"I. Do. Not. Understand!" John shouted back at the short woman in front of him for the tenth time. It earns him an entire 20 second pause, topped with a raised eyebrow and a look that says 'Your dumb, shut up and let me talk', before she broke back into rapid fire Mongolian.
"Ta minii nom delgüürees ta nar Amyerik ruu irj chadakhgüi!" She shouted at him again, and John considered that he was very possibly being called American, again, and just glared down at her.
Where the hell's my translator? He lowered in his head while repeatedly being called an idiotic American, and being shoved towards the glass doors leading out of the book shop. She pressed her small hands into his back and pushed her weight against him, shouting angrily and making what he assumed to be threats- it sounded more like some chant to summon a cat spirit, but then John realized that thought was probably racist and ignored it. He glanced down at the middle aged woman, who glared so much he thought she may have closed her eyes. She was stuffy, he could tell by how she was dressed: Black hair pulled into a bun that pulled the skin on her forehead slightly, ridiculously fake looking earrings, to much eye shadow, lots of lipstick, tight business dress that was made for a woman much younger, and her nose pinched whenever she looked at something she didn't like. Mainly John.
Sherlock would tear her to shreds in a second.
"Bi Moriarty tukhai yuu ch khelj baina. Amyerik üldeegeerei!" She shouted, and John had a horrible feeling that was a confession of loyalty. Mongolia was the least densely populated country in the world, where the hell could Moriarty's head boy scout be hiding out? He'd already gone through all the major cities, and was beginning to doubt Mycroft's informants when something hit him in the head. When John turned around he saw the magazine falling to the floor, and looked up at the woman, who had a rolled up newspaper raised above her head.
"You cannot be serious." He sighed, and the woman came running at him before he had time to react in anyway. She began beating his arm-it was raised to defend his face from paper cuts- and shouting horrible things that probably involved the mutilation of John's dead body, or kidnapping of his first born child. His arm felt a bit like it was slowly burning, and the woman was jumping up an down like a rabid cat, beating down on him viciously. When a blow from the financial section connected with his nose, John began to consider the many ways he could hide this woman's body if he did in fact kill her.
By the time the paper gave him a nice stinging cut down his forearm, he'd already written off hiding the body and decided to see if Mycroft could cover up a murder. It would be an interesting theory to test, really, to see how far that man and his umbrella's power stretched. John had probably been the punching bag for what appeared to a crazed bee killers rage for around 3 minutes before a very confused, and slightly amused, translator finally walked in the door.
After an hour of a three way conversation between two people, both the translator and John were being pelted with hardcover books and threatened in very colorful ways. The translator informed John of every threat the woman explained, in great detail, and John's personal favorite was the one where she was going to torture him to death by giving him so many paper cuts he had a stroke. Which really, probably, was medically impossible but was to busy trying to carry a table as a make shift shield and run to the door to care.
And he thought the frying pan fiasco of Russia was bad.
Sherlock was sitting across from a short blonde woman who looked like she was in the first steps of sobriety. Her blonde hair, obviously died to cover up the grey, was cut short in the past few weeks and had many strange layers. Somehow it was meant to be fashionable, but Sherlock was still convinced she was trying to be a porcupine. She was sporting a jean jacket, black shirt, and torn jeans, all ended with her frighteningly red trainers. They'd been sitting in silence, her on the couch and he perched in his chair, ever since she'd knocked on his door.
"Sherlock Holmes" He had answered, acting like he hadn't the faintest who she was.
"Harry Watson." She'd smiled, and her voice was annoyingly high pitched. Sherlock noted that her eyes were greener then John's, and her ears were far smaller. The siblings had the same nose, and, probably to the embarrassment of John, she was an inch taller then his late friend. Her nose had a piercing, and he could see a tattoo peeking out from under the sleeve of her jacket.
Harry Watson; 45, nose piercing to undermine her very petite and feminine appearance. Tattoo to annoy her father. Clean since John's...fall. Had a fight with Clara this morning-no last night. Hair cut: New, a way to move on from John. Shirt, Jeans, Shoes: New, bought by Clara as a thank you for her sobriety. Jacket: Old, John's, given to her before his first time going to Afghanistan. Here because? That's where his deductions ended as the woman let herself in, flashing a smile nothing like John's. Yes, hers had the family spark that all Watson's probably sported but it was less caring and calm. Far less understanding, more silly and energetic then John's.
Sherlock tried to ignore how Harry walked with the same swagger as John when she plopped into the couch, just like John had. The siblings were certainly more similar then John had ever let on, and addiction obviously ran in the family. "My brother really liked you." She laughed, nodding her head towards the skull on the mantel. "He really never liked the way skulls looked. Complained every Halloween."
"Why are you here?" Sherlock growled, trying to move past any subject pertaining to John.
"I wanted to meet the man my brother liked so damn much." Her voice wasn't as annoying as Sherlock had originally thought, but he was still angry at her for looking so much like John.
"Well here I am." Sherlock spread his arms out to give her a view of him, and she gave him a slow up-down before nodding.
"I'm not even into men and I can see why Johnny blushed whenever we brought you up." She teased, leaning back against the sofa and crossing her ankles. Sherlock froze. John blushed when people mentioned him? That was new information. "You two weren't together?"
