John Watson is not a fan of alphas. He's not bigoted, of course, he's got an alpha sister and she'd give him a cuff round the ears if she thought there was some ism she hadn't kicked out of him when he'd been a teenager.
He has plenty of alpha friends – hell, half of his brothers-in-arms are alphas, but as far as people John Watson wants in his bed, there is approximately one alpha on the list, and John explains him away as a statistical outlier. Bill Murray has an androgen-insensitivity and a tongue that could take the gold for England, were there any tongue-gymnastics sports that you could put on the telly pre-watershed. John considers him an honorary beta.
When Mike introduces John to Sherlock, who is tall and broad and smells like synthetic beta body wash, John makes the logical assumption.
John really isn't sexist, or a transphobe. At their first stakeout, he says, "So you're a beta, then," to let him know that regardless of his knot, John's not about to misgender him at every turn. Sherlock had turned a cool gaze on him as he practically sneered, "I'm flattered by your interest, but I think you should know, I'm married to my work."
John scoffed at him. "No, Sherlock. I just meant, it's all fine." And it had been. Fantastic, even. John gets kidnapped by Sherlock's older brother, John shoots a cabbie, John is somehow ridiculously charmed by this horrible man who is all-go mania interspersed with bouts of lethargy where he camps on the couch so long John wonders if moss will grow on his dressing gown.
He dates Sarah, a beta, and Sherlock does his best to muck that up. Sherlock mucks it up, and John surprises himself by not minding. John spends a lot of time not minding the terrible things Sherlock does.
John comes home to the kitchen smelling like a mix of pheromones, Sherlock shifting liquids from one beaker to another, his cheeks flushed and looking like the advert for a My First Science kit. It's the curls, he's coming to recognize, in the morning, frizzed out, he looks so young. John is startled by a sudden whim – he could kiss him, he thinks. Walk right past him and drop a kiss on that fuzzy head on his way to the fridge.
He reminds himself that he does not kiss alphas. He keeps telling himself that all day, over and over, like his tongue returning to poke at a cut inside his mouth. Concentric circles: you are not attracted to people-with-knots, he amends, remembering not to be rude, and then even further: you are not attracted to Sherlock Holmes. He's not trying to misgender Sherlock, but after four months of living with Sherlock, John still isn't sure if he pretends to be a beta because it is more convenient for the work, or if he actively identifies as a beta.
Honestly, they don't talk about permutations, after that initial awkward moment in the café that had cleared up approximately zero percent of John's questions, but John owed Sherlock some privacy after he was kind enough not to mention the fact that John is queer, or at least, he doesn't particularly align with typical alpha/omega dynamics.
John gets an updated glimpse into Sherlock's sexuality during a case.
There is a dead omega in bed. There are rose petals trampled on the floor.
"This is a four," Sherlock drawls, after his initial assessment of the room, the omega student, and her ransacked closet. "And I am being generous."
"There's no signs of forced entry, a ransacked closet, a computer tampered with but not stolen, and a dead omega who, by all reports, is adjusted as hell." Lestrade huffs out through his mouth. "Alright, Sherlock. Go for the big reveal: you know you're dying to."
Sherlock is on fire in an instant: drops his drawl and picks up overdrive as he points out the string of details. "Two jobs and a full course load, her syllabi tacked side by side with her work schedule and colour coded notes. Apron with baking flour, her hat from a second café job in her top drawer."
"Notes from the upcoming unit, laminated and near her bed for downtime, her dehumidifier running on full blast, and did you notice the desk? Smart kid, dedicated kid like that? She's trying to keep her heat to a bare minimum, and study during. If she had the money for suppressors, she would be on them."
When Sherlock gets going, he speaks faster than most people read. John grins in anticipation. He can tell from the speed that Sherlock's deductions are moving along that things are getting good. "She definitely was not planning on spending her heat with any partner, and you will find her consent and contact info conspicuously missing from her wallet, I am sure."
John is not following, but his eyes track the room as Sherlock points things out. Donovan, behind Sherlock, has a spine like a piano wire.
"What?" Lestrade asks. "Are you trying to call this a rape-gone-awry?"
