And so it deteriorated from Its All Fine, to Its All Fine But Maybe We Need To Talk it Out, to Its Definitely and Decidedly Not Fine very quickly.
Sherlock had never mastered social graces to begin with. It was a product of his arrogance. That life-long arrogance allowed Sherlock to blindly walk into dangerous situations without concern, and when those situations blew up in his face he was always the last to understand why. Compounding problems further was the expectation that the detective, legendary for his observations, was incapable of missing subtle social cues that where plain to others. But he didn't really miss them. He was just willfully, deliberately ignorant of them, as if tuning a distraction. Manners were complicated. They slowed brain-work. Sherlock simply deleted manners some years ago.
So he had habits. Bad habits. Habits that John had always tolerated, habits Sherlock thought were normal, like being excessively demanding, obnoxious, obtuse, impatient, rude, cruel and thick and brilliant. Except it wasn't normal, it had never been normal to ask John to drop whatever he was doing to race across town to be met with a simple task Sherlock wanted John to do because Sherlock couldn't be bothered. And eventually, John was bound to blow up about it. Anyone else would have seen that coming. It was inevitable. And it only made sense that John would lose his cool under times of elevated stress.
Like now. Like this morning.
Lestrade had beckoned Sherlock to hit and run that didn't sit with him as being quite so random. As Sherlock flew out the front door, he texted John and demanded he leave the clinic to assist him. John came promptly (as usual) and was miffed (again, normal) that there wasn't a true emergency that really justified his leaving work (A typical day, really. Could be any day. Today it was Thursday).
Sherlock brushed off John's frustration, per their usual. Everything was going swimmingly and Sherlock was in his element, feeling high and wonderful.
Until John snapped at Sherlock and called him a…not nice word in front of Donovan and Lestrade.
And it said it loudly, just as Sherlock was turning away, and John had shouted it at his back. So when the not nice word filled the air, Sherlock was facing the whole of Lestrade's team.
John really meant to say something else. But then the other word hit him just as his mouth was opening and oh, that would sting and it really was appropriate to say such a nasty, nasty word because, really, Sherlock was a nasty, nasty soul. So cruel, so impatient, so hurtful and brilliant and for God's sake nobody so intelligent had any business being so thick! And one of these days, just one of these day, Sherlock was going to know just how much it bothered John to be bullied, how humiliating it was to be summoned, to be forced to drop everything you were doing, race across the city just so you could be put down in front of people and called stupid.
"Fuck you, too, you faggot."
Most people did not notice, but a few other detectives paused and looked over. Anderson looked for an uncomfortable length of time. Donovan cleared her throat and Lestrade looked away politely.
It brought all of Sherlock's brain work to a startling halt. His face turned bright red, heat rising from his cheeks. He felt as if the bustling crime scene, the busy street, the traffic beyond the yellow tape all came to a halt and every eye was on him.
Stiffly, Sherlock turned back around to face John, his voice intense and very, very quiet: "What?"
By the look on John's face, Sherlock immediately deduced John's regret and embarrassment. He also quickly noted the bags under the eyes, the stubble, and his crooked collar. And lipstick. Shimmer pink lipstick in the corner of his mouth. Ah. John had not been at the clinic at all.
"Sherlock…." John croaked. "I didn't mean…not like that."
Sherlock was not capable of looking John in the eye. "Please leave." There was no anger in his voice. He couldn't possibly be angry when he felt so sick. He felt eyes all over his body, judging him. He was naked.
"I mean, I'm really..." John sputtered. "I don't know where that came from…I didn't mean to say that."
"People are staring," Sherlock said. No one was staring now, it was all in Sherlock's mind, but his skin crawled. "Please go home."
"You…don't want my help now?" John's embarrassment was giving in to his anger again. "You know, I am sorry, but I dropped everything to…"
"Shimmer pink lipstick in the corner of your mouth," Sherlock dismissed. "You weren't at work. It wasn't anything that couldn't wait."
John recoiled, his jaw tensing. "You know what? She's not a fucking leper. She's my girlfriend. And I like her. And you don't get to tell me what's important. Maybe I want to put her first for once. Except every text message from you sounds like a terrorist attack. Today it's a bloody car accident. Tomorrow it might be…you're too lazy to move from your chair and you need me to come home to put on tea. So fucking excuse me for being bent out of shape..."
"Fine. I assure you I can carry on better without you distracting me." Sherlock's hands fidgeted in his scarf tails. "I promise not to contact you again outside a true emergency, whatever that might be." With that, he briskly turned away and fled into the crime scene.
John had gambled a lot in Afghanistan, loved cards. This was the first time he ever realized Sherlock had a tell.
0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0
John was still away when Sherlock returned to the flat. It was very late and Sherlock had expected John home by now. He resisted the urged to text John. The good doctor would come home when he wanted.
Sherlock's mind was empty. There was usually a great deal of chatter going on up in his head, many experiments running their course, many observations being catalogued and departmentalized. But there was only one word in his head still. A very not nice word.
