Disclaimer: And just as it always was and always will be: Nothing belongs to me. Everything is property of A. C. Doyle and bloody Mofftiss, who continue to make my life a heavenly hell.
Note: Please forgive if you should find legions of mistakes, this has not been betad YET (I just couldn't wait and uploaded it anyway. I'm always so excited to hear what you guys think. But there should be a betad version up soon.) Please be gentle (but honest) with me when you leave a review, English is not my first language.
Disguises
Sherlock Holmes was, amongst many other things, a master of cunning disguises. Over time John had been able to witness the transformation into a vast variety of characters all of whom were completely unlike Sherlock's true self but never lacked a certain, well, for lack of a more suitable word, sherlockness (which in John's opinion should be a word since there was really enough depth and complexity to the very being of Sherlock Holmes to justify a special word just to describe something as multifaceted, extraordinary and just downright brilliant as his character).
There were however about a handful of incidents that had made a particularly strong impression on John and had stuck somewhere in the back of his head just to reappear at the most inconvenient and inappropriate of times (such as being in the shower, trying to go to sleep or just generally focusing on not being attracted to Sherlock) and torment him. Not only because they had stirred in him the kinds of feelings John had never believed himself capable to experience for a man, but also because they painted a colourful and vivid picture of the man he had come to love so dearly over the past few years. Irene Adler had been right, after all: disguises were in many ways always a self portrait of the person behind it.
John had, up to this point, been wise enough not to mull over the recollections he had of the more memorable disguises with the intent of finding out what they could possibly hint concerning the personality of Sherlock Holmes. Said personality was a swirling vortex of infinite chaos and should, in favour of Johns own mental health, not be regarded all too closely. John accepted, and wasn't that enough?
And still… there were at least five, a kind of top five list of disguises that seemed to be uneraseably etched into the turns and coils of his brain.
He remembered the first one in particular. Not because it was one of the most exciting or erotic or even flashy disguises, but because it was one of the first of Sherlock's countless alter egos John had the dubious honour to meet back when they had not been living together for more than a month. And because it took him utterly by surprise.
He was meeting up with Stamford for a drink in the pub one night to report to him how things were going and how living with Sherlock was working out for him when it happened. John had just finished his second pint and was trying hard, really hard, not to hug Stamford and tell him a hearty thank you for introducing him to the love of his life. He would certainly get the wrong idea about what Sherlock and John were up to. Everyone was always getting the wrong idea about their relationship. He wished he could say in all honesty that he had, at some point in the past, stopped wondering why but he really hadn't. Did he strike people as particularly gay? He thought not. And why could two men currently living together not just be very good friends - oddly good friends, granted, considering the fact that they hadn't known each other for very long – and flat mates, and colleagues and partners and (he was willing to admit as much) probably soul mates? Couldn't he just love someone, someone ridiculously attractive with the curly head of a michelangelonian David, the cheekbones of a fucking elf prince and eyes the colour of a stormy autumn sky over the Caribbean Sea platonically?
Oh well, maybe he was just a little infatuated. That was new but not so bad. It would pass.
"Sorry, what?" John tried to catch up on the conversation Stamford seemed to have been having with him while he had been momentarily distracted by ponderings on the platonic nature of his relationship with Sherlock, when Stamford's delighted outcry brought him back to the here and now.
"I said: Looks like they're having live music today."
"Oh." John watched as a bunch of overly homely looking blokes in old fashioned clothing started to emerge from the back of the pub and began to set up all kinds of instruments and equipment.
"Seems to be a folk band." He commented and was just deliberating whether he should head home (live music sort of made conversation difficult and also he was wondering what kind of case Sherlock had been up to as John had left the flat earlier. It was always suspicious when Sherlock insisted on John staying at home claiming he could solve it without his assistance), when a guy with a banjo hanging from his neck tapped the microphone and apologetically announced that they'd be starting any minute, they were just waiting for their new violinist, who was always late because he was always chatting up women.
The crowd chuckled and clapped forgivingly.
"Ben, leave the poor girl be and get up here. They're not paying us to seduce their waitresses."
From somewhere behind John heard a mumbled "Coming!" that sounded vaguely familiar. It wasn't until a tall, lean body had pushed past him and walked over to the stage that he narrowed his eyes in sudden suspicion. Wait, he knew that firm behind, those narrow hips and the ruffle of black curls that now stuck out stubbornly from underneath a grey flat cap. Was that - ? No. How could it? Why would it? God, he really needed to pay more attention to where those little, inappropriately non-heterosexual thoughts were leading him. This was threatening to become an obsession. Now he was already seeing Sherlock in harmless folk musicians.
He was prepared to direct his attention back to the half empty beer glass, when the sound of a full baritone purring into the microphone made his head snap around in shock.