"No."
"Seriously? Why the fuck not?" Her eyes bugged, and Sherlock nearly laughed at how bewildered she appeared. Accept he never laughed, not anymore. "Johnny was never someone who let what he wanted get away. Did you turn him down?"
Was.
She talked in past tense, she's accepted his death, she's ready to admit John was never coming back. Sherlock wasn't.
"I consider myself married to my work." Sherlock repeated to the other Watson, feeling the raw Déjà vu wash over him.
"Should've had an affair." She replied nearly immediately, leveling a green-blue glare on Sherlock. "You missed out."
"John never tried to pursue a non-platonic relationship with me."
"Your an idiot." Harry laughed, and Sherlock felt the pang that came every time something reminded him of John. God, why couldn't his sister be different then him?
"Kind of you to say." Sherlock bit out, eyeing the woman in front of him. She was being distant, cold, she blamed him for John's death. He was so close to strangling this woman it was frightening. Honestly, if anyone could get away with murder it was Sherlock Holmes.
"Well I'll be off then, have a good one." She smiled, she was actually happy. Still grieving, but happy with her life and her wife. Sherlock was almost certain he knew how to dispose of her body.
"Same to you." He smiled his fake charming smile and watched her leave, ignoring all homicidal impulses as she stomped down the stairs and startled Mrs. Hudson.
Now Sherlock was alone in his flat, thinking over Harry's words. He tore them through his mind, analyzing each separate syllable before putting them back together and considering the entire sentence, then conversation. John had appeared to be romantically interested in him? How had he not seen that? There's always something!
Sherlock resigned to the conclusion he was probably to busy trying to ignore his own romantic interests in his flatmate to consider that they may not be unrequited.
John phoned Mycroft that night, and asked if he could, actually, cover up a murder if John was so inclined. Mycroft asked him if he was sick.
"No! I'm just wondering what you and your umbrella can really do!" John grunted into the phone, and had a momentary mental picture of Mycroft as Mary Poppins. He promptly started giggling.
"Are you doing drugs?" Mycroft asked through the phone, actual human sounding emotions slipped though his tone and John laughed again.
"I'm not on drugs!" John giggled back, trying to take a deep breath. "I'm just amused."
"Frightening." Mycroft sniffed. "Your sister visited my brother this evening."
"Oh?" That shocked him back into reality.
"Yes, they had a very interesting conversation." Mycroft paused, and John was sure it was just for dramatics. "About your romantic interest in Sherlock."
"W-what?" John choked on the air, if that was possible, and nearly dropped the phone.
"I had suspected, but to be perfectly honest I was never sure, until now." John could hear that jackass smirk on Mycroft's face. Not for the first time he considered punching the British government.
"I'm not-there is no romantic interest."
"Sexual then?" Mycroft chirped, sounding rather pleased to have his little puzzle solved. "Quite rude you only want my brother in a physical sense."
"I don't just want him sexually!" There was an amused/pleased sound from the other end, and John slapped his own forehead at his wording. "I mean, I don't want him in a sexual way at all! We're friends, that's all!"
"Friends that act like a married couple."
"It happens."
"No, it doesn't." Mycroft's voice went hard suddenly, and John blinked. "Don't lie to me John, it's futile."
"Goodbye, Mycroft." John then hung up, ignoring the laugh he was certain he heard before the line cut off. "Bloody Mycroft!" He growled into the empty hotel room, throwing his hands up and flopping backwards onto the bed. "C'mon Harry, did you have to?" He asked the ceiling, and glared when it resolutely remained silent.
Did it matter if he was romantically interested in Sherlock? The man was asexual, or Irene-sexual (that thought made John fill with what he refused to acknowledge as jealousy), and he wouldn't want someone like John anyways.
"John!" Sherlock shouted at the bench-grave. It was late, very late, and no one was around when he stomped up to the flower covered object. "Your sister is infuriating. She's also considering having a baby with Clara, thought you'd like to know." Sherlock glared down at the bench-grave before sitting on the grass. "She...said, well insinuated, a few things about you." He took a deep breath, why did he feel apprehensive, he was talking to a headstone! "About your feelings...for me. That they may be a bit more then platonic. Or, at least, they had been."
"I never noticed, and that's what bothers me the most." Sherlock continued after a long silence. "Was it true, or is your sister just fabricating these things? I must investigate." Sherlock jumped to his feet, and clapped his hands together. "Perhaps this will be a puzzle worth solving." He grimaced at the thought of bringing up all his repressed memories of John, but he had to know.
Had John really wanted him?
"Only you, Sherlock, only you." John smiled, watching the short visit on his mobile one last time before turning it off. Only Sherlock Holmes would be excited at investigating his thought-to-be-dead best friend's romantic feelings. John was a bit cross with his emotions being called a puzzle, but if it entertained Sherlock for a while he could survive it.
He just hoped Sherlock wouldn't find the answer, because that would make coming home all the more awkward.
Notes: Ta minii nom delgüürees ta nar Amyerik ruu irj chadakhgüi!: Get out of my bookstore you idiotic American!
(Or something along those lines)
Bi Moriarty tukhai yuu ch khelj baina. Amyerik üldeegeerei: I am loyal to Moriarty. Leave American!
That was the goal, so ya'know. Close enough?