Sherlock considered the word somberly.
He tried to play the violin. He sat down on the sofa and reached for the instrument, waiting for him on the table. But as he reached out, his own hands caught his attention. He had very slender, delicate fingers and well manicured nails. He curled his hands up and considered his nails. Very feminine.
He decided against the violin.
He took out a notebook and set it down on the table, reflecting on the word John had used. He wrote the word down and studied it. He wrote it down again. He flipped the notebook, wrote the word and all the letters backwards, got up and stood in front of a mirror and held up the backwards letters so they read forward in the reflection, like a caption. Sherlock read the word over and over again. It was like a name hovering under a school picture. And it was his name now. It was the name John affectionately selected for him. It was part of his identity, never to be deleted.
0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0
John came home in the early morning while it was still dark out, presumably because he tried to spend the night at Sarah's. But John never called and didn't answer any of his texts.
Sherlock was still up. He had filled the notebook with his new name. "You're stomping," Sherlock observed dryly from the sofa, laptop perched on his thighs. "Did Sarah ask you to leave? Were you belligerent?" He sniffed, smelling alcohol. "God. Are you drunk?"
John put up his coat on the rack once he stepped through the door. "What?" His cheeks were red. It wasn't from the cold.
"You escaped to decompress, but you're returning more stressed than when you left. Your manhood has not been validated. You want me to know you're angry and unreceptive by stomping up the stairs," Sherlock pointed out firmly, calmly, though inside his chest his heart was racing. "I'm letting you know your anger is acknowledged and you don't have to make any additional or escalating gestures of violence to gain my notice. You have my undivided attention. Nonetheless. We need to talk. No matter how angry you are, how tired, we need to talk."
John stared blankly at Sherlock, brows furrowed.
Sherlock studied John's face. Sensing he'd already made an error of some kind, he looked down at his laptop screen and scrolled furiously, read something and then looked back up at John. "Or I can listen," Sherlock corrected. "That is, if you want to talk. I'm flexible."
John shook his head. "What…the hell are you doing?"
Sherlock turned the laptop around to reveal a dense word document. "I wrote down what I've been thinking since you left so when you returned I could articulate my feelings properly. They never come out the same way the second go-round."
John said with great impatience, "You made a Mad-Lib. You're using a Mad-Lib to navigate a conversation with me."
"I don't know what that means." Sherlock turned the laptop back around and read until he found his place. "I wrote in my notes if you said anything I didn't understand, I shouldn't nod or make any false gestures to placate you but instead be honest about my short comings and limitations..."
"You have fun with that. I'm going to bed." John turned out the door.
Sherlock pushed aside the laptop and jumped to his feet after John and followed him to the bottom of the stairs. "John, wait." He reached out and tried to take John's hands.
John swatted Sherlock's hands away and began up the stairs.
Sherlock was right behind him, his long legs skipping steps to catch his friend. "John!"
John ignored Sherlock.
Sherlock shouted at John, anger rising in him for the first time; "You called me a faggot!"
At the top of the stairs, John paused without turning around and his shoulders slumped.
Sherlock said, "I'm not a stranger to slurs and verbal abuse. You aren't even the first person who's called me…that. That word has never haunted me before but with your insult, I could see Donovan and Lestrade and Anderson and everyone else imagining me in the throes of some filthy, degrading sexual act they smugly assume I've tried. The snickered knowingly at me, as if they're clever, as if they've deduced something about me. But their assumptions couldn't be further from the truth. I wanted to scream all morning, proclaim my innocence and curse them for thinking I'm just another shameless, mindless, rutting animal like they all are. But by the time I was finished being shocked, I realize I'd wasted hours on my embarrassment rather than on the crime scene."
John didn't turn around. He just stood silently at the top of the stairs.
Sherlock continued; "Let's forget this ugliness. I forgive you. I hope you forgive me." He reached out a nudged John's elbow. "Turn around and shake my hand and let's agree to not be angry anymore." He held out his hand expectantly.
John turned around slowly. "Shameless, mindless, rutting animals. Like we all are."
Sherlock blinked. "What?"
John took one step down the stairs towards Sherlock, nose-to-nose with the other man. "What you said. Shameless, mindless, rutting animals. Like. We. All. Are. Like me. Like Sarah. Like…we should all be ashamed. You, on the other hand, are somehow better than the rest of us." He made a vague gesture with his hand. "Better than Donovan and Anderson with their furious floor washing. Do you have any idea how you sound?"
Sherlock sneered in disgust, John's drunken breath offensive. "You're being too sensitive. You're blowing what I said out of proportion."
"So are you," John said, taking another angry step down, and at that Sherlock retreated a step. "You're acting like I'm a bigot. Like I can't josh you. Like…you don't deserve to be knocked down a few pegs when you're acting like a complete and total ass."
"It's a repulsive word," Sherlock said bitterly. "No one deserves to be called that."
