Chocolate With Spiky Bits

Warnings: Mild implied slash, nothing graphic, some swearing.

Disclaimer: John and Sherlock belong to the BBC.

Notes: This is something I've had festering in my fanfiction folder a long time and only just finished in a sudden burst of inspiration. It's nothing sweeping or mind-blowing, but I love writing John and Sherlock and their interaction and the many aspects of their relationship, so I hope you enjoy it.

John examined himself in the mirror. It had something congealed on it that he wasn't too sure about, but he could still see his reflection clear enough. Not too bad. Oh, he looked tired of course – then again he always looked tired. Unlike Sherlock he did need more than two hours sleep a night to continue looking his best but what the hell, Sarah would surely be used to it by now. Hair all right, teeth all right, that bruise from when he'd attempted to stop Sherlock blowing a hole in the TV almost faded, nice clothes on for a nice night out, pretty much good to go.

He did up the fiddly buttons on his shirt cuffs, grabbed his best coat, started to shrug it around his shoulders and…

"What are you doing?" Sherlock said languidly from the corner of the room. "You're not going anywhere tonight."

John turned to look at him. His flatmate was stretched out on the sofa staring at the ceiling, long and lanky, all legs and over-sized dressing gown and flashes of pale skin at his wrists and ankles and throat.

"…Yeah, I am actually. I'm going out for dinner with Sarah? Remember?" John put a cheerful, hopeful tilt to his voice, a horrible premonition beginning to make itself known in the pit of his stomach. Oh God, Sherlock, please don't do this now.

"No, you're not," Sherlock said flatly, swinging himself upwards and pulling his mobile out of his pocket.

"Why aren't I, Sherlock?" John asked acidly.

"I made some calls," Sherlock said casually, fingers flying over the small glowing device in his hand, head bent downwards, soft yellow light from the almost dying lamp shining on the neck. "Your restaurant reservations have been cancelled, Sarah has decided to spend the evening catching up on some paperwork instead and we are free to look over the Leefick case. I'm pretty sure I've cracked it, in fact I'm definitely sure, but I know how you like to feel like you're helping."

"You…you what?"

This sort of behaviour wasn't unexpected of Sherlock, of course. If John had thought about it at all, and about all the other times Sherlock had managed to carefully ruin his plans with just a few phone calls or even one carefully worded text, he wouldn't have taken it as personally as he did because that was Sherlock and that was how he was, he didn't think of other people's concerns. You couldn't change him.

But John Watson was an instinctual man who reacted on the spot, and he was also an instinctual reactive man who'd paid a hell of a lot of money for a romantic night out. So he got pissed off. As he'd done a million times before and as he probably would a million times more, as long as Sherlock Holmes was in his life.

"Sherlock, do you know how much those reservations cost?" he said between his teeth.

Sherlock looked up from his phone, pale eyes wide and brimming with totally genuine sincerity. His dressing gown had slipped off one shoulder. "You don't mind, do you?"

John threw his hands up in a gesture of defeat, appealing soundlessly to whatever gods there might be although he wasn't too optimistic about that whole area at the moment.

"Oh, so you mind," Sherlock muttered petulantly, tugging his dressing gown back into place.

"Don't – don't you play the martyr!" sputtered John. "Some kind of explanation, please?"

"I gave you one. Leefick case. Remember?" Sherlock gave him that your inferior intellect is grating on me look that had managed to drive John insane probably about four hundred times in the last three months.

"What kind of explanation is that?"

Sherlock didn't answer.

John pulled his coat off and threw it on the table vehemently. He'd been looking forward to the way the candlelight would have reflected in Sarah's eyes, and the possiblity of her wearing a low-cut dress. And the food would have been brilliant, too.

"Why do you have to bloody well ruin everything?"

"I'm not sure what your problem is, John, it will provide excellent fodder for your blog," Sherlock said coldly, propping one bare foot up on the coffee table. "You can churn out a witty and incisive study of my psyche, and then the whole police force can read it. Lucky for me it will be hideously inaccurate, as always."

Why? Why do I live with this man? "Jesus, Sherlock, every day you make me want to leave more and more." John stared at the opposite wall and the algebraic equations Sherlock had scrawled on it in lipstick last night.

