewhat meanly withal.
Monday (the following)
"Honeymoon phase, is it?"
"No. More a holiday, long delayed. Honeymoons are so…bourgeoisie, John."
The seaside, In October, is a bit nippy but very picaresque, all the same. Pity they'd never see much more of it than the interior of bed-and-breakfast suite at The Claremont Mycroft has engaged for them and then perhaps a local tavern or two, later on. The Blind Buskar, perhaps, Sherlock muses, ironically amused and feeling quite at peace with the world as he Googles the local sites of interest for Brighton, Hove and surrounds. It's a purely intellectual exercise, really—they're not setting a foot outside their rooms for at least the next twenty-four hours.
He does wonder if the Buskar does carry-away, though? John might be hungry; certainly even Sherlock felt a small pang earlier in his abdominal area, though that could've been simply his poor spent bollocks grumbling for hydration. They've been on extended overtime since the day before, actually, and Sherlock's not certain he's ever ejaculated quite this often over such a short period of measurable time in all his thirty-odd years.
Come to think—Sherlock peeps up from his flickering laptop screen under cover of his tumbling curls-John's rather alarmingly fetching when sticky and mussed. It rather makes his heart pound, so Sherlock takes another hasty sip of his tea.
"Ungh," John moans again, but he doesn't move much. Just a twitch of his toes, revealed to be wiggling as the air currents touch them in passing. "Oh, lordy."
Sherlock frowns. He doesn't like to budge his new…mate…from their connubial bed, not if he's any say in it. Yes—no. He does have a definite say, now, a legal one, and therefore John's not likely to be shifting a single well-kept toe nail out of that inviting nest of handmade quilts and down comforters.
He likes John right where he has him stashed, really. Very…accessible—very.
"…Really." It's a decidedly lengthy moment before Sherlock recalls he should respond verbally in some fashion. Even if John's only making animalistic noises. It's only polite.
"Urgh."
John grunts mu\ore loudly, dropping a limp wrist over his eyes to shield them from the light that silhouettes Sherlock's seat by the half-curtained bay window. A keen observer would notice a few fingerprint-shaped bruises scattered on the fine skin that stretches over John's bared forearm.
"It surely feels like a honeymoon, Sherlock," John points out eventually, his voice rather gruff. There'd been a fair amount of vocalization in recent hours. "Evidence of repeated penetration and…everything."
He blushes adorably.
"Perhaps," Sherlock replies momentously, quirking up his own rather reddened upper lip at John and winking quite deliberately under the gaze of skeptical blue eyes sleepily trained on him, "you may call it that. If you like."
"I do. I am."
"if you must." Sherlock is very pleased; very pleased indeed. His Plan has succeeded admirably. Despite him.
"Right, no. Not arguing over what to call it, Sherlock; not worth it." Fingers are waggled in Sherlock's direction in a 'what the hey' sort of way but John doesn't stir otherwise, not even to stretch. "I can't argue very well anyway," he moans woefully, though he's seemingly not at all unhappy about the state of affairs, "because I can't seem to budge my arse out of the confines of this very nice bed, Sherlock. I'm stuck here, in fact—I'm sure of it. Glued. Come and help me."
"Hmm, that's nice, John," Sherlock returns his attention to his laptop and studiously ignores the sight of John flopping a bit pathetically on the mattress. "You don't say."
"Sherlock! A hand, please? I should like some of that. Before you drink it all." He gestures to the tea tray and leaves his one arm extended, as if to silently goad Sherlock into coming over and taking it.
"Sherlock," John repeats in a dire tone when his roommate makes no move. "Come on, don't be an arse."
"Not an arse, John; just thinking it through," Sherlock grins, setting down the cup from the tea set the proprietress had delivered to their door fifteen minutes earlier. "Actually, John." He sits up straight and fixes his partner with a level look. "Thinking about your arse, now. Don't bother yourself over the tea, please. They'll bring more later, I'm sure. When we're both ready."
"I'm ready now," John replies petulantly. "I just…can't seem to move properly." He shifts his hips experimentally and winces instantly. "What in bloody hell did you do to me last night, Sherlock? I've not felt this wrecked since uni—"
"Then don't bother, as I've just said. I'll do it for you, John."
Sherlock rises majestically to his full height, patting down his new (a peacock paisley print and a wedding present from Mummy) dressing gown and stalks back to the bed. It's a doozy; a florid affair very sentimentally decked out in hangings, tassels and swagging, and his new husband, John Holmes-Watson, is a decidedly tasty picture, spread out in it rather like a pasha in a Empire-style seraglio.
"It's my responsibility now, isn't it? Your state of health, your body?" Sherlock smirks widely. "One I accept with all my heart, John. You'll see. I'll prove it."
"Oh, hell, no," John groans, raising the flat of a palm to ward off Sherlock's manic grin as he comes to halt, looming. "No, you don't! Not again, for chrissake! G'way, Sherlock! Or—rather, bring me my cuppa, do. I feel like I've been rode hard and put away wet; you're not getting any more out of me, not till I've had my damned tea!"
"No mercy," Sherlock ripostes, dropping his robe with a whispered swish and climbing aboard his prone lover. "And no damned tea, either. This is an experiment, John. You're required to assist me in collecting data."
"What? No!" John whines, scrabbling sideways to no avail and twitching righteously as Sherlock straddles him. "What is it this time? Oh, gawd, no, don't tell me: the effects of sex-induced dehydration on an average English cock as exposed to salt air? Do give over, Sherlock—I'm parched as fuck!"
"Uh-uh."
"Mmmph! Get off me!"
"No," Sherlock purrs, settling in for another long haul. "No, what you really need is protein, John. Liquid protein, ingested orally. Buck you right up, that will."
"Excuse me? What are you-?"
"Open up, love," Sherlock grins, rapidly kneeing his way up John's sprawled out form, effectively trapping him in place with his thighs. "Suck me."
He only halts when his glans—engorged, brilliantly scarlet, already leaking clear liquid—bob and bump blindly against the taut line of his lover's down-turning mouth.
"Swallow me down, John, my sweet. And I'll be more than happy to rectify the lack immediately, yes? You'll feel better, I promise. Better than any old tea, me. You want it, admit that you do."
"I—" John makes the mistake of opening his mouth. "Ack! You!"
"Good boy," Sherlock replies, shoving hastily. He closes his eyes, nearing a state of instant bliss already despite the thrilling scrape of teeth. No—because of the thrilling scrape of teeth. "That's it. Please do continue, John—I'm all yours. Every particle."
Because, come now, be serious. No one's ever dared say he's at all slow on the uptake, have they?
Fin.
PS: I may continue this verse one day, as I rather want to play with kids and in-laws a bit. And maybe a few other items, like raging possessiveness.