A/N: Hello dears. Haven't updated anything in ages. Here's the first part - this entire story is going WAY differently than I planned. Oh well, I'm just gonna roll with it. It's set right after the events of TGG, in the aftermath of the pool scene. Someone mentioned this idea a while back and I've been wanting to do it, and somehow that idea got incorporated here. Which was not my intention at all. *sigh*
Don't forget to tell me what you thought, and enjoy!
Sherlock Holmes had thought John ordinary, to a degree, during their first few months of friendship.
It was fair enough; after all, in comparison to the great Sherlock Holmes, most people would fall short of any standard of incredible, aside from stupidity. Not that he thought badly of John Watson; in fact, he was the best ordinary person he had ever met. He didn't mind Sherlock's alarming and eccentric behaviors, and he actually had a brain that he wasn't afraid to use. But he was still ordinary; caring about mundane things like jobs and girlfriends and social conventions that Sherlock couldn't be bothered to care about. Sherlock had to constantly correct him and set him right, and found occasion to call him an idiot frequently. Sherlock had always had an inherent confidence about himself; he didn't understand true insecurity. Failure was not an option for him, never had been.
Of course, John proved himself extraordinary enough to be a part of Sherlock's life that very first night. Clever, brave, loyal, and obedient. Exactly the kind of assistant Sherlock needed. And plus, John gave him a sense of fulfillment, a new kind that was not strictly intellectual. He had latched onto John quickly, because when would he ever find someone else who was such a great fit with his needs? He'd made the mistake of calling John a friend too soon and was rather humiliated over it, and for a long while afterwards he stubbornly would only call John a partner and 'colleague' in his mind. He'd focussed on John's pedestrian qualities, because it was only after that somewhat sickening check in Sebastian's office, and subsequent passive-aggresive ignominious glimpse into his past, that he realized how terrifyingly fast he had become attached. Mycroft would be utterly appalled.
And terrifying it was, because every now and again he would realized how quickly and deeply John had become ingrained into his life; not only into his work, which for all practical purposes was his life, but his everyday life and his mind. Sherlock had not been looking for this; nor had he actually expected this to happen. He certainly hadn't been trying to be on his best behavior. He'd just honestly been his usual self, but that seemed to have pulled the two of them together with a magnetic power. Curious. He didn't know if John was experiencing the same thing - while he knew the main reason John stuck around was because Sherlock helped give him the thrill and purpose he'd missed as a soldier, and also avoided personal questions like the plague like any sensible British Man - perhaps it wasn't quite as terrifying for John, or maybe he just didn't care. Sherlock didn't care if he cared, really. Sometimes it was nice to have John out of the flat so he could think, and he was sure John felt the same way.
Today, he realized that he had failed. Horribly, and his salvation was had nothing to do with any cleverness on his part, which was sickening to him. He thought he'd been a step ahead when, in reality, the whole time he'd been two steps behind. And it had almost cost both of them their lives.
Finally, finally, formalities with the authorities were over and they were allowed to go home. Though they had more paperwork to fill out tomorrow. Curse Mycroft and his government. The fresh spring night had turned sour, and the lights of London seemed mocking and spiteful as Sherlock walked out of the office where they had been taken after the incident. John was still inside. Sherlock figured it was because he had been abducted for several hours whereas Sherlock had only been involved in the incident for ten minutes at most, and so therefore the poor doctor was being grilled for any details on Moriarty Inc. that he could provide.
Sherlock sure as blazes wasn't going to wait for him. In an hour or two the sun would peek out of the horizon, blushing insecurely. He called a cab once he reached the road some distance from the the door he exited from, and snarled his home address. He spotted John walking out of the building just then, but didn't have the driver stop. He was going home, and didn't want the risk of John's infernal babbling cluttering up his head. He was beyond exhausted, since he'd been working like a madman for the past few days, and now that the case was over he knew he was about to crash horribly. He hoped that John wouldn't try and talk to him when he got home, because Sherlock would most likely ignore him or worse, and then he would have to deal with a spectacular row before being able to properly sleep. Tomorrow morning he would probably be able to eat an entire casserole dish by himself (a habit which had John extremely concerned, he could tell, even though John never said anything about it). They pulled away from the dimly lit parking lot, and Sherlock pointed did not look at John, who was watching the vehicle drive off.
Chlorine would never smell the same to him, he just knew it.
He knew that even if he had pulled the trigger, chances were the bomb would not have exploded. The detonator was tiny and while the detective was a good shot, he was not the crack shot John was, and it would have probably been for naught. Their true danger came from the sniper. (Sherlock theorized that there could only have been one or two snipers, and that all the other sights were merely projected. After all, one of the sights was on the wall far above his head, and Moriarty would not have hired such a monumental idiot or slacker.) He could have taken both of them out in seconds.
Sherlock's mind suddenly began to wonder what it would have been like if John had been shot before him, and he would have to watch John's corpse fall to the ground for a second or two, knowing this was ultimately his doing, before his own life would be quickly and brutally ended. Then he imagined himself being shot first, and John looking at him with that sad, helpless, stunned face that he wore when he saw the victims at a crime scene, the one he wore when he found Soo Lin Yao's body. It hurt, though not as much as the first image.
He could still recall the cold shock that had gone through him so many times in those few minutes - the first when he saw John walk out, forcing Sherlock to consider the possibility that he had been horribly betrayed, the second when Moriarty had revealed himself, the third when John had jumped Moriarty (Dear God, that had been terrifying on a lot of levels), and the last being the moment he saw the sniper sights reappear all over the two of them. Funnily enough, all but one of those shocks had been John-related. He was touched that John had offered to die to give him a chance to escape, though that may have been plain military training, merely protecting a civilian. It didn't really matter either way.