"Then why don't you?"

Something perverse in John refused to turn and look at the other man, but he could feel his intense blue-grey eyes on his back, just knew that it would be that expression, that calculating stare that looked right through you, picked you apart, added you up like tallies on a dartboard. Honestly, he was such a bloody prat.

"Well, I've got nowhere else to go, have I?" John undid his cuff buttons and pushed his sleeves up, exhaling slowly. He felt tired now. Tired and a bit old.

"You have Sarah. I'm sure she'd be more than willing to … take you in."

At that John spun around. As he'd predicted, Sherlock was staring coldly at him, hands steepled with his fingertips at his lips.

"I beg your pardon?"

"You heard me."

"I…I can't just move in with Sarah like that! I mean, yeah, I spend the night there every now and then but it's a whole different thing…we're not at that stage yet." John ran his hands through his hair and wondered where the hell this conversation was going. It was always so unpredictable with Sherlock. One minute he was rattling off amazing deductions at the speed of light, the next he was looking out at you under his eyelashes in a manner that really shouldn't be allowed near combustible materials, the next he was sulking like a three-year-old. How were you supposed to prepare yourself?

"Why not? You moved in with me just like that, you barely knew me." There was a glint in Sherlock's eyes, just a hint of something playful, a slight tug at the corner of his lips.

Oh. So that's how it is. A game, hm? Well, I'm not playing.

"You're different, Sherlock!" he said forcefully.

"How?" Sherlock cocked an eyebrow, his face still but his eyes alive with interest.

And now you're just being thick. Or is that a sneak attack? How the hell am I supposed to tell? Oh bugger, I'm playing his game, aren't I? How does he get me to do that?

John groaned in general frustration at life and sat down at one of the dining table chairs, grabbing an apple out of the fruit basket.

"You're a MALE, Sherlock," he said loudly in the tone of voice he used when trying to explain the basics of the solar system, or how to do up a bow tie. "Sarah's a FEMALE."

There was a little moment of silence, and John tossed the apple from one hand to another. Maybe the conversation was over and maybe he could call up Sarah, maybe they could go and get a pint or something – but then Sherlock had to go and start speaking again.

"So? I have a Y chromosome, she doesn't. You're attracted to both of us. I really don't see the difference."

John dropped the apple. It hit the table with a thump, bounced once or twice and rolled off the edge.

Sherlock shifted a little on the sofa, definitely smirking now – bastardbastardbastard!. "That'll bruise, you know."

"…attracted? What the hell are you talking about, Sherlock?"

"You wear your emotions on your sleeve, John, you should really watch that. Very unprofessional."

John shook his head, smiled, got up, picked up the apple and dusted it off. He examined it. There was already a large soft patch forming on it – he poked it experimentally.

Bloody hell, is it possible for your heart to actually smash a rib from beating so hard? Of course it isn't Dr. Watson, shut the hell up.

"So you're saying I'm in love withyou or something?" John said in the most normal tone of voice he could muster. It came off as slightly incredulous and a bit too squeaky for a man three decades past puberty. "Come on, Sherlock." He refused to look at the other man, who he was perfectly aware was still gazing straight at him.

Gosh, this apple is interesting. What an interesting apple.

"In love, no. Physical attraction, yes."

John looked up. Sherlock's eyes appeared odd in the dim light and there were shadows cutting under his cheekbones. There was something intense and burning about his expression, a determination brightly lit from behind.

John blinked, smiled tightly and awkwardly, asked for an explanation with his eyes.

Sherlock cocked his head to the side, and provided.

"There are certain physical signs it is impossible to ignore," he began. His voice was quick, husky, words flowing smoothly from one to another with no break in between. A tone John recognized well, a tone he'd heard so many times before over curled up bodies and abandoned cars and blood stains. "Dilated pupils, increased body temperature leading to vivid colour in the cheeks, rapid heart pace, sweaty palms and nervous swallowing. I've noticed them all in you at one point or another, John, mostly when you are elated from a successful case solved, for example - or curiously, when you're most angry with me, one of the quirks of human behavior I've never quite understood. Honestly, it doesn't take a genius to figure out what's going on, and since I am one…" He trailed off delicately.