"Sorry, guys. And I hope I'll be seeing you later." And there Sherlock was on the stage winking seductively to a girl somewhere in the audience. It was without a doubt and definitely him. John knew that wink – he had been on the receiving end of that wink the day they met. This was –
"Is that Sherlock?" Thank god, not going crazy then. Stamford had seen him too. To John's surprise the other man didn't seem all too baffled. He only said:
"Oh, well. He is probably on one of his cases. Undercover or something." Posing as the violinist "Ben" for three fucking weeks already and going to rehearsals three times a week (yeah, how had John not noticed that?) in order to get inside information for a murder investigation, as John would find out later that night.
"A part you've not gotten used to yet, huh?"
"Hmpf."
John could only stare. The amount of commitment Sherlock seemed to be willing to put into his undercover disguises was nothing short of baffling. Bafflingly amazing. Bafflingly amazingly charming in this particular case, John thought, as he watched the skinny detective in the white and blue striped T-Shirt, dark jeans and braces (dear lord, yes. Braces.) drop casually to his chair and take up his violin. John hardly heard any of the music they played he was so wrapped up in the sight of Sherlock Sociopath Holmes tapping his foot along to a catchy dance tune, throwing waggish, sparkling looks and puckish smiles to women in the crowd from under the rim of his cap. Was he secretly a ladies' man? No, "not my area" had sounded quite genuine. But apparently he was an amazing actor. And he was wearing a white and blue striped shirt – John would never forget the way it hugged his trim chest nicely.
There would have been more than just a handful of girls who would have gladly succumbed to the boyish attraction of Ben the violin player, but in the end John, bleeding from the nose, had to maneuver a bruised Sherlock out of the pub and home. If Sherlock had asked him (which, of course he never did) John could have told him that blowing his cover that very evening and deducing some pretty nasty things about the lead singer in front of the entire audience before finally coming to the point (which was that he murdered his girlfriend) was a bit not a good idea.
"If Lestrade hadn't been stuck in traffic the police would have arrived before things got out of hand. Apparently not even punctuality can be expected."
As John threw the striped shirt in the bin (there was really no way to get so much nose blood of a shirt. Also Sherlock had insisted he wouldn't need it anymore), he felt just a little bit of regret.
The second time Sherlock's slipping into another character stirred altogether confusing feelings in John's chest was with a disguise that John was sure hadn't done anything for him if it had been worn by any other person. For one, because the strange attraction it exerted on some people had somewhat less of an effect when the necessary style of clothing and manner were adopted by women. Not to be chauvinistic but the scatterbrained, sexually inexperienced and buttoned up intellectual in tweed jackets with leather arm patches just didn't work as well on women, at least not in his opinion. And on men, well… He was not gay after all and had never been attracted to men before. That was, not before he had met Sherlock and his sexuality desolating gorgeousness, that came over Johns firmly grounded heterosexuality like a blazing fire of all kinds of confusing thoughts, feelings and sensations and burned his preferences to a pile of smoking ashes that tasted stale and dry on his tongue whenever he kissed a pretty female date nowadays.
Well, thank you for that, he grumbled to himself as he alit the cab in front of the Humanities Faculty of the University of London and hurried across the campus in search of the right building, prospecting for any sign of the police in case Sherlock had already informed them there was something going on. What this something could be John had absolutely no idea.
Uni London, History Department, lecture room 708. Come at once. - SH
Was all that the typically mysterious message on John's phone said. He wondered why he had bothered to hurry. Sherlock was probably just having to sit through a particularly dull and slow paced lecture on the movement of the Ostrogoths through Europe in the second century A.D. in order to prove an alibi by the malfunctioning of the air-conditioning system of the lecture room. Or something.
What happened upon his frightened eyes on arriving at room 708 was certainly not what he had expected to behold. He had heard the voice already moments before he had slipped quietly and secretly into the crowded room to stand discreetly in the back – he would recognize the voice everywhere, not matter how much trouble Sherlock took to disguise it, no matter how much American accent his current persona featured. A look to the front of the room confirmed it: There stood Sherlock, looking skinny and slouchy and vastly intimidated in view of the good two hundred faces that were eyeing him to great parts with less than mild interest. Except for a handful of girls perhaps, who were smiling encouragingly and trying to catch the shy substitute lecturer's unsteadily roaming eye. Professor Dr. Mark Tanner was written in shaky letters on the board.
Said "Professor" wore a hideous brownish suit with the obligatory patches on the elbows that, John assumed, were one of those clichés that had not developed entirely without reason and a tie with red dots. A pair of somewhat antiquated spectacles gave him a charmingly boyish intellectual look. In between the sentences of his lecture (since when was the history of the Carolingian Reign something to be adequately enough informed about to hold an entire lecture and the solar system was completely unimportant?) he kept scratching the back his head bashfully, sorted through piles of papers muttering to himself nervously, clicked around a laptop and threw his audience bemused, apologetic smiles every now and then. He was, in short, being absolutely adorable.