Sherlock let out a long sigh. The sigh continues, and John wonders how long Sherlock can hold his breath, because he obviously has phenomenal lung capacity. "No," he says finally, moving to the victims fridge. "Even an omega trying to keep a heat under forty eight hours wouldn't have a fridge that looked like this - no complex carbs. She was actually still a good two days away from her heat. Look through her schedules," Sherlock instructs. "Work and school. Find an overlap, there is a class she's missed a few of lately and is falling behind in. She made an offer, probably to the professor or the TA, to share a heat in exchange for some kind of favor, or help, or the simple overlooking and refiling of attendance paperwork. She'd planned on acting the part for a day and a half, sure she'd be rid of him well before her actual estrus arrived. The plan probably came together in a moment of serendipity as she realized that his class sechedule lined up with her biology."
Donovan makes a noise of protest. "Jump from smart and dedicated to omega whore rather quickly, you hysterogynistic jerk."
Sherlock frowned. "You've rather shown your hand there, Donovan, with the words you're putting in my mouth. The woman is not being supported by family, taking on an overly full course load and has a pair of jobs known for keeping extremely early and extremely late hours, respectively. I suspect to be maintaining the way she is, she's trained herself to some form of polyphasic sleeping, very possibly of her own design. She keeps her heater off, habitually. She probably hates the loss of control inherent in the whole ordeal. If she thought that faking thirty hours of a heat was a plausible trade for getting her studies back in order, whore is certainly not among the most prominent thoughts I have about her."
Donovan, by the end of Sherlock's speech, looks floored, slack jawed. She snaps out of it quickly, bristling still. "Well, what would you call her, then?"
"Misguided. Naïve. If she thought she could fool an alpha for a day and a half with acting and a dehumidifier to take the blame for a lack of pheromones. Likely, she informed him that she typically had light, short heats and she runs it constantly to keep maximum mental facilities, but that wouldn't fool any adult who had any experience. She may never have experienced a full heat in the presence of an alpha. Tragic that she felt like her continued success would depend on such a scheme."
"And … the TA? Why kill her?" Greg Lestrade looks tired, like a well-fitting shirt that's been through the wash too many times.
"I suspect he killed her when it became clear that she wasn't actually on the brink of a heat, as she'd indicated to him when she'd made the offer today. Possibly an accident, in the moment." Sherlock paces the room, swiveling on his heel every time he gets to the edge again. "But afterwards, he failed to have a typical remorse-reaction: she is neither posed to look like an accident, nor in any of the positions that usually indicate regret. He was calm enough to look through her computer for anything of academic importance that he might be interested in, and to find her wallet for her C&C card. Likely, when you find it, his name will be on it, and he took that with him. The closet is a last minute measure to make it look like a robbery gone wrong."
"Alphas," Sherlock says, in conclusion. "They're completely useless. You can maneuver them anywhere with thought that they might get to press their genitals into something small, and their tiny little brains just catch fire when they think that may not be the case."
Sally looks murderous as Sherlock turns on his heels. He doesn't say come along, John, like he's a hound, but it seems to hang in the air nonetheless. He nods at the two officers at the cene and scrambles to catch up.
John's therapist thinks John is obsessed with Sherlock.
John knows this because she's written persistent obsession with flatmate, and John, who can be just as childish as Sherlock when he really puts his mind to it, tells her about him for another twenty minutes.
For the first time, she has to cut him off. He would be embarrassed, but he is still too busy, after a week, thinking about how Sherlock is strange and tactless and sees so often to miss all social cues, but somehow, that omega in uni, eighteen and stressed and desperate had somehow caught Sherlock's sympathies. He thinks of Sherlock saying tragic and Donovan's face, and he doesn't explain all of that to Ella Thompson, because some things are private and she doesn't know that he's seen an omega murdered in her own bed so recently that he could draw her from memory against the back of his eyelids.
"Huh," he muses, looking at the clock. "Ta very much," he says, excusing himself. On the walk home, Sherlock's voice echoes in his ears, not among the more prominent thoughts I had about her, and there is something in Sherlock that he's missed, somehow.
"You've been somewhere unusual," Sherlock says from the sofa. John assumes that he is on the couch, at least.