The apple hit the floor for the second time in three minutes. This time the skin broke, and little bits of white flesh and juice sprayed out around it.

Sherlock placed the mobile on the coffee table with a careful, precise gesture, tapering his fingers in a way that was very elegant and very unnecessary. John hadn't even noticed he'd still been holding it all this time.

He smiled sweetly at John from the couch. "It's perfectly all right, John. I don't think any the less of you for it."

"Oh, so I'm not in love with you then," John said hard and sarcastic, wishing that damn John Leefick had never got himself killed. "I'm just massively turned on by you and your frankly terrifying cheekbones, is that it?"

"Precisely. Except…no…" Sherlock looked vague for a moment, lips parted slightly. It only lasted a fraction of a second, and then he had his solution and he was off. "I do believe there's some degree of emotional attatchment and dependency. Against your every sense of logic and the worlds of all around you, you trust me. Consider me a friend." There was an emphasis on friend, an intrigued quirk of inflection, as if some case Sherlock was studying had just taken an interesting development. "Every day you try and consider yourself that I'm not just a pyschopath – or a high-functioning sociopath. You tell yourself that Sherlock Holmes is a good person with the appropriate feelings that a moral human being should have and every day you suffer varying degrees of frustration and anger as you find yourself proved wrong time and time again." Sherlock leant forward slightly. "Then you get up the next morning and you do it all again. Obvious signs of the delusion that comes with love, or something akin to it. So I change my original statement – it's not just a physical attraction. You depend on me." He leant backwards, a slightly pleased, slightly cunning smile on his face. It was a smile that said I know everything, I've won and you've lost.

And the walls of defense were down. Every single wall was down, every barricade that John had quietly built between him and Sherlock, every brick that he'd put in place to hide what he thought and what he felt. Every wall he'd carefully put up in his own mind to block his own treacherous wants. Knocked down, just like that.

The conversation could have ended there and John could have slammed out the door, but apparently Sherlock had more to say.

"And then of course there's the fact that you find me intriguing, thrilling even. Before we found each other – "

Well, that was just ridiculous. "Found each other? Sherlock, what – "

"Don't interrupt," Sherlock said, quick and sharp. "Before we found each other your life was nothing but a blank routine of loneliness and boredom and memories of gunfire." Sherlock turned one slender hand into a pistol and made vague shooting motions. "Then purely by chance you come across Sherlock Holmes – " he gestured towards his own chest – "and, gosh, isn't he remarkable! It's not what you'd been looking for but it's what you'd wanted, what you needed."

Jesus Christ, what a bloody farce. "SHERLOCK. What is your point here?" John wished he could grab the conversation, pull it back to Leefick and his dislocated shoulder and wound to the head and to Sarah. Oh god, Sarah.

"The point here, my dear friend," said Sherlock deliberately and slowly, "is that when you consider all these contributing factors it boils down to the simple fact that you are as much attracted to me, Sherlock Holmes, as you are attracted to that Sarah woman. If not more so."

John stared.

Well, there it was.

"In fact," mused Sherlock softly, gazing upwards at the discoloured ceiling. "I'd definitely say more so."

There was a moment of silence then. Sherlock looked intently at him, bit his lower lip almost imperceptibly, tightened his jaw just a little. It seemed he'd said all he had to say. It was hard to tell from across the room, but it also seemed that he was breathing a bit faster than usual. Not really surprising, considering the flow of words that had just poured out of him, and the weight that they carried, a weight that upset an oh so delicate balance.

John knew something was expected of him now. He could see it in Sherlock's face.

Knowing Sherlock, he wouldn't be surprised if the detective was expecting praise. "Wonderful!" "Fantastic!" "How do you do that?" Another successful case solved, well done Sherlock Holmes!

"…you are a heartless bastard, you know that?" asked John quietly.

Sherlock's mouth dropped open, his eyes widened. He was affronted. It was not the reaction he'd been expecting. "What? Me?" he asked indignantly. "Why? What did I do?"