John watched in bewildered amusement for several minutes and found himself gasping in fascination along with several (male and female) students as Sherlock dropped a piece of chalk and bowed down to pick it up with a fiddly gesture. It was not until shortly after this incident that Sherlock spotted John in the back of the room.
Without further warning his body language changed. His spine went straight and rigid, his eyes assumed their usual cool expression, his hands clasped firmly behind his back.
"Ah, John." Was all he uttered as he came towards him and abandoned the puzzled students without even a second thought.
"I've texted you ages ago. What took you so long?" was what he asked as they left the room together.
"I've been – the traffic – why were you –" John got lost in all the things he considered saying and all the questions he aborted before they were irrevocably out of his mouth and Sherlock could reply with some snarky comment.
"Nice tie." He said lamely but at least managed to make it sound moderately teasing. This whole timid highbrow thing had made him all flustered, the thought of stealing a chaste kiss from those pronounced lips and seeing Sherlock's alter ego Dr. Tanner flush with bashful surprise made him temporarily bid farewell to reality.
He noticed that Sherlock was speaking only when the other men bumped against his arm softly.
"Hm?"
"I said when you're done spluttering and complementing my fashion choices, would you hurry up? I expected you a lot earlier. Still need to prove the department head's alibi."
"But why were you keeping up the act then?" John couldn't believe Sherlock had just pulled of lecturing a whole room full of students on a topic he knew absolutely nothing about without any of them noticing. Mostly he couldn't believe how adorably cute, bashful and scatterbrained the man had just seemed only moments ago.
Sherlock crinkled his nose. "I just got sort of…swept away. Good thing I snatched one of those student's notes on my way in or I would never have been able to keep the act up that long. "
And that was all the explanation he got. And John decided not to push it further. Best to let it go. It wasn't as bad as the third time, after all. Because the third time, the third time was a bitch.
In fact, the third time was not just slightly embarrassing to admit to have made it to Johns top five list in the first place but also really all kinds of disturbing. To be honest, he told himself over and over after it, he really didn't even want to think about it too much and still did - every single bloody time the first Christmas lights appeared in the crowded streets of London. And to be even more honest he did take a secret joy in the recollection of that particular case but had equally secretly sworn to himself that no one (particularly not Sherlock) would ever know. Not even over his dead, rotting corpse.
John was doing some relaxed Christmas shopping and was just deliberating how serious he should take Sherlock's latest rant on the terrible redundancy of the tradition of gift giving when his phone buzzed with the unmistakable urgency of a holmesian text message. Somehow John seemed to have developed an additional sense, some kind of mental radar for messages from Sherlock even though he didn't have a special ringtone set for the detective. It was the positively beethovian theatricality and the more than demanding air that his phone seemed to inexplicably adopt – it was unnerving and creepy. And also a little nice to know that Sherlock and him seemed to have the kind of connection where you just sort of felt whenever the other person was craving to communicate with you.
Undercover right behind you. Don't turn around. - SH
The message said. Naturally John turned around almost immediately. There was no way he was going to miss whatever creative disguise Sherlock had thrown himself into this time and since there were no hints as to the potentially fatal nature of the situation, either hidden by code words or spelled out explicitly, contained in the message, John decided it couldn't be too important. He wanted to risk a look too badly.
But when he dared a quick peek he spied no Sherlock. No tall business man glaring at him because of his disobedience, no shopping centre security guard with a suspiciously familiar mop of attractively untidy hair. There were only uninvolved shoppers. And that oddly skinny Santa Clause, of course. Wait …
John had to stop dead in his track as his head spun around for a second time, less inconspicuously glancing but rather fully gaping this time.
"I said don't turn around." The Santa mumbled gruffly as he passed John, took him ungently by the elbow and dragged him behind the pillar of a shop front where they crouched closer than John was absolutely comfortable with.
"What are you doing?"
"I needed to break into the staff area of the building." Sherlock mumbled through gritted teeth, visibly uncomfortable in his current outfit. His lips, way (way) too close to Johns, were hidden under a cheap fake beard that flowed down in unnatural whiteness all the way to his chest and tickled John in the face. Sherlock's eyes were almost translucently pale in the unforgiving gleam of the artificial lighting and wore an expression of decided discontent. A brattish dark lock peeked out from under the fur rim of the red and white hat.
"Wasn't there any other…"
"Believe me, I would have chosen another if there had been one."
Not that John complained. This was hilarious and the tiniest bit sexy. He wondered if the beard was just a solid veil of faux hair or whether there was a hole for the mouth (it was impossible to see). He also wondered whether the tickling sensation it must undoubtedly cause while kissing would be unpleasant or rather enjoyable.