"Why are you sitting in the dark, Sherlock?" John asks, flipping on the light in the doorway. He'd meant to be discrete, of course, with his shopping, but trust Sherlock to sniff out his embarrassment before he even steps over the threshold.
Sherlock made a bored, vague loop with the arm dangling off the side of the sofa. "It was daytime, earlier."
John edges towards the stairs, but Sherlock smells blood in the water. One sniff, John knows, will be like handing Sherlock a calendar with red letter days circled in triplicate. He may identify as a beta, but his biology is all alpha. It would be in poor taste for John to mention it.
"Let me have a look," Sherlock says, planting himself between John and his exit.
"Not appropriate, Sherlock," John says. He feels this might be kinder than calling his flatmate a wanker, but that step is rapidly approaching.
"Oh," Sherlock says, voice going flat. "Biology, then. Dull."
John can feel something in his blood moving restless, like he's been carbonated. It always feels like this. At some point in the next forty-eight hours he is going to have to have an adult discussion with Sherlock, but Sherlock starts avoiding him.
As his heat draws near, and he hasn't seen Sherlock in a solid thirty six hours, John assumes that Sherlock has decided that discretion is the better part of valor and has made a strategic retreat for a few days. He sends a text anyways: have everything you need from flat? locking door in 2 hrs.
He's not sweating yet when he gets a text back, Will be in late tonight. SH
Don't. he texts back. haven't gone into full ht in almost a yr, SH. whatever suprssrs yr on, not going to keep you out.
As usual, you see but do not observe. Put a wet towel across the crack under your door. Pheromones make me itchy. SH.
John moans in despair, too close to his heat starting in full force to make other arrangements. He thinks about calling Harry, who would come sit outside his door if he asked. Embarrassingly enough, it wouldn't be the first time she'd helped out with a heat – when he was first back in London he'd rode one out in her spare bedroom, all sisterly sniping aside when she brought him water and carded her hands through his hair as he tried to sleep fitfully.
He wavered for several minutes. If he called Harry, the whole thing was bound to be awkward, but she will surely arrive, make herself at home in their living room to revise her history textbook, which she rewrites all hours of the day, one eye on Sherlock's door.
He's even sure she won't mention it for a few days out of her surprising dynamic etiquette. The tact his sister seems to lack in literally every other area in life seems to have all been allocated to gender matters.
The downside being his unruly flatmate who would scan her and give his most scathing assessment. He'd know in an instant: see the way she holds herself, or her rolled shirtsleeves, or the fact that she hasn't had a haircut since. Sherlock Holmes would squint at all of the tiny details and read the truth and of course he would say a terrible thing, ask if Clara is buried where their parents are, or something equally tactless and Harry would dissolve into a saltwater mess.
Instead, he drafts a text to her as well. Going to start my heat in abt an hr.
Solo? she asks, immediately. She's nonplussed by the whole thing: John has always told her she was born to be a hystrologist, but she always laughs. "I'm a historian, John. Phonetically speaking, we're practically the same thing."
Y. Can you call around 12 or 1 tmrrw? Possibility of some turbulence.
Want me to come over now? she asks, but John doesn't answer. He's starting to feel overheated, so he pulls his jumper over his head, folding it neatly before sitting down to pant for a few minutes.
No ty, just call if I don't chk in pls.
John puts his phone in a drawer and pads over in his trousers and vest to deal with the other minutia: water tucked between his headboard and the wall, other materials hefted up from their discrete box under the bed (the box had been labeled books/misc when he'd moved in; Sherlock had let him it be known in the following week that he had noticed John only had three books to his name).
John's heart thudded heavily, making a swishing baseline reverberate in the hollow of his throat. In the next two hours, he would become a sweaty, needy mess, unable to do all but the most basic of functions. He wouldn't even remember how much he liked his body when the entirety of it was a knot-free zone. Anxiety gripped him, but he did his best to relax.
If John had learned one thing, it was that his flatmate was singular. If someone he knew could ignore an omega in the flat in heat, John would put money on Sherlock, right after he put his money on Bill Murray.
He put the towel across the door, climbed into his narrow bed, and settled in for a miserable weekend.