John gaped at him. He couldn't be actually serious. It was always impossible to tell but…no. Surely even Sherlock wouldn't be that obtuse. He analysed love and its motives for violence practically every week, he had to have at least a tiny understanding of how things worked, how emotions actually affected real people that he was really interacting with…

But maybe not. Maybe he just wanted to prove that he was right, and nothing else mattered.

John took a deep breath, tried to control the bubbling rage. Why the bloody hell did he have to say all those things? Why'd he have to bulldoze down everything just like that? It had been so…well, it hadn't been nice but it had worked and John had liked it and now what?

He balled his hands into fists because he didn't know what else he wanted to do with them, felt the angry pressure in his knuckles. "I am in a lovely relationship with a lovely woman, Sherlock, you can't just say things like that…"

"Well, you seemed to be confused," said Sherlock innocently. "I thought I'd just clear things up for you."

"Sherlock, has it ever occurred to you that sometimes people don't want to be told how they feel?"

"Oh, so I was right!" Sherlock grinned. He actually grinned.

His wide, energetic smile slowly faded as he took in John's expression.

"Okay then, Mr. Consulting Detective," John said quietly. "Okay. So you've laid my emotions bare. Stripped me down, cut me open like one of the corpses you find a sick delight in dismembering, bringing home and sticking in our fridge next to the fucking celery."

Sherlock laughed, a sharp staccato burst of genuine emotion. John wasn't sure what was funny about this situation at all. If Sherlock was lucky enough to be not having a serious sexual identity/love life crisis at the current moment that was fine but surely his superb perception skills could pick up that John really wasn't in the mood for merriment.

"Why, John, you've become quite poetic," Sherlock said as he came down from his laugh, his eyes glittering.

"Now what?" John asked frustratedly. "Now what happens, hmm? You've picked me apart, and come to the let me just say hideously inaccurate conclusion that I fancy you. Well done. What's the plan now, Sherlock Holmes?" There was heat in his face, too much heat, but his stomach felt cold and his chest just felt far too tight to be natural.

"Aha, you see?" Sherlock said excitedly, leaping up from the couch and practically leaping across the room to John. "This is exactly the kind of situation I was referring to! You're voicing your anger at me quite loudly but a mere child could tell what you really want…" His voice had dropped from excited-genius to something deep and murmuring like flowing chocolate with spiky bits and that was it, that was fucking it.

John grabbed his jacket viciously and limped out the door, slamming it shut angrily.

The air was colder outside in the hallway. Not that 221B had ever been a particularly warm place, Sherlock didn't seem to take any notice of body temperature and John took solace in his knitted jumpers during the cold spells, but it was chilly out here. Chilly, and bare, and empty, and John was very alone right now.

He took a deep breath.

"John," he heard Sherlock say quietly from inside. He must have been standing right in front of the door. John pictured him, all sharp cheekbones and shoulders and curls. It wasn't hard to pull up the mental image – the man had been imprinted on the inside of his eyelids from day one.

Where to go now?

Sarah's was the obvious answer. Sarah was who he'd always escaped to in the past. But oh god, no. He wouldn't be able to sit there in her nice tidy flat and watch TV with her and drink red wine and compare diagnoses of their patients because he'd always be thinking of the line of Sherlock's ivory white neck as he reached up to grab the arsenic off the top shelf in the kitchen and he'd always be expecting the stupid, okay, the brilliant man to appear around the corner any second.

And if he didn't appear around the corner, if he didn't somehow come back for him, John might not be able to handle it.

"John," Sherlock said, a little louder, the sound muffled but still very audible. No doubt he'd know that John was still standing there in that cold empty hallway, staring at the staircase and unsure of what to do.

And what would happen if John just happened to run into him on his way from the practice to Sarah's? What would happen if some wet evening of his new, mundane, calm happy life he saw that man again on a busy street somewhere, tall and slender with his coat billowing out around him and his expensive scarf wrapped around him and his dark curls damp with sweat and rain? Now that would be awkward. And also possibly heart-breaking.

"JOHN!" Sherlock yelled from inside the flat.

John grabbed the doorknob, twisted and pushed viciously.

"What?" he snapped.

Sherlock jumped neatly out of the way of the inwards-swinging door.