This was just so wrong on so many levels.
"Hey. Are you Santa Clause?" a high pitched children's voice startled them and drew their attention to a little girl, maybe five or six, that had appeared next to them in the poky corner they had squeezed themselves in. John took an instinctive step back.
"Well, I appear to wearing the corresponding clothing, don't I." Sherlock snapped testily at the molester in his little undercover plot.
"Sherlock, nice." John dunned.
"I want a pony for Christmas and also the Hannah Montana Barbie." The girl said demandingly.
"Nice." Was all that John could hiss tensely to Sherlock who looked like he was about to snip the little girl away with his finger like the unwanted vermin he seemed to deem her. The detective in the Santa costume shot John a deadly glare that switched into one of his eerily wide, fake grins within seconds. He bowed down to the girl.
"Well then," he said sweetly. "I will see what I can do. You should also tell that to your mummy so she can help me a little with the gifts. No off you go. And stay away from men that try to get you to get into their cars with sweets and from alcohol and drugs. Except for when you're from one of those broken families, that almost 90% of the…"
"Sherlock." He had started off so promising. Not that Sherlock's life advise wouldn't have been realistic – probably unvarnished so. But the little girl didn't need to hear that. John had the suspicion however, that despite the effort Sherlock made to deter people with his rough exterior, he would be a very good father should the highly unlikely (bordering on impossible) circumstance ever occur. He would undoubtedly show the baby pictures of ghastly slaughtered bodies or let it experiment with a box of matches and a flask of explosive acid but he would certainly love the kid to death. The sociopath, now that was as much façade as the ever detached manner and the uninvolved behavior. Deep down, John knew, Sherlock was capable of deep and strong emotion.
Besides, if it ever came to that John would be around to delete the pictures, take the matches away and treat the acid burns with skilled hands. And why again was he picturing Sherlock Holmes as a loving father? And why ever did he involve himself in the fantasies of such things?
But before Sherlock could continue his little speech and before John could sufficiently examine why these weird ideas, the little girl was saved by her mother who appeared around the corner. With a shocked glance at the two grown men, one of them dressed as not all too god and all to old Father Christmas, standing indecently close in a narrow, secret corner of a shopping mall she grabbed her daughter's hand and pulled her away.
"That was that." Sherlock said flatly and seemed to shake a thought out of his had before he turned back to John. "Come on then. I hope we can avoid it for the sake of speed, which is essential to the success of my plan, but I'm afraid we'll have to find you a disguise too. I think an elf would be nice and appropriate."
John so hoped he was joking. The stupid git.
"But I've been such a good boy this year." He pouted and could have sworn that Sherlock smiled a surreptitious little smirk at that.
"Pity. We'll have to skip the punishment then." Sherlock muttered very quietly, probably more to himself than to John and started off. And that was something John shouldn't find so oddly arousing coming from the white bearded mouth of Santa Claus.
The fourth time now, John was prepared to swear that even still today, the fourth time had almost killed him. Perhaps not literally, that was in the physical sense, but it had certainly been a close call for John's sanity, self-control and especially for his peace of mind.
In retrospect he really wasn't sure how this case, starting inconspicuously enough with a young woman engaging them to find her older brother, a Geology postgraduate who hadn't been heard from in over a month, eventually led them to the base of the HM Coast Guard in Dover in the middle of a drizzly October night. But that wasn't really the noteworthy part of the night anyway since they always managed to get themselves involved in the most bizarre of affairs. Whenever Sherlock decided to take a case, John could be sure there was a gargantuan, rambling and potentially fatal turnip attached to the innocent bit of green visible on the surface. John had learned to live with it.
The point, and a very important one, was the bloody uniform that Sherlock had managed to snatch in the haste of their unauthorized entering of the place and the fact that he was now waiting for John to put on the jacket they had nicked for him. He was standing in the cold drizzle under the diffuse light of a lamp post in that ridiculously sexy white and blue uniform jacket that was only slightly too lose around his slim body and only slightly too short for the insane lankiness of his limbs but still managed to make him look like authoritarian sternness personified. He had buttoned it up neatly and John's eye caught slightly on the spot where the tight collar cut a little into the soft tissue of the detective's throat. Fine rain was glittering in his dark curls and John was sending a mental thumbs up to whatever higher force was responsible for the fact that Sherlock was still carrying the captain's hat tucked away orderly under his armpit.
John turned the collar of his jacket up against the wind.
"Alright then, let's go, Seaman." Sherlock quipped with a tight lipped smirk, which John answered with a dark scowl. Seaman? Why couldn't he be the captain for once? The role should be his by rights. He was a Captain after all, or had been. Not the captain of a ship, but more Captain than Sherlock had ever been or would ever be. The whole thing was glaring injustice. And infuriatingly sexy, which made it all the more unfair.
