Safe As Houses
Chapter 21
BBC Sherlock fanfiction, no copyright infringement intended.
Pairing: Sherlock Holmes/John Watson
Warnings: Slash, Heavy graphic drug use, Addiction, Homelessness, not betaed (sorry),
John returned from his volunteer shift, plastic blood specimen bottles in his jacket pocket. He listened for Sherlock as he trudged up the stairs, but could hear no frantic pacing, or tunes from the violin.
But as put his head through the door to the living room he saw Sherlock on the sofa, fingertips touching as he was deep in thought. "Have you not moved all day?" The doctor asked.
"Thinking." Sherlock replied not opening his eyes.
John hummed to himself as he went to perch on the edge of the sofa next to the other man, who made no room for him. Wordlessly he reached into his inside pocket, and fished out the vacuum tubes and a hypodermic needle used to draw blood specimens and let them rest on the coffee table.
As he set them on the table with a gentle clank, Sherlock didn`t open his eyes but instead frowned.
"John, you better not have done what I've just deduced you have done."
"What might that be?" John asked, eyes glancing up at the ceiling, as if Sherlock would be able to read his body language without even opening his eyes.
"You didn't just convince Molly to run a blood screening for you." Sherlock finally opened his eyes and raised a suspicious eyebrow at John.
"Well it's not like you're going to get off your arse to register at a GPs, or go to a GUM clinic are you." John tried to sound irritated, figuring attack would be his best form of defence.
Sherlock sat up, eyes widening a bit in exaggerated bewilderment. "I didn't realise sex was such a pressing matter for you."
"Oh for fucks sake Sherlock." John let out a sigh, Sherlock was playing dirty trying to guilt him. "You know I don't care what we do together, stop being childish."
"Am I now..." Sherlock levelled a steely glare at him. "Just what did you say to Molly to get her to agree to this?"
Shit, Sherlock had gotten back to the issue again. "Well...she was worried about you." John said avoiding eye contact.
"What did you say John." Sherlock pressed.
"You came up in conversation...and I said you were doing well..." John said casually.
"You call attempted murder doing well?" Sherlock asked, leaning forward