A/N: Poor Sherlock! His inability to know when someone's into him is every bit as bad as my own... Fortunately, I love these two, so I won't torture them for very long. And I'm in a generous mood, with the upcoming holiday for people in love. More angst tonight, but things'll start changing soon!
"This has got to be the most delicious lasagna on earth." While John rhapsodized, loudly, about Angelo's cooking, Sherlock was doing something rather similar about John in his head. He was taking everything in, from the way John's throat jumped a little when he swallowed to the way he held his fork, and cataloging it all in the massive room in his mind palace dedicated to the doctor.
"Aren't you going to eat anything, Sherlock?" As if he'd only now tuned in to the fact that Sherlock hadn't touched his much smaller portion of food, John looked at him, concerned. It wasn't strange for him to refuse food, but that was usually when he was on a case—he always complained that it slowed him down—or spending his time in a manner he considered pointless, such as any time he was forced to socialize or spend time with his family. Considering both of those things had just wrapped up that night, he should have been at least somewhat hungry. Instead, he was practically looking right through John, and it was a little worrisome.
"Sherlock?" John waved a hand in front of his face, and he wasn't sure who was more startled—Sherlock, who jumped when there was suddenly a hand waving at him from a very short distance, or himself, when Sherlock jumped and blinked at him with those wide, indescribably beautiful eyes.
"Yes, John?" For a man who was usually impatient and borderline rude even at the best of times, Sherlock's behavior the entire night had been rather strange, and John was concerned. It was really, really nice, to feel like Sherlock valued his presence and actually considered him worth being kind to, but the whole thing was starting to get strange. He'd been almost sympathetic at the crime scene, and there had been moments when he'd seemed nearly… shy. It wasn't like him at all, and Sherlock was rarely unpredictable.
"Did you do an experiment on my shirts or something, that you're being so odd?" Something flashed in those eyes, something John almost recognized, before it was gone and the mask was back. He didn't have time to wince in regret before Sherlock was pushing away from the table and looking at John with eyes completely frozen over.
"Of course not. Don't be absurd. I have merely had a long weekend. I'm going to retire now." John barely had time to blink before he was shutting the door to his room, a little more loudly than was probably polite, and relaxing backward onto his bed, staring at the ceiling and wondering if he'd already managed to cock everything up. It honestly didn't surprise him. His efforts had been subtle, and if he'd been a normal person, or John had been, they'd have gone completely unnoticed. But of course, neither of them was ordinary. He was himself, six feet of abrasiveness, sarcasm, and walls to keep everyone out, and John was… John. Extraordinary without ever realizing it.
Groaning a little, he draped an arm over his eyes and wished, for a small moment, that the ground would open and swallow him up. It was a fanciful notion, and not something he would ever waste his time thinking ordinarily, but John made him feel like a teenage girl with her first crush half the time. He'd dealt with it in the past by simply ignoring it, making it very clear that he considered himself married to his work and was uninterested in any sort of entanglement, and being as rude as possible when he felt like he was about to slip so John would be too angry to notice if Sherlock stood a little too close or tried to do nice things.
Everything had been so much simpler when he'd been numb. But John had brought him back to life, and even that had been manageable, until Mycroft had butted in and decided that he should try and go after what he wanted. As if that was even an option.
"I hate this," he grunted to the universe, as though the universe actually cared about his relatively insignificant problems. There was no answer, of course, which just proved that he was absolutely on his own where these matters were concerned.
Well, then, he'd just have to be creative. And if there was something he was good at, it was playing with people's minds and getting to their hearts. He would make John Watson love him, and since the subtle methods other people employed apparently just made him seem strange, he was going to have to come up with a better way.
This, of course, bore further consideration. How should he go about it? Straightforward, or should he attempt to be subtle about it? He could simply jump him after one of their cases, and trust that adrenaline and the fact that John had had something of a dry period would smooth the way, but he felt like that might backfire the next morning, when John was lying in bed with him thinking about how he'd just fallen into bed with someone he'd once accused of being a machine.
There was always making John be the first to confess feelings. He could use some sort of aphrodisiac on him, make him so horny that he needed release and ensure he was the only option… but then John would only be sleeping with him out of need, and then, if he managed to make it a regular thing, out of guilt. And Sherlock, no matter how good the idea of being with John sounded, wanted much more than that from the doctor.
