John dropped the coffee he was holding, letting its barely-cooled contents splatter on the concrete. His hand remained raised and slightly curled as the hot liquid burned through the bottom of his jeans and onto his right leg. He didn't have the composure to register the pain at that moment, and made no visible reaction to the spill. His mouth hung slack and his eyes were locked on the man leaning against a building on the busy sidewalk. He held a sign. A sign that made John's brain pause and blabber urglephgrskwha?
John suddenly wasn't sure if he was awake or dreaming, wasn't sure if he had been transported to an alternate reality, wasn't sure if he was hallucinating or if someone had slipped something recreational into his coffee. He wasn't even sure where he had been walking to anymore.
He continued to stare at the man. This wasn't right at all. It shocked John how seriously not right that it was. Surely he had faced worse than this, but what he saw before him shattered all preconceived perceptions of the world as he knew it, and that was very scary. Or highly exhilarating; It was always a toss-up between those two.
His still-open hand suddenly noticed the absence of the coffee cup, and John came back to reality with a sharp sting creeping up his leg. Fuck. He needed caffeine for what he was about to face. He was surprised to feel a sudden chill spreading through the bottom of his stomach that had nothing to do with the cool November morning. Even though this was not near as frightening as Afghanistan had been, he had at least known-to some extent-what he was getting into there.
What stood before him was uncharted territory, a terrifying journey into the human psyche. Okay, He conceded, maybe that was an exaggeration, but this was still completely insane.
He steeled himself, taking a deep breath, and closed his eyes, focusing on the veiny infrastructure of his lids. It didn't work. All he saw was a blackness that reflected and emboldened his panic. He tried chanting. It will be okay, it will be okay, it will be okay even though it was not okay, and yet there was no tremor in his hand, and the nerve endings stayed still and calm in his left leg. For heavens sake, he was a damn Captain in the Fifth Northumberland Fusiliers; this would not kill him or burn pain into his head as the war had, reliving the horrors of that desert until he screamed himself awake.
He could do this.
John made a bee-line to the man-in-question, whose eyes turned to look into John's, and an unidentifiable expression slipped through his face before it could be reined in again by the impassive pale barrier that the doctor knew so well. John froze again mid-step, and then continued walking determinedly up to the tall man.
Before John could utter a word, the deep voice rumbled in a calm subdued tone, "Might want to get that burn under cold water." The sharp blue eyes flicked down towards the stain on the shorter man's jeans. John was having none of it. This didn't make any sense, and Sherlock would not be allowed to act like this was in any way normal, because it was irrefutably not okay.
John did the only thing he could possibly think to do. He burst out laughing: his body's automatic response when it didn't know how the hell to react. He had to admit though, besides this situation being weird, it was pretty damn funny. But oh god, the weird. The weird was overpowering.
Sherlock just stared at John with pursed lips through his laughing fit, waiting for it to conclude. He was a man of very limited patience, and yet, John was just so interesting and completely surprising in his responses that he could study the most arbitrary things about the man without waning in focus. For things not John or mystery, Sherlock was as patient as a five year old with ADD stuck in a padded room.
"What, Sherlock. Seriously, what," John managed through his steadily subsiding giggles.
"You'll have to be a bit more specific," Sherlock's face shifted fractionally in the direction of a confused expression.
"Look at you!"
Sherlock complied, looking down at himself, and his confusion deepened. He was 82% sure that his appearance did not differ from the usual, barring the large cardboard sign he held in front of his chest. Of course, there was a margin for error, seeing as he could not view his own face in full. Perhaps a bird had found his nose to be a good depository of its waste? No, preposterous, he would have noticed that. After all, he was the worlds only Consulting Detective. He wrinkled his nose just in case.
"I'm not following." He said with some reluctance, and looked back to John.
"You, Sherlock Holmes, holding a sign in—what's that—rainbow letters, proclaiming Free Hugs! like it's the most natural thing in the whole bloody world!"
Sherlock gave him a not often used what are you talking about look when realization tugged at his brain stem.
"Oh! Oh, dear me John, really?" He scoffed, and now it was John's turn to tilt his head. "No. I have not suddenly discovered my emotions nor am I having some ridiculous and commonplace mid-life crisis. Do you truly believe I'd be asking for—"He shuddered so violently that John wasn't sure if it was real or just theatrics," physical contact with strangers, just for the simple act of it?"
