A/N: "A Study in Johnlock" seems so cliché, but that's pretty much what this is: it's me looking at Johnlock from every angle, choosing the five most written smut pieces in the fandom as a vessel to explore my interpretation of these two characters and how they might get together and work together. As a consequence it might seem a bit slow, but here you are nonetheless. If I owned these characters, I wouldn't be playing with them like this.

Also, this is as-yet unbetaed - I wanted to just post it tonight so I could focus on other things. Like study.

-for you!

Sherlock sometimes thinks he should be worried about the amount other people speculate about how he and John got together.

Seriously, it happens all the time. The pair can barely meet anyone who's heard of them prior to the meeting without sitting through a story of oh, I bet it happened like this. Generally when this happens, Sherlock looks at John and John looks at Sherlock and they both burst out laughing; every now and then, though, the same story is repeated often enough that they both wonder who's been gossiping and why on earth anyone would think either of them could possibly do that.

That people put enough thought and effort into imagining these scenarios that they could probably make them into graphic novels is, needless to say, a little frightening. That many different groups of these people somehow still manage to come up with the same answers is hugely frightening, not least because it means that one or both of them must be giving off some kind of bold impression that they are the kind of people who enjoy – to name a few – procreating in semi-public places, flogging each other with riding crops, or tying each other up and performing intricate "scientific" investigations on each other. At these moments, John starts to put his head in his hands and crawl away in embarrassment at the vaguely interested look on his boyfriend's face.

Both of them understand, to an extent, why people assume that the way they began their sexual relationship must have been wild and wacky and most definitely not normal. It's the things that they assume about each of them, the most weird, wacky and wonderful ways that people assume they would have felt they had to express their emotions.

For some reason they pick on Sherlock the most. He grudgingly supposes that he draws more attention to himself than John, and the blog certainly doesn't help. And really he does have more traits for them to pick on and escalate than the good doctor – although he will still maintain that nothing he does could ever be stranger than John's lifelong habit of putting strawberry jam and cheese in the same sandwich.

But Sherlock's bugbear is the strange things that so many people seem to unanimously agree that he does in the comfort of his own home with absolutely no evidence. Like their obsession with formulating the oddest theories of how John stumbled upon him masturbating and moaning John's name rather than just admit his feelings straight-off.

That's not to say that Sherlock didn't. When he first began to contemplate the idea of being attracted to John in that way he'd shut himself in his bedroom and spent almost an hour just lying there, idly fondling himself while imagining his flatmate in all manner of sexual situations. He'd almost given up on the idea – not finding any of his lurid imaging particularly arousing – when the memory of John reading the paper had drifted into his head. Just reading the paper, the tiny creases Sherlock could map exactly over his forehead as he frowned at something Afghani, one browned index finger stroking over his lips.

His whole body had shuddered, breaking his concentration for a moment, and then when he'd recovered himself a little, he'd found himself hard and hot and throbbing.

He discovered after a while that what he'd been doing was imagining the doctor being explicitly sexual in the manner of some kind of porn star, rather than imagining John still being John, only in sexual situations. Once he'd worked out the kinks in that respect, without giggling more than just a little bit at the pun, using John as masturbatory material turned out to work almost alarmingly well.

So it was not wholly unusual to find Sherlock of an evening stretched out on his bed with the sheets around his ankles, legs thrown to each corner of the bed, one hand in his hair and the other resting on his belly, his head full of images of John. Sherlock's a mental person and he prides himself on his ability to work himself up to the point where he barely needs a hand on himself to finish; this in particular is a skill that he perfected in the few months between realising that he wanted John to actually going out and getting him. So he would take the time to think about what might happen if he let something slip and John felt the same way, how something real might happen if he ever worked up the courage to risk it.

By the time the two of them stopped dancing around each other Sherlock had a great many ideas as to how that might come about; almost as many, he found out after the fact, as John's online fan community. Though, he consoled himself, Lewis Carroll would have a hard time being more inventive than that group of giggling, lyrical teenage girls.

Sherlock has spent so much of his life being called 'freak' and 'weirdo' because of the things people see him do that are a little out of the ordinary, and so the obsession of his and John's fans surprise him: particularly the sheer number of traits and strange habits that they attribute to him without prompt. It's strange to think that these people assume he is even less normal than he actually is, and love him for it. He doesn't habitually sleep on the sofa or deprive himself of necessary rest for days on end unless he has to, or turn his nose up at food offered to him when he's hungry. And he isn't a trembling virgin who didn't even dare to touch himself in the fumblier phases of puberty. The sheer number of people who seem to think he'd never experienced any kind of orgasm before John laid hands on him is ever-so-slightly insulting. Sherlock is as much a sexual being as the next person: he's perfectly aware of the body's natural function, and perfectly capable of seeking out release when he needs, wants, desires it.