"Stupid is a repulsive word," John pointed out. His anger was very muted, boiling. "Idiot. That's a repulsive word. You toss it around like it's nothing, no regard for anyone's feelings. Why should you be insulated? Are you ashamed of being gay? And please explain it to me, Sherlock; how the hell are you gay?"
Sherlock realized he was still holding out his hand. He looked down at it. He looked at his fingernails, his feminine fingernails. He let his hand drop to his side.
John leaned forward. "You're just being a miserable bitch. Well, I don't like it. I don't like how you're changing…"
Miserable bitch. The hair on Sherlock's arms and neck bristled.
"I'm not any different, you are," Sherlock hissed. He wanted to sound angry, but he couldn't. "You said were best mates. You said you were glad." In a moment, Sherlock dared to climb up to the step John was standing on. "It's okay to feel uncomfortable. It's okay to struggle. I'm struggling, too. But the truth is better than silent understandings and dirty secrets. So let's talk it out. Please say something. John." Sherlock's trembling hand found John's, his fingers curling into John's palms. "John."
John moved before he thought.
When he shoved Sherlock back, hard, Sherlock's heel dragged into John's toe and he lost his balance. His leg buckled and he fell, though as he flew down he grabbed the hand rail, which broke his fall, then his grip slipped and he crumbled a few steps down. The impact was less spectacular than it potential could have and Sherlock was injury free, not even a scrape or a bump on the head. Nonetheless, his pulse hammered in his throat, his eyes wide.
He sat there for a long time, just looking at John. But John barely gave him a backwards glance as he went up the stairs.
Sherlock picked himself up breathlessly and waited for John to acknowledge the accident (it had been an accident, Sherlock told himself, John couldn't possibly have meant for him to fall, how could he expect him to fall when being pushed down a flight of stairs, no, clearly Sherlock had been careless and tripped, that was the only explanation) but John didn't even look back.
0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0
John never apologized for it, even in the morning when he was nursing his spectacular hang-over and Sherlock made John tea as a peace-offering.
John ignored the tea, not because Sherlock had made it and he was mad at Sherlock, but because he was hung-over and dizzy and never really noticed it. Quite frankly, he couldn't remember much of the night before.
Sherlock watched intently as the tea got cold on the coffee table, and then later watched John unceremoniously dump it in the sink, grumbling about the constant mess.
And so it became Its Definitely and Decidedly Not Fine.
0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0
Cases came and went. For the most part, Sherlock investigated alone while John tried to invest more time into the clinic and Sarah.
To Sherlock's intense embarrassment, cruel rumors and nasty jokes began to circulate at the New Scotland Yard at his expense, mostly due to the not-nice word John had called Sherlock.
"Hi queer," Donovan cheerfully greeted instead of calling him a freak, pulling aside the police tape so that Sherlock could pass by.
He didn't acknowledge her.
Sex had made him ordinary. Mindless, rutting animals. Degrading sex acts. He was a joke, now, somehow more of a joke than before when he was just a freak.
0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0
The hit-and-run case was solved, a scam, an insurance scam, dull, but no enjoyment came from it. Instead of basking in the detectives' frustrations, he left as soon as his function had been fulfilled.
The subsequent weeks were less tense, because John and Sherlock were preoccupied with other things. John's investment with Sarah finally paid off. He spent the night at 221b less frequently. Sherlock threw himself into cold cases and eagerly responded to every text Lestrade sent his way, no matter how tedious the crime.
Sherlock was relieved that John spent so much time away. When John was away, sometimes Sherlock worked, sometimes tortured his violin, but mostly he continued to type his thoughts in a long, apprehensive stream of consciousness recorded in a text document. The exercise helped Sherlock order his thoughts. Eventually, when he worked up the nerve, he would approach John and try to have a conversation again.
Except that it was growing apparent that Sherlock would never work up the nerve again.
He approached John three times. Each time, he got within ten feet…and veered off into another direction. This continued on until Sherlock could admit to himself that he feared any encounter with John, because no matter how innocent, there was the potential it would provoke the unpredictable war vet to violence. It took several more days until Sherlock realized that meant he was afraid of his flat mate.
From then on, their former friendship was abbreviated to "Good morning," and "Good night." Sherlock's promise to not summon John short of an 'emergency' made him reluctant to contact John at all, or even look up from his laptop when John walked by.
One night, after much going back and forth with himself, Sherlock sent a simple text message:
I know you don't want to be flat mates anymore and I completely understand. I don't want there to be any ugliness between us. I want to remain friends. To that end, I would like to talk things out. Please. -SH
On the other side of London, John, in post-coital bliss, deleted the text message off hand without reading it, then rolled over and kissed Sarah.
The next day, Sherlock waited anxiously for John's response when he returned home. John never mentioned it.
0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0
To be continued…
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Author's Notes: Really? Really? I'm still writing this? Oh, story. Why am I still writing you? You were supposed to be short.