"Don't go," he said.

John let out a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding, pushed past the detective and walked into the flat.

"Hello," Sherlock said cheerfully from behind him.

He turned, marched up to the detective, probably a bit too close for comfort but he really didn't care right now, pointed a slightly trembling finger at him. "Don't do that again."

Sherlock's well-formed lips twisted slightly into a smirk. Does that expression come naturally to him or does he practice it in front of the mirror in the morning? "You mean don't use my deductive skills? You of all people should know that's impossible for me. It's part of my nature. I see a puzzle, I must unravel it."

John groaned. Why couldn't they just have gone and tackled a mass murderer instead?

"Well, I'm hardly a puzzle for you, am I? You see straight through me, all the time, every bit. You know every single thing about me, because you're the amazing Sherlock Holmes." John fiddled with the mobile in his pocket. Surely someone would want to get really drunk with him? Like, really really drunk.

"Oh, John, no," breathed Sherlock softly.

"…no what?" John asked warily, looking up from his pockets.

"Of course you're a puzzle. Even though you have a tragically inferior intellect coupled with a completely transparent psyche and I can see through all of your motives and actions, you are an ongoing mystery for me."

Well, this was new.

"Oh yeah? How so?"

"You surprise me, in little ways every day…" Sherlock's voice was thoughtful, as if the facts were just coming to him. "You read translations of old Greek poetry and cry over them – "

"I do not!" John interjected hotly.

"Yes you do," he said flatly. "You're an addict to danger but you still worry about buying the milk. You roll your eyes when the couple gets together at the end of the predictable romantic comedy, but you smile anyway. You read books that you think are trashy and unimportant simply because Sarah likes them and you think maybe you should give them a shot. You stay out too long in the rain and when you come back you smell like the city and – "

And then it was gone, the anger, and John Watson giggled like a schoolgirl, because…just…Sherlock.

Sherlock frowned, cut off from his soliloquy. "What?"

John made an interesting undignified snorting noise.

"What?"

John looked up with a smile. "Now who's being poetic?"

"Oh, shut up," Sherlock said dismissively. "I'm merely being honest. You are an enigma, John, admittedly a rather dull one, but still a never-ending puzzle."

John chewed on the inside of his lip, looked up at him. (why was he so tall? Why was he so…why?)

Sherlock leant closer and a dark curl fell limply across his forehead.

"And John?"

John swallowed.

This was…this was one of those moments. One of those ones. Things could change, things could change really quickly. Especially if he did that dark chocolate thing with his voice again and -

"I love every minute of it."

Fuck.

Sherlock's face, his ridiculous face with all its sharpness and lines and shadows and light, was very close. He had little veins in his eyelids, John noticed, eyelashes short and dark and spiky, breath that was warm.

Should probably say something now.

"Would you…like…some tea?" John offered, because it was all he could say and all he could do.

Sherlock straightened up abruptly, turned away with a slightly melodramatic spin. His dressing gown moved around him.

"Tea would be lovely."

John headed over to the fridge, steadily enough but feeling a bit funny and spinny in the head.

"Oh! Don't use the carton of milk with the anarchy symbol drawn on it," Sherlock called from the couch.

"Why not?"

"It's an experiment."

"O-kay, I'll definitely stay away then."

John opened the fridge door and from behind him heard the scraping of the violin as Sherlock launched into something fast-paced and dischordant. This usually meant that he'd solved part of the case but still had some way to go, that he was still burning with the chase.

Put kettle on boil, get out cups, eurgh, not that cup, get other cup less slimey, wash out cups, get safe-ish looking milk…

"Sherlock?"

"Mm?" The violin paused.

"I wouldn't have left you," John said. "You know that."

"Of course I do," Sherlock said and his voice wasn't dark chocolate romantic, it was nothing but the simple statement of a fact because they were Holmes and Watson and that was just how it was.

And maybe things would change one day and maybe there would be a slight shift in sleeping arrangements, and maybe one day John wouldn't blow out the candle that Angelo always brought them when they had dinner out. But for now, they solved crimes and they fought and drank tea and John would stay and that was all that was necessary.

John smiled into his cup.

"Of course you do."

-finis-