But how could he convince him to embrace, or even accept, a more permanent arrangement? Sherlock knew how to quickly woo targets to manipulate them into doing what he wanted, but he rarely carried out projects that lasted longer than a few weeks, and he'd certainly never had to factor his own emotions into it.
Contrary to what most people assumed, he did have emotions, and they were actually quite powerful. Sherlock had learned from a young age that it was dangerous to care, because no matter how brilliant he was, caring meant that he was easy to manipulate, to someone who knew which buttons to push. And it had happened, more than once, that someone had used him and played with his heart.
The first time he'd ever truly been in love, the man in question had been sweet and affectionate toward him, inviting him to live with him, spending as much time with him as possible… until the semester had ended, and he'd passed the difficult class Sherlock had been helping him in. Then, he hadn't wanted anything to do with him, and the genius had learned that his intelligence couldn't save him from heartbreak.
He'd decided to hide his heart away after that, and had done a good job of it until John had walked into his life. For the second time, he'd been compromised, and the cost of that second time was far greater. Fortunately, everyone had survived, and he'd been able to return, but it terrified him to know that John was a weakness.
And it frightened him even more to know that his existence put John in danger, too. He would always have to be watching for that, if by some miracle he did discover a way to make John return his affections. The whole situation was absolutely impossible, and for once, the promise of a challenging puzzle didn't excite him.
It just made him feel miserable and alone.
John, sitting in the kitchen with a cup of tea and a frown on his face, wasn't faring much better. Sherlock's behavior had him a little worried, if he was going to be honest, but what bothered him more was just how receptive he'd been to it, and how sad it made him to see that disappear.
Sherlock cared about him, he knew. If he didn't, he'd hardly have kept him around for so long, or been willing to give up so much to ensure his safety. Sherlock might seem like a machine to the rest of the world, but almost ever since they'd met, he'd been John's best friend and brother in arms, someone he was more than willing to kill or die for. And he knew, from the way Sherlock had saved his life, that the other man felt the same way, at least as far as that.
But for a while, John had wanted more, and that night, it had almost felt like he was getting a taste of that, only to have it yanked away due to a poorly chosen joke. It didn't seem fair, but if he was perfectly honest with himself, it was probably his fault. Sherlock had been trying to be friendly, maybe trying to be a better friend, and he'd managed to ruin it by acting like a complete tit. And trying to figure out how to apologize would likely make the whole situation awkward. With his luck, Sherlock would probably retreat completely back into his shell. It was highly unlikely he'd try such tactics again, no matter that, now that he was prepared, he would handle it better.
Still, he couldn't help thinking that maybe it was for the best. So far, it didn't seem like Sherlock knew that John was harboring feelings for him, and that was good. It might earn him ridicule or disdain, at best, or lose him the other man's friendship, which was the absolute worst case scenario, so most he could hope for was probably that the whole incident would be swept under the rug and forgotten about.
Except John didn't want to forget. He'd seen the vulnerability in Sherlock's eyes, that flash of pain before he'd hidden himself away again, and he knew that if he left things the way they were, it would hurt his flat mate. That was something he could never forgive himself for. So he had to figure out a way to make things okay again, no matter how strange their situation was.
He considered calling Mycroft, who would likely be more than happy to help him out considering how frequently he threatened those who seemed a danger to Sherlock's happiness. But it seemed wrong, going to Sherlock's brother to solve the problem when he was sure that he was capable of fixing it himself… somehow.
John was good at relationships, always had been. He found it easy to charm others, just by being himself, and he prided himself on having reasonably good instincts where others were concerned. He just had to give the problem his full consideration, and he'd come up with some sort of solution.
Sherlock was trying to be kind. It wasn't something he was used to, or something he considered himself particularly good at genuinely doing, so he would have been reaching out of his comfort zone. John would just need to behave in such a way that it would express to the genius that the effort was appreciated, and that might soothe him enough that he would feel comfortable trying again. John could also, potentially, try spending more time with him doing something other than cases, so that he might feel comfortable experimenting with his behavior.
Normally, John objected to being one of the genius's experiments, but in this case, he was more than willing to make an exception. The last thing he wanted to do was lose the other man to a miscommunication, and if there was any chance at all that getting closer might mean getting closer… Well, John wouldn't let himself think about that quite yet, not seriously, but it certainly didn't hurt to dream.
Satisfied with his plan, such as it was, John nodded firmly to himself, finished his tea, and took himself off to bed, knowing that the best thing he could do at the moment was get himself a good night's sleep so that in the morning, he could start putting his plan into motion.