His thoughts carried him through the ride easily, and he jerked out of his dark thoughts when he spotted his door looming in the window. He had truly come to think of this place as his home, instead of just his place of residence. Something that probably needed to change. Moriarty had promised, in essence, to harm John in order to get to Sherlock. It was an attack as old as time - men would have to watch as their families were killed unless they complied, children would be forced into submission because of threats against their parents, therefore reinforcing the idea that sentiment ruined everything. His weakness now led to John's imperilment, and had to be elliminated. He climbed out, slammed the door, and threw a couple of pounds at the cabbie without caring whether it was the correct amount. The poor man clearly didn't either, and drove away from Sherlock as quickly as legally possible.
The key was shaking in his pale hands as he fought with the lock. The stupid thing refused to yield, and Sherlock was truly a couple of seconds away from kicking the door down when it clicked, allowing him passage. He strode through and didn't close the door as much as throw it in the general direction of the latch. There was no stirring from Mrs. Hudson - the woman was deaf without her hearing aids, which in this case was a good thing. He went straight to his room and changed, not bothering to close the door.
Now clad in a dressing gown and pyjamas, he was about to collapse into the sheets when he heard the door to the sitting room creak on its hinges, and he froze for a second, his instincts warning him against an intruder before he relaxed, recognizing the sound of John's breathing. He then fell into a lifeless pile on top of his messy covers, dead to the world in seconds, his last thought being one of fear and anger.
The next day was icy - not outside the flat, but inside of it. Sherlock slept like death into the afternoon, and then promptly stationed himself in the kitchen and ate everything edible in the flat. John was in the sitting room, reading the newspaper. Sherlock watched, and though John didn't turn, he could tell he was being monitored. Soon all the bread had been made into toast and consumed, and Sherlock had moved on to leftover takeout, which was never eaten except on occasions like these.
Up to this point, neither of them had attempted to speak - there were too many questions, and too many uncomfortable answers. Sherlock's unguarded reaction of relief and - almost affection - at the pool now rankled in his mind as silly and juvenile. And, not to mention, it reinforced the blatancy os his attachment to John. A sort of defensiveness filled him, surely John was thinking about how sentimental that was, he would mock him for caring despite everything he claimed to think about personal attachments; and John was a military man, it was certain that he found such civilian expressions of emotion to be shameful. Sherlock was working himself into a formidable temper without even realizing it.
"No beans," he muttered crossly into a cabinet, after remembering that of course there weren't any, he hadn't gone within a mile of a grocery store last night.
"What's that?" John asked turning a page instead of turning to look at Sherlock.
"Nothing," Sherlock said coldly.
John did turn this time, eyeing Sherlock quietly, a knowing look on his face. Which irritated Sherlock, there wasn't anything to know.
"It bothers you doesn't it? The fact that he got away. That he beat you," John said, a placid and sensible expression on his face. For some reason, this question seemed unspeakably stupid to Sherlock, and a condescending expression showed on his face.
"Yes, it does," Sherlock said with the kind of calm that lies over the ocean before a gale. "I don't know why it doesn't bother you."
John frowned. "Why would it bother me? I'm not the consulting detective," He replied, and turned back to his paper. The statement seemed like a slap in the face to Sherlock, and he took a bite from his bowl of peanut butter before answering.
"So, it doesn't bother you that you were so incredibly useless as to get abducted? You, a trained military man?" Sherlock interjected with the practiced air of someone who knows who to say something hurtful. John put the newspaper down and fully stood to face him. Somehow, Sherlock knew this as a sign that a row was starting. And for some reason, Sherlock realized very distantly that he wanted it to happen.
"Sherlock, aside from the fact that I was tranquilized without warning, that there were several trained killers involved, and that you were ultimately the one who put me in that position, did it never once occur to you, during that whole time that I was gone, that this might happen? You didn't find it suspicious that I never texted to ask you to get a couple other things from the store, or to check for updates on the case?" John asked, eyes ever so slightly narrowed.
Sherlock blinked for a second, his mind slowing everything down as he realized John was right. It had been a span of hours between the moment John had left and when Sherlock had walked into that swimming pool like an unwitting lamb to the slaughter. John usually came up with things after the fact that they 'needed', and it was not unusual to ask for any new developments in investigations. And Sherlock, the great idiot that he had been proved to be, had been to caught up in the game that he missed the most important move.
Time sped up again as Sherlock's mind released him into the present.
"And what were you thinking, honestly?" John continued, an ironic smile on his face. "Going in by yourself was incredibly stupid. You wanted to do that alone - you got rid of me. So, what, you didn't trust me enough to have me there? Is that it?" the ex-RAMC asked in that trademark dangerous calm.
"Well getting yourself kidnapped is hardly a shining example of why I should take you along," Sherlock retorted with equal control as he spooned more peanut butter in his mouth.
"Why are you so determined-" John started, but broke off. "You know what, never mind. Forget I said anything," he said in a tone that Sherlock flinch internally. John walked quietly back over to his chair and sat, resuming his paper. After two minutes, however, he put the newspaper down and left the room. Sherlock continued eating in silence, numbly staring at the countertop.
Sherlock realized he'd become far too invested - his mental alarms were blaring. The fact that John's words had struck him deeply meant that this friendship was becoming unhealthy on more levels than one. Not only was it putting John in danger, but Sherlock was giving his nemesis an easy way to destroy him. He knew Moriarty's type, and he knew the man would not back down. Not after he'd constructed such an elaborate plot this time. Sherlock had the biggest battle of his life ahead of him, and he needed to face it with a clear head. It was only a matter of time until this all blew up in their faces.