And then Sherlock did the thing. Just as John stepped out of the lee side of the building they had been hanging about behind, Sherlock's body went even more rigid and he donned the hat with a swift movement, pressing it firmly on the crown of his luscious locks before extending a long index finger and tapping, tilting it ever so slightly to one side to add a note of rakishness to the already breathtaking picture of general gorgeousness (or rather Captain gorgeousness).
Sherlock winked at John. He winked.
Fucking wow.
The mental image of Sherlock wearing this uniform and one of those cocky smirks that made his eyes sparkle with secret amusement, leaning against the rail of a sailing boat with a cigarette tucked between sensually parted lips and winking would forever haunt the filthy dreams involving Sherlock John pretend he didn't have. Perhaps in those nonexistent dreams Sherlock would call him "Seaman" again and then Captain John Watson would show the pontifical twat who was really in charge and they'd see who'd be ending up wearing nothing but that silly hat…
And he really shouldn't be thinking distracting things like this while Sherlock was currently still wearing the clothes that had triggered them in the first place. They were trying to break into a ship surrounded by employees of the Coast Guard, which worked in close cooperation with the bloody BAF, for goodness sake, and would kick their asses right over the Channel and into France if they caught them. Mycroft couldn't save them from everything, after all, and considering the last comment on his weight Sherlock had allowed himself to make, John wasn't sure he would want to, even if he could.
But bloody Sherlock did know how to wear that uniform, John had to give him the due. And after this incident it was a long time until Sherlock smartened up with a disguise enough to make an impression on John lingering enough to overtop the captain's uniform.
But the day came. And the fifth time John was fortunate – or rather misfortunate because this, this really was the worst – enough to witness one of Sherlock's cunning disguises it nearly ended in an embarrassing mess of endless proportions. That was, only for John, naturally.
He was returning home from a nice chat and a few beers in the pub with Greg, something they had started doing since Greg's marriage continued to hit one rough patch after the other and whenever John's living arrangements with Sherlock got too much to bear because Sherlock had brought home the rotting carcasses of sewer rats for further examination in an experiment or fumigated the flat with poisonous gases. The analogy of their situations ("trouble in paradise" he liked to call it) made Greg grin and wink at John conspiratorially every bloody single time.
Just as John rounded the corner to Baker Strees already dreaming of the comfortable softness of his bed, he saw a taxi pull up in front of 221b. Apparently Sherlock had finished whatever mission he had headed into his room in a hurry for to prepare just as John had shouted a short goodbye earlier this night. Because contrary to what people believed John did do things without Sherlock from time to time and Sherlock did go on cases without John occasionally – usually just when he was so very, very bored that he became insufferably moody and rude and even bothered to leave the flat for clients that came with cases that were less than a four just to do anything at all. He had invented the exhausting sport of trying to solve as many low rated cases in one night as possible, which for John, would have meant scampering after Sherlock at maximum speed without stopping for food, drink, rest or even air and constantly being ordered not to "dawdle", to "keep up" and to "be quiet" because apparently he was "distracting" and "slowing Sherlock down" and "ruining his best time". On a perfectly nice and quiet Saturday night when drinks with Greg and a relatively early bed time were the alternative John (in most cases) knew to choose the pleasanter possibility, thank you very much. Sherlock and him were not conjoined twins after all, despite what people seemed to believe. Not physically anyway, his mind suggested helpfully. John told it to shut the fuck up.
"Successful night?" he asked conversationally as he neared the taxi and watched Sherlock's long body disappear behind the door of the driver's seat in order to pay the cabbie. Conversational tone and rhetorical questions were usually good test strips to carefully dip into the raging, swirling maelstrom of uncontrolled mood swings that were Sherlock's personality (or rather the manifestation of said personality, which was a lot more sensitive and caring than what Sherlock chose to share John knew). If you dove in head first without testing the waters, chances were you were to drown horribly and then float around the flat as the bloated (and slightly daunted) corpse of your former good mood.
"Oh, hello John. Indeed, very successful." Sherlock's head popped up behind the passenger's seat door. To Johns surprise and (hopefully well hidden) delight he found that Sherlock wore his hair unusually tamed and smoothed back, giving the already illustrious look of the detective a decidedly snobbish but rather handsome aristocratic air and accentuating the prominent bone structure of his skull even more. Under the tangle of curls John had never noticed a widow's peak to be hidden.
"I managed to flee the deadly pit of idleness of my brain by solving a two, four threes, seven fives and three tedious ones since – " a casual glance at his watch "- oh, since four this afternoon. The last one actually turned out to be a six. I even had to dress up."
"I see that."