John blinked and nodded, "No, absolutely not. It's just… Sherlock Holmes and hugs don't even, I mean, it's," He chuckled," slightly unbelievable. Had my mind going for a spin there for a bit, wasn't sure if I was seeing things or not."
Sherlock was growing impatient."It is already enough that I have to stand here on a busy London street in the cold, John. It is far too much to ask that I be made to stay for any definable amount longer than I need to. Please go take a seat somewhere to watch or continue on your way, for all I care." John ignored his snippiness as usual.
"Exactly why do you need to do this Sherlock?" The detective huffed again, it was evident he would not get rid of John until he explained himself properly. John could be such a bother at times. But at other times…
He rattled out his explanation in what he hoped was a bored tone, "I'm trying to increase my approachability so that I need not rely on you to obtain the more delicate information from clients. You may not always—"Sherlock stopped and looked down for a millisecond of vulnerability, and then his head snapped up again. The guarded wall was back behind his eyes and in the tenor of his face.
"Now John, please do move out of the way. I am conducting an experiment and you are greatly decreasing its chances for a meaningful conclusion." He waved his hand dismissively at his flatmate, eyes staring straight ahead.
John looked at him closely, squinting his eyes and not bothering to shield this from Sherlock. The detective's skin crawled slightly under his gaze, but he made sure not to betray this. He felt like a statue with his stiff back and unwavering glare to the opposite side of the street. The two men were encased in an unbreachable bubble, the tension between them remaining tight as nameless people flitted around them. Sherlock was sure he would snap if John didn't move his gaze away soon.
Then it was the detective's turn to be as utterly dumbfounded as John had been. The shorter man's arms wrapped around Sherlock's upper back, somehow reaching through the sign—oh, it was on the ground, when did that happen?—and Sherlock reacted too late, his arms moving around the doctor stiffly and awkwardly as John was already pulling away. Sherlock's arms were rigid and vice like, and their force on Johns back made the man come forward again, head hitting Sherlock's chest with a light thump and a wheeze. They stayed like that for a long second, both startled, and then let go gingerly.
They stared at each other for a moment, the tension returning in full force. Then John barked out a laugh so vigorously that Sherlock couldn't help laughing in response, and both were soon doubled over by the overpowering force of the fascinating oddness of the whole situation. They earned a few looks from passer's-by, but were too blissfully consumed in their glee to care.
When John nearly had his breath back, he wheezed something out. It came out airy, and Sherlock's what?-face forced John into another fit of giggles.
Finally, when they were well and truly done, breathing deeply and faces tinged red, John tried again. "Is that your first hug of the day?"
Sherlock didn't answer and looked down quickly in the same way as before. That was enough of an explanation, and it wasn't a surprise. Before John had approached him, the tall man's face was set in an angry grimace, correctly showing just how much he didn't want to be partaking in such an experiment. John marveled at how far Sherlock would go for the purpose of obtaining data.
When the detective looked back up a moment later, John was relieved to see that Sherlock hadn't regained his closed off coolness; his eyes clear and expression relaxed.
"Want to go see if Lestrade has a case? Something of the complicated, multiple deaths category?" John asked, smiling.
Sherlock groaned and returned the smile, "God, yes." The two turned and walked down the street shoulder to shoulder, adding to the bustling droves of people already moving along. They left the cardboard behind them on the sidewalk.
"How about we just leave me to do the talking to the clients, yeah?"
"No quarrel there."
"And when did you make that by the way?" John said, referring to the sign. He imagined Sherlock bent over the cardboard in the middle of the night, drawing the words out in colored felts so precisely that sweat dripped on his brow, trying to make sure it looked friendly and welcoming as possible. He chuckled and earned a quick glance from the detective.
Again, Sherlock didn't answer, and John grinned at the man when he realized he was partly right.
They walked the rest of the way in mostly-silence, warmer together in the cool morning air than they had been alone. John's minor burn was forgotten, and Sherlock felt a slightly troubling glow in the pit of his stomach.
"If you breathe any of this to the Scotland Yard," Sherlock warned lightly before entering the building, his bright eyes still crinkled, "I will frame your murder." He grinned, and then John grinned and Sherlock's stomach settled back down comfortably, feeling fuller than it had in years.
That was all the data he needed.