Which is not to say that masturbating to thoughts of John was in no way different to a regular night in, not to say that desire for a particular, unattainable person was a thing familiar to him. The desire to hold John close that snuck up on him at completely inappropriate times caught even him by surprise. And the orgasms that followed certain half-formed fantasies swept him off his feet, stripped him of the capacity for rational and irrational thought until he was a ball of bliss and longing, flying helplessly past the constellations John cares so much about, plunging back into consciousness extra-alert, poised and listening in case he had made some kind of noise that John might wonder about.

He didn't worry that John might think he was in pain and barge in, unsuspecting. The good doctor masturbated enough – one day, John will ask Sherlock how he knew and the detective will smile and look in the other direction – that he knew what the act sounded like, and did he perchance hear a drawn-out groan or two he was British enough to turn beet-red and roll over.

But John heard nothing. Sherlock asked him a few months after they began their relationship, once they became comfortable enough around each other sexually to mention times before each other. He wasn't terribly surprised: Sherlock has a way with noise and emotion, where he either stays completely silent – for days on end, as he warned John the first day they met – or makes so much unnecessary noise that people on the street outside turn and stare at the upstairs windows. John will one day let slip to Sherlock that he likes the quiet days better; as much as he enjoys hearing every little exclamation and wanton scream of pleasure, it's the tiny gasps and sighs and hitches of breath that escape when he's in a silent mood that betray the effect John has never managed to not have on him.

So for John to walk in on Sherlock in the throes of self-pleasure, it would have to be purposeful.

Which wasn't at all an impossibility. John would be the first to admit that the sound of Sherlock getting off is enough to make him freeze where he stands, his toes curling in his shoes – and since they began their relationship, John has come home to that sound more times than he can count because Sherlock will freely admit that John walking in on him has always been his biggest fantasy.

It's almost a Droste effect of a fantasy: from the moment he lets his hand slide down his belly to wrap lightly around his cock there are infinite incarnations of John interrupting him, of John walking in on his fantasy of John walking in on his fantasy of John, of John and John and John, and it's easy to get lost in it and lose track of how many layers deep he is, which John is 'real' and whether any of them could actually be real, especially now when that's become the point of the fantasy in the first place.

But the point, the point he's trying to make here, is that he knows exactly how it would pan out.

He'd be lying on his bed late at night – there were times when he couldn't wait, of course there were, after a case in which John had been particularly helpful or military, but mostly through biting his lip and pulling his coat tighter around himself he could avoid rousing John's suspicions as to what he was doing when he raced home and locked himself in the bathroom – feeling his heartbeat echo in his belly, picking up and tripping over memories of John emerging from the shower to hand him a cup of tea, of John leaning over his shoulder and humming in the morning. And once he allowed himself, just the memory of that fond face and scratchy voice would have him half-hard in moments.

He'd tug on his nipples a little first, to get himself as worked up as possible before actually laying his hands on himself; settling into the fantasy like wriggling his shoulders against his pillows to get comfortable. And then the moment he touched long fingers – still slightly cold – to his cock, the game would begin.

"Sherlock?"

He jumped, his fingers tightening involuntarily around himself, sending a shudder through his body and making his toes curl into the sheets, which created a crazy feedback loop that made his hand slide up and down his cock once more before he could even look up to affirm that it was John standing in the doorway, eyes wide and fixed on Sherlock's trembling prick as it continued to twitch and slide through his fingers.

"John –" he gasped, trying to still his hand, but it was hard because of that look in the doctor's eyes as he stared, that look that suggested the inclination to devour. He managed to slow his strokes a little, to stare back up into those wide hazel eyes with a desperation that would hopefully make it perfectly clear what – who – he wanted. "John…"

After a moment the doctor seemed to recover himself, his eyes flickering helplessly from Sherlock's face to his cock in panic. "Shit. Sherlock – I'm sorry. I'm leaving now," he bumbled, dropping his hands and turning for the door.

"John, no!" Sherlock gasped out quickly, suddenly able to pull his hand from his lap and sit up, reaching for his flatmate's hands. John stopped before he could reach him, turning back in disbelief. "Please… please don't go."

The doctor's eyes flicker to his groin and up again, wide, uncertain. "You… you really… are you asking because you want…"

Sherlock refrained from rolling his eyes. "You? Yes. Very much, in every way it's possible to want someone."

John let out his breath in a huff, sinking onto the foot of the bed. "All right then. Um… carry on."

His hand was between his legs again before he had time to consider the request. "You're not going to help?" he asked, swinging his legs back into their former position on the bed.

The doctor smiled. "I thought you were doing just fine on your own," he said, his voice dropping half an octave and turning dark and husky. Sherlock shuddered, his hand dropping back to his cock and taking hold, sliding gently from root to tip with John's gaze lighting it up like the London Eye and he groaned and –

"Shit!"

The fantasy shattered, Sherlock's hand gripping himself in shock even as his legs curled up to hide himself from his flatmate, standing at the door, his eyes pointedly fixed on the floor. "Sorry!" John gasped. "I heard the noise and I thought you might be hurt…"

Slowly, he forced himself to uncurl, to lie back against the pillows again and look up at John, hand still wrapped tightly around his cock. "Well? In or out, John, don't just stand there."