While Sherlock was unlocking the front door and not until after John had checked for any unwanted attention from passersby he treated himself to a long and thorough inspection of Sherlock's lanky backside. Even in the flowing coat that was a sight to enjoy, especially with the way the tips of his hair stubbornly curled despite the careful treatment Mr.-I-just-look-this-good-without-trying-but-when-noone-looks-I'm-actually-trying seemed to have applied. Also the way his coat stretched promisingly over the narrow frame of his shoulders and with the way a tiny bit of socked clave was visible between the shoes and the hem of the coat. – Wait, what was visible? Already halfway up the stairs to their flat John had to look twice in order to convince himself that he was not suffering from wish sightedness. Or madness.
"Is that – " but before he could finish his question Sherlock had already reached the top of the stairs, unbuttoned his coat and shrugged it off his body with an elegant flourish. One day, John swore, he would stick around the flat secretly in order to catch Sherlock practice this move.
Now, however, was not the time to marvel at the habitual affected gracefulness he so like to display. No, now was more the time to gape in petrified shock, initiated to equal parts by heartfelt horror and the most potent of raptures. This was not happening.
But it was. And while John stood there trying desperately to get his thoughts, his facial expression, his tongue, his entire body or anything, anything at all under control, Sherlock nonchalantly strolled over to his chair and lowered himself into it with his long legs spread almost obscenely wide. Under normal conditions John would surely have noticed. But being the military trained, disciplined man he was he would have inconspicuously flexed his hand, widened his shirt collar with a subtle movement of his neck, gulped down every bit of the hot attraction that was welling up in his body, kept calm and carried on. Today and under these particular circumstances however – well all of that seemed just downright impossible. Today he did not only notice, he marveled.
There Sherlock was sitting and the hem of the darkly patterned kilt he was wearing had just risen an inch above the knee. Wiry legs were sticking out of the tempting mystery that was the shadow between his parted legs, thrown by the dim lighting of their place. Was there anything under that… NO! John wouldn't allow his mind to wander there.
Sherlock's upper body, even though somewhat less, well, provocative still looked painfully good and did nothing to loosen John's momentary state of paralysis. He wore the traditional white shirt and dark waistcoat with jacket, all, of course, fitting perfectly and drawing a picture of manly elegance. The Sporran was resting heavily on Sherlock's lower abdomen, just above the place where the fabric of the kilt sagged slightly in the free space between the detective's skinny thighs.
At the sight John's heart missed a beat and then performed a perfect headfirst plunge right into his pants, the place that threatened to develop a pulse just as strong as the throbbing that was pounding in his ears.
"You – that's a – what were you doing?" Why do I have to see this? Why didn't you call me SOONER?
"I had to inveigle myself into the private party of a rich Scottish art collector." An arrogant frown appeared magically on his handsome features as he mimicked the nasal voice and pretentious mannerism of his latest persona. "Oh, wonderful to see you, old chap. Cousin Richard Hamish Shaw, you remember? We are related on my mother's and your father's side. You do not mind that I used your middle name, do you." The last part addressed to John, more in the manner of uttering a fact than posing a question.
His fake Scottish accent, the hard way he rolled the "r"s, the intonation, voice rising slightly in the end of every sentence, was unbelievably convincing. This combined with the deep rumble of his full voice made John giddy and unfocused in a way that had absolutely nothing to do with the three pints he had downed earlier. It was perfect and flawlessly adorable.
"Your accent is ridiculously bad."
Sherlock didn't even bother to look appalled the way he sometimes did when John mocked the viewer count of his homepage, he just smirked amusedly and began to drape one leg over the other, surely fully aware of the fact how the kilt moved and slid up just to procure an even wider angle that granted insight while still leaving all the important parts in the dark. Pale thighs were leading a path into the delicious darkness that prevailed further up those legs…
John found himself staring shamelessly for a moment or two. He knew it was a cliché that probably every kilt wearing person despised to hear but in all his life he had never wanted to ask a question as much as he wanted to ask what lay hidden under the checked fabric that was stretching over Sherlock's lap now. But all that came out of his mouth as he was standing awkwardly in the doorway to the kitchen was his tongue helplessly sliding along his bottom lip. He ordered it back, it didn't obey. John swallowed exaggeratedly.
"Sooooo." He said.
"Hm?" Sherlock didn't take the trouble to look up from the phone he was tapping on.
"A kilt."
"Yep." He popped his lips casually on the p.
"And you're wearing it… the, um, traditional way?" Oh god, oh Jesus. He had asked it, he really had. And he couldn't for the life of him have prevented that telling head tilt as his eyes darted once more to the spot where the kilt formed a canopy, a regular temple of seductiveness and hell was that just him or was his head starting to sound like a mediocre erotic novel?
Sherlock quirked an eyebrow. "The traditional way?"
