Only updated for a slight grammar fix. Nothing really noticeable. Thank you to Watching The Roses for pointing it out :-) And thank you to all my reviewers for your lovely comments!
She'd been in their flat!
Weeks after the meeting with The Woman and taking a drugged Sherlock back to their flat, John still spent nights awake in his room, seething.
John knew that she had been there! There was no other way that Sherlock would have his phone. It had been in the pocket of the Coat, which had been given to her to cover up her distracting nudity. She had been wearing it when she vanished out the window of her home. John still wasn't sure which part bothered him more, the fact that Sherlock's Coat had been wrapped around her bare skin, the Coat that was almost always wrapped around his favorite consulting detective, or that she had been in their flat while Sherlock was drugged and John was oblivious in the sitting room. Or that Sherlock wouldn't talk about it. The consulting detective usually fumed when the criminal got away, but this time he didn't. He wouldn't even mention her, but the damned phone kept moaning in her voice, proving that they were still in contact.
If he was honest with himself, and he was having a very difficult time doing so, John would admit that he was irritated that The Woman had become almost instantly interesting to Sherlock. No real effort, just a lack of clothing and a puzzle to solve. John admitted that she was attractive but he bristled at the very idea of Irene Adler. Sherlock had been obsessive about her case since it started. He normally obsessed about his cases, but his reactions to this one were more emotional than usual and that bothered John. Bothered him in a way he hadn't experienced since he'd seen his uni girlfriend make eyes at some bloke in a restaurant.
John shook his head in exasperation. Jealousy! He was jealous that Sherlock was interested in Irene Adler! Bollocks! How could he be jealous of his best friend? No. It was not jealousy OF his best friend. It was jealousy ABOUT his best friend. When had this developed?
And she had been in Sherlock's room when he was in bed!
Rolling over onto his side, John growled to himself. "Stupid git! He was fully clothed. She didn't do anything to him, just hung his coat on the door."
The thought didn't soothe him. He threw himself over to his other side and winced as his hand smacked the wall with a loud and painful thud. He drew the hand back, rubbing it to check the pain. It was mild. He'd bruise but it would be fine. He felt a bit foolish though. Knowing he wasn't going to get any sleep for a while he put on his green dressing gown and headed downstairs to make some tea.
He spent some time pondering his reactions while the water warmed in the kettle. Sherlock was his flatmate. His colleague. His best friend. John knew he'd do anything for him, but he would for any of his friends, wouldn't he? That thought brought him up short. What friends? Who else did he have but Sherlock? Not uni mates. Not army mates. No long-term girlfriend. Not even family, really. Sherlock was his life. Everything revolved around him, even his job. Why?
He leaned against the counter, head down, eyes closed, trying to work it out. Gradually it dawned on him. His mind wasn't as quick or detailed as the man in question, but when he found the answer he knew it was correct. It crept through him slowly, like a warmth from the bottom of his feet working it's way through to the top of his head. All of his thoughts, his actions, his emotions were wrapped up in this man. He, John Hamish Watson, was in love with Sherlock Holmes. That's why the idea of Irene Adler was so irritating. She was a threat to his monopoly on Sherlock. Even if their partnership never became an intimate one, the idea of Sherlock being... emotional... with anyone else was distressing.
Then the water boiled.
He was pouring water from the kettle when he heard the sound of the violin. He hadn't realized that Sherlock was awake too and wondered if he'd noticed John's internal battle moments before. He noticed everything else. John set out a second mug on the countertop beside his own and poured some tea for Sherlock, realizing that it was now second nature for him to take care of the man. Carrying both mugs into the sitting room he set one quietly on the table and stepped back to lean against the door frame to the kitchen. He didn't sit because he was still too worked up, too agitated by his personal revelation to try.
The violin was soothing. He enjoyed listening to Sherlock play, though he hadn't expected to. Sherlock was at the window, his back to the room. The lithe form of his body shrouded in a burgundy dressing gown. His hair was mussed from his pillow and it looked as if he'd done some tossing and turning of his own. John wondered at that. When he slept, Sherlock slept like the dead. Sherlock claimed he played when he needed to think. Usually the middle of the night sessions occurred when there was a case he was working on. There was no case right now except for The Woman. Sherlock was thinking about Adler while playing the violin. John tried to suppress a sigh at the thought.
He must not have succeed because Sherlock paused in his playing for a moment, cocked his head to one side so that he could glance at John out of the corner of his eye. "Thank you for the tea."
John was a bit startled. "Thank you" was a rare phrase to hear from Sherlock, and not usually over something as small as providing tea in the middle of the night. He took a small sip to cover his surprise before he replied "You're welcome."
