Sherlock Holmes had been aware of John Watson in the way that a family is aware of the marital problems of the couple next door- all the yelling, screaming, and general uproar is startling at first, but eventually no more than background noise.
John had made waves when he first transferred to the exclusive boarding school Sherlock attended (under duress, but attended nonetheless) from a relatively rural area of England, so close to Scotland as to be considered uncivilized and unworthy of association. The waves about his origins quickly gave way to something more resembling of a tsunami, as word of his past conquests spread. As it turned out, John Watson was revered as no less than a sexual god in his hometown and the surrounding area- this being a reputation he quickly lived up to, when he started spending every single night in the girls' dormitory rooms.
After the first few months of John's residence, those who had been on the receiving end of his attentions were looked at as lucky, instead of promiscuous. He had even managed to make homosexual relations look appealing to the general school populace after he was caught sucking off the captain of the rugby team (John's blasé "It's not gay until your balls touch" brush off and the captain's agreement that the new bloke gave fantastic head went a long way towards that). Or, at least, it was acceptable if it was John Watson. John would shag anything with a pulse, and (to the astonishment of the boys who had been so lucky) the girls in the school seemed inordinately attracted to the boys who had managed to 'spend some time with' John.
Throughout this rearrangement of the social order, John Watson was a mere shadow on the periphery of Sherlock's awareness. Sherlock remembered noting that it was apparently possible for even the most ingrained social proclivities to be pushed aside in the teenager's pursuit of sexual activity, but nothing more. After all, if John was the sexual entity of the school, Sherlock was the exact opposite. The only person who had ever shown even a remote interest in him was quickly and viciously rebuffed (in an unnecessarily harsh manner; Molly Hooper had never quite gotten over it), and no one wished to try their own luck and have their entire sexual history (complete with past and present infections and dubious encounters with professors) announced to whomever was in the vicinity.
Hence the current situation. It was the beginning of a new year; John had slept his way through half of the student body and Sherlock was in the advanced biology class (advanced for the class two years ahead of him- the at-home dissections had been helpful in matters that weren't irritating Mycroft (never mind that Mycroft may have had a legitimate reason to be irritated, seeing as most of these experiments had been conducted in his room))- with John as his lab partner. Which was quite irksome, actually. Sherlock had been looking forward to a semi-competent assistant, and no doubt this John would be more interested in trying to seduce anything with a pulse than dissecting pulse-less animals or correctly using a microscope.
So, having prepared himself with a healthy amount of preemptive disrespect and his trademark sneer, Sherlock was –to say the least- somewhat surprised when the grinning blonde who walked through the door and sat next to him made his heart constrict awkwardly in his chest.
"Sherlock Holmes, right?"
Sherlock tried to formulate a reply while his brain raced to figure out why the mere aesthetic appeal he had understood from pictures of the boy had changed to something infinitely more dangerous.
"Obviously," he managed to get out, the word dropping from his lips coated in disdain, as per the usual.
Not as per the usual, though, John merely brushes it off and smiles again. "Some of my mates have been telling me you're a complete nutter- do you really know all about someone by looking at them?"
Sherlock doesn't dignify that question with a response, choosing instead to stare at the fetal pig bobbing slowly in formaldehyde on the professor's desk and internally try to untangle the Gordian knot of emotions that seemed to be residing in his stomach. He could tug at the loose ends of chemical reactions based on the near-perfect symmetry of John's face (an unconscious attractor to many, but recognized and catalogued by Sherlock), the appealing tone of his voice, and, most surprising of all, the fact that John had 'heard about' Sherlock and not gone begging to the professor for a change of seat. This was another thing to add to the list of characteristics filed under John Watson. So far, it included: openly bisexual, pleasant vocal tone and pitch, well muscled, and not being openly hostile towards the school pariah.
"No problem," John chuckled, a sound that Sherlock's temporal lobe compared unfairly to melted butterscotch. "I have all year to get to know you, and you'll have to talk eventually."
Sherlock bit his tongue. Was that a challenge he'd heard in John's voice? He chanced a quick glance out of the corner of his eye at his new lab partner. John was staring straight at him, and Sherlock pressed his lips together at the cocksure expression his lab-mate was wearing. Something twisted in the knot, and he decided to give John a taste of what the next year would be like.
Turning around, Sherlock ran his eyes appraisingly over John, ignoring the tilt of John's head in return.
"Middle class family, father in the military, mother a surgeon, one younger sister. You've never had a problem attracting women, but your foray into men has been more recent- the product of an affair with an older male from your hometown, most likely a tutor or young teacher. You worry about your sibling- lesbian or pugnacious? You had an afternoon rendez-vous with one girl yesterday, before spending the night with another, from whose room you came straight to class." Sherlock stopped at this point, seeing as John's mouth was hanging open slightly and this was usually when people were physically confrontational-
"That. Was. Amazing." John was staring at Sherlock like he was some sort of deity.
"That's not what people normally say," Sherlock replied, fervently thanking whoever was listening that actual speech had come out of his mouth rather than garbled nonsense, which was what his brain was producing.
"What do people normally say?" John was smiling in an expectant way that made Sherlock utterly aware of how fast his walls had been broken down, and with so little effort. Strangely, Sherlock couldn't find it in himself to care.
"Piss off," he quipped, and allowed himself a small quirk of the corner of his mouth (as close to a smile as he'd ever get in public) as John snorted next to him.
Sherlock turned from John to the fetal pig again, dissecting the influx of new data he had accumulated. It stood to reason that John would be amiable towards him, after all, it seemed John's goal in life was to shag every student with a pulse, and the last time he checked, Sherlock fell under that category.
It was because he was so involved with staring at the pig that he didn't hear John ask how he'd figured it out, and it was because of that that the next year of Sherlock Holmes' life was to be turned absolutely upside-down.
So. My first foray into Johnlock, and I hope it goes well. Updating will hopefully be weekly, but that depends on the amount of interest in the story. And if you think you can figure out how Sherlock made his deductions, feel free to shoot off a review. If you get it right, you may win yourself a spot as a 'rendez-vous' of John's!