The bloody arsehole was actually audacious enough to play dumb. John was sure he knew exactly what he was implying. Ex-fucking-actly. Any second now John would probably be in for an emotionless and long lecture on the traditional way to wear a kilt that probably didn't even exclude underwear, just to torment John some more and leave with an unsatisfying answer to what he really wanted to know. But hold on! John Watson – no, Dr. John Watson, former Captain of the Fifth Northumberland Fusiliers – was not going to go there. He was not going to ask more explicitly. He wasn't. Matter of self-reverence. End of Story.
"Nevermind." He huffed gruffly and went into the kitchen to make a cup of tea. And he regretted his damn pride until the first time he did get the chance to catch up on his misprision of that night. But that wasn't until after a lot of time had passed and it wasn't until after that one evening when John first realised something that he needed to realise in order to pave the way for any kind of non platonic relationship with Sherlock.
It was the day that John came to realise a thing or two about disguises, especially the more subtle kind that had nothing to do with slipping into a big, dubious looking coat and holding a newspaper in front of your face with a hole cut in to look through.
They were, as they sometimes did, celebrating the successful outcome of their latest case over dinner at Angelo's on one of those rare occasions that Sherlock (finally!) dug into a plate of medallione al limone with passionate hunger and John had awkward oral sex with a huge pile of spaghetti putanesca trying very hard to suppress the primal groans that were threatening to escape him at the overwhelmingly sensuous feeling of pasta in his mouth and in his starving stomach.
"Oh god! This is so good. You know, I'm not as superhumanly above the basic needs of my body as you are. You should really give me the chance to eat more often when we're out on cases." John watched the other man taking a healthy swing of his wine with unperturbed vigour, not so much as glancing up to acknowledge John's request to be treated like a human being rather than like the animal companion of a fantasy computer game. "Come along, pet, hurry up."
The case had been challenging, to say the least. A horrible triple murder that had almost managed to turn John's battle-hardened stomach as the gory details started to unfurl in front of them throughout the process of their investigation. But they had solved it. It had taken them the usual crazy days without sleep and nearly without food and running around town and being shot at, but they had solved it. And reason to celebrate they had – because there had been this one situation that could very well have been the end of Sherlock Holmes.
With an unforeseeable quickness their suspected murderer had produced a gun out of seemingly nowhere and pointed it right at John, threatening to pull the trigger if Sherlock dared to try and disarm him or be so foolish as to make an attempt to call the police. And with equally unforeseeable swiftness Sherlock had stepped right into the line of fire shielding John's smaller body entirely with his own. Of course the gun had been no surprise for him, he had probably already deduced exactly when, how and why their suspect would use it when cornered. There was no doubt about the fact that he had made his plans accordingly and called the police before without the killer's noticing. There was also no doubt, John had realised in those short, adrenaline flooded moments after Lestrade and his men had taken out the guy just in time, that Sherlock had done something very, very stupid. He had, without seeming to think about it twice, stepped in front of the gun of the most dangerous kinds of shooters: the ones that were, nervous, shaking with fear and panic and the ones that felt trapped in a hopeless situation. The cold blooded ones never pulled the trigger by accident but this kind of shooter, well, Sherlock must have known he could have fired his gun just from the fright he got when the door burst open and armed police had started pouring in like water into a sinking ship.
This had been more than danger, it had been pure recklessness - and selflessness.
This selflessness was something that John had found Sherlock not just capable of but surprisingly ready to show whenever John's life was at stake. Sure, John had disclosed his readiness to sacrifice everything for Sherlock with equal spontaneous readiness that day at the pool with Moriarty but to see it reciprocated… There was something about this fact that he didn't quite want to think about, as if thinking about it would change the comfortably set parameters of the relationship they had established. Yes, he was grateful. Yes, he was touched – also more so than he wanted to think about.
Just like the first time at the pool this incident had changed something between them irrevocably. It had excavated a force of feelings and affection for each other that, John was sure he spoke for both of them in this, they had not been ready to face, let alone discuss.
As he looked up to look at the man on the other side of the table he found Sherlock quiet and thoughtful eying him oddly but averting his eyes the instant that he caught John's gaze. He had been strangely unenthusiastic and silent all evening even though the success with the case had left both of them in a good mood that manifested in a quiet but slightly tense way of being together.
The appearance of Angelo at their table interrupted their preoccupied silence.
Whenever he spied his "favourite regulars" having dinner in his restaurant he gladly embraced the opportunity to come over to them, to treat them to a drink or some desert and to make John extremely uncomfortable with assumptions about his sexuality that had started to get even more uncomfortable since John's and Sherlock's relationship had deepened and John himself had been forced to start to make unexpected assumptions about his sexuality.