The violin began to sing again, a soft and haunting melody that John had never heard. The musician began to sway slightly as he played. Since his back was turned he couldn't see his friend watching him intently, grinding his teeth at the lovely haunting melody and Sherlock swaying with thoughts of The Woman running through his mind. The way he moved now with such grace was a striking contrast to how he threw himself around the flat when he was agitated. Stomping artlessly over furniture, dropping limply into his chair. With his new appreciation of his own feelings, the doctor realized that he watched Sherlock a lot. So much so that he wondered if the genius detective had deduced his emotional involvement before he himself had. And if so... what was the solution?
The music stopped suddenly, the instrument set carefully on its stand by the window before the musician turned to face John. Aware that his flatmate had very changeable moods, John braced himself for a tide of deductions about Adler, or Lestrade, or even the sudden decision to go back to bed.
He was not prepared for what actually happened.
Sherlock's penetrating eyes locked on John's from across the room as he spoke. His voice was low and intense, "The woman's case is a distraction."
John blinked. "Pardon?"
Sighing heavily Sherlock flopped into his armchair and stared at John. "It's a distraction. And not a very effective one either." He cocked his head at John as if waiting for a response.
"A distraction from what?" John frowned. Puzzled as always by the way Sherlock spoke as if the world should understand what he was thinking without the benefit of being inside his mind.
"Isn't it obvious, John?"
"Obviously not to me, Sherlock."
Another sigh was accompanied by Sherlock's sudden ejection from the chair. His long legs took him across the room in two strides. Standing in front of John, he glared into his flatmate's face as if he could drill through his skull and put the thoughts right into his mind.
Nonplussed by the swift motion and unsettled by Sherlock's nearness, John looked up into his friend's glare. As those intense eyes bored their way into him his owned widened in surprise. A long pale finger touched his cheek for an instant. Just a moment. Just long enough to burn the sensation into his skin.
The sound of liquid hitting the floor made him glance down at his hands. They were shaking so much that the tea was sloshing over the cup onto the floor. Suddenly a pair of warm, pale hands covered his, calming the tremble. Gently removing the cup and saucer from his trembling hands, Sherlock moved away. John glanced up and saw that, as Sherlock stooped to put the items down, his hands were shaking a little too.
Astonishing! Why was Sherlock nervous? Why would Irene be a distraction? From what? Why would... John leaned his head onto the door frame, needing the support as the impact of his churning thoughts finally struck him. Sherlock Holmes was using Adler to distract himself from John! For a moment John couldn't catch his breath. His heart soared and he closed his eyes against the intensity.
When he opened his eyes again he was looking up into Sherlock's. Those eyes. Sometimes, he knew, they were pale blue. Sometimes they were hazel. Now they were intense, green and demanding. Demanding acknowledgement. Demanding reciprocation of the emotion pouring out of them.
In wonder, John slowly raised his right arm to trace a finger along the flushed cheekbone of the man before him. Those demanding eyes closed in response, the face leaning into the caress as the rest of John's fingers joined the first.
"How long?" John didn't know he was going to speak until the words were out.
Opening his eyes, Sherlock searched John's face. Seeming to find what he was looking for his lips curved up in a small smile. "Since I realized you were the one who shot the cabby." He stood straighter and stepped away. Pacing the floor of their flat he began to recount the details as if he were discussing a case with John.
"You took a life to save my own and we'd only just met. You refused to accept a bribe for information about me. Granted it was Mycroft who tried to bribe you but you hardly knew that at the time." Back and forth across the floor, the hem of his dressing gown fairly flying behind him as he grew more energetic in his retelling. John's eyes following his every move. "You never shrink at danger unless it's directed at myself. You work so hard to try and keep me from being an arrogant bastard so that I can still get cases from those idiots at the yard," he smirked but continued his pacing, "even though that's a lost cause." Suddenly he stopped pacing to look at John. "From the beginning you accepted me as I am. Even my brother doesn't truly accept who, or what I am."
Having spent these moments working on a way to respond to what he thought, he hoped, he was hearing, the sudden silence didn't catch John unprepared. He cocked his head in imitation of Sherlock and asked, his voice low "And who, or what, are you?"
Slowly crossing the distance between them, Sherlock spoke softly, gently, as if he was trying not to frighten his army doctor, one arm slightly outstretched, "Who am I? I am Sherlock Holmes. Consulting detective."
As he approached, John raised a hand slightly. Their fingers met as the space between them slowly vanished.
"What am I?" Lacing their fingers together, the detective's head tilted to the side as he leaned down towards the only person in the world who mattered, "John Watson, I..." his breath caressed John's face, "Am..." John's breath caught as he felt the heat of Sherlock's free hand sliding up his back, their eyes locked together, "Yours." The final word was spoken just before their lips met for the first time.