John gaped, staring at him – still keeping his eyes resolutely confined to his face and not straying to any inch of his naked body. Sherlock let out a huff of impatience. "Yes, that was an invitation," he said briskly. "Shut the door behind you."

For a moment he thought John would bolt, run out the door and save the messy did you really want me to watch you wanking conversation for the morning, but then he was stepping inside and closing the door with a snap. Sherlock let out a breath of relief. He wasn't sure what he would do if he invited the doctor in so blatantly and he wasn't interested: it would probably involve some hasty excuse about being desperate for release and half-blinded by arousal at the time.

But John leaned against the door and folded his arms, and so Sherlock let his head relax and fall to the side on the pillow, his hand sliding smoothly back down his belly, stopping for a lazy circle to catch the pre-come gathering on the head of him before resuming the slow strokes up and down his shaft.

"John," he whispered, and the doctor actually leaned forwards to hear, "you have no idea how long I've been imagining this… you watching me… wanting me…"

John swallowed. "I want you," he affirmed.

Sherlock drew in a sharp breath, his hand tightening, speeding up as the words sent a thrill through him. "John," he squeaked, his voice impossibly high: he cleared it before continuing. "John," he repeated at a more dignified pitch, "John – say that again."

"I want you," the doctor replied without hesitation. "Sherlock, I want you so much."

A deep groan rocked through him. "John," he moaned. "John…"

"Are you all right – oh!"

Sherlock yelped and whimpered, barely able to move to acknowledge John, throwing his free hand above his head as his eyes drank in the sight of the doctor standing rooted to the spot and gazing hungrily as though Sherlock was a buffet about to be snatched away. His hand moved faster without his consent, control of absolutely everything snatched away from him.

And John was falling to his knees, his jaw almost on the floor as he crawled towards the body on the bed, and Sherlock was helpless, a telltale heat flourishing in his abdomen as he whimpered and writhed. "Sherlock," John whispered as he drew near the bed. "Sherlock, would you… would you let me?"

The hand over his head was repurposed into a fist, shoved into his mouth to stop from screaming as John reached out, reached out to touch him, to still his own hand as it flew over his cock, and he was going to –

"Oh! Sherlock…"

And that was it, he was gone: Sherlock bit down on his fist hard enough to draw blood as his release coated his hand and landed in hot splashes over his stomach and everything went white.

It would take him a moment to come down, regulate his breathing until the immediate danger of passing out had lessened, and then he would blink and look around and most likely jump wildly in response to seeing John – real and actual John – still standing there, to not coming back from his orgasm to a real world in which he masturbated alone.

"You're still here," he would gasp. "Why are you still here?"

John's face would colour and he would make to leave, stammering some excuse about being caught by surprise and not thinking that Sherlock did this kind of thing. Sherlock would have to cut him off to stop him from leaving. "No – I don't mean go. I'm just surprised that you're real."

The doctor, thoroughly nonplussed, would fold his arms and carefully keep his eyes on Sherlock's face. "What do you mean, real? Of course I'm real."

Sherlock, being Sherlock, would probably wave a hand imperiously towards his discarded clothing at this point, and John being John would tut incredulously – you're really expecting me to do this for you? – and toss the worn pyjama t-shirt over so that Sherlock could clean himself up, followed by the cotton pants to cover himself before flopping bonelessly back onto the bed. "Well. I'm guessing you already know what I was thinking about?" he'd say tonelessly, wriggling into the bed to play against the nerves spinning around his chest.

John would shift awkwardly against the wall. "I… I heard my name. That's why I came in. I couldn't help it."

He'd probably smile a little then, just to try to show his friend that it was all right. "I was imagining that you'd walked in on me. Usually when I do that you're not still here after I…"

He wouldn't blush, but it might be a near thing; either way, there's barely any doubt that John would venture closer until he was perched at the end of the bed, at which juncture Sherlock would awkwardly pat the space beside him. "Would you stay?" he'd ask, if he was brave enough. And John would, of course he would, but that would be it: the actual conversation of so what does this mean would wait until both of them were at breaking point. Because Sherlock's not good at putting emotions into words, but John often needs things to be vocalised before he'll acknowledge them, and so the two of them would fester in days of awkward almost-touches before the good doctor snapped and forced a confrontation.

Sherlock still imagined it happening like that, imagined – to help him fall asleep after the disappointment of coming down from the high to an empty room – that John would climb into bed with him, wrap his arms around him and spoon him with his lips underneath Sherlock's ear to whisper things like I'll never let you go in the hazy moments before they fall asleep.

But it couldn't have actually happened. And if it had… he couldn't be sure things would have worked out the way they did, couldn't be sure he'd have now the wonderful things that he has.

And that isn't worth sacrificing for his wildest fantasies.

A/N: I'm participating in NaNoWriMo, and with my other WIPs it's unlikely this will get updated again before November, so I'll see you all in December. Sorry to dump this on you and then withold the rest.

-for you