"Ah, my friends. I haven't seen you in weeks! Out on a case? Proving someone's alibi? Or just having a nice romantic dinner, just the two of you?" He beamed at them, slapped Sherlock's shoulder and didn't even give John the time to protest properly before he waved a waiter over and ordered a bottle of expensive Barolo and a portion of Panna Cotta with two spoons. John sighed heavily. Would this ever stop? Would he ever convince anyone that he wasn't actually Sherlock's boyfriend?
Perhaps he should come here with his next girlfriend – if he ever found a next. But Angelo would probably assume it to be his sister or just a friend. Perhaps he should snog her into oblivion in front of the whole bloody restaurant then, but Angelo would probably just kick his ass for cheating on Sherlock, with a woman on top of it! Or pretend he didn't see because he thought John was on some kind of undercover mission and had Sherlock's consent to play the straight man. There really seemed to be no way out of it. But then again, who was he fooling? He hadn't been out with a woman in ages, let alone seen one that caught his particular attention. Yes, he was always flirting, but it had been a long time since a woman had really sparked something in him. He was always busy, always with Sherlock. It was always Sherlock.
"Um, about earlier, when you – you know – that was very stupid of you."
Sherlock kept his usual cool expression as he continued to look out of the window and observe the people passing by, probably deducing their life stories from the coats they wore or the way they walked just for entertainment.
"It was a calculated risk. I had everything under control." The answer came more testily than John would have expected given the pretty nice mood they had been in so far.
he didn't know why it made him so angry all of a sudden. Perhaps it was because he hated the self-destructive, careless way Sherlock treated his own life as if he did not care even the tiniest bit if he lived or died. John would. John would care and the thought of how deep this caring would really go made his insides contract with fear. Perhaps it was also the deprecating way he spoke of the amazing thing he had done for John, as if it hadn't meant anything. Maybe it was just the blatant lie that upset him. He hadn't realised he would be dealing with Sherlock Holmes in his fucking sociopath disguise again tonight considering how often he had been trusted with the softer and more open side that lay hidden under layers and layers of defense mechanisms that shielded Sherlock's genuinely vulnerable heart against the sentiment he so despised. Or rather feared, John suspected.
"No you didn't. The situation could have escalated easily any second."
Sherlock shot him a short, irritated glance from the corner of his eyes before resuming his occupation of staring into the dark on the other side of the windowpane.
"It was the logical thing to do. You're a doctor, I am not. I would not have been able to treat you as expertly until an ambulance arrived as you had been able to treat me if I had been shot."
Ouch. John didn't even allow himself to start wondering why this statement stung so violently in the chest just around that area where his heart was beating a tad too faste now. But Sherlock was right, as ever. And John probably deserved the sideswipe. Since expressing his gratitude for Sherlock's selfless protection had been the intent behind bringing the topic up in the first place, John had probably not broached the subject from the best of angles. Calling Sherlock "stupid" rather than just saying thank you was an approach that had probably been doomed from the beginning.
"Look, Sherlock. Um, what I was trying to say… you know I am not really much better at this sort of stuff than you." False, at least when it came to causal relationships with women he liked but didn't honestly love with all the force that lay hidden behind this little word. True when it came to Sherlock. Sherlock with whom he had had something deep and incomprehensible and indescribable and illogical from the first night. Sherlock for whom he was willing not just to risk his life but to actually give it. Sherlock who was willing to do the same for John, no matter with how much logic he tried to cover his true feelings up. This was not flat mates, partners, friends. This was the strongest connection he had ever had with another human being.
Then why was it always so difficult to express what he felt to Sherlock of all people?
"What I wanted to say was that what you offered to do tonight was… good."
The ever so slight softening of the detective's eyes told John that he had recongnised the choice of words. The small smile tugging gently at the corners of his lips told John he understood.
Angelo returned to their table with the Barolo and the Panna Cotta.
"Here you go. Have a wonderful night." He winked knowingly.
"I'm not – " but the word caught in John's throat. Was he really not? He was sitting here over dinner on a Saturday night, awkwardly and shyly trying to discuss the strong feeling he had for the man on the other side of the table. Was that not the very definition of a date. Even if a slightly embarrassing one? Was John maybe in constant disguise as the Not-his-date-guy in order to protect himself from frighteningly strong and new feelings just like Sherlock was wearing his sociopath armour? Clearly this was nothing to figure out in just one night over desert. But for the first time since John had started to notice the decidedly not platonic feelings Sherlock stirred in him, he was willing to let himself think about it.
Sherlock poked around in the desert without ever eating even one spoonful but looked at him with a sort of restrained curiosity as John just smiled at Angelo and completed his unfinished sentence with a hearty "Thank you. We will."
And then Sherlock grinned and John tried the desert and he really didn't mind all that much that they shared it like the young couple three tables away from them that seemed so happy and just freshly in love.
They weren't anywhere near there yet, but perhaps at some point they would be. This night John permitted his thoughts to wander down that road for the first time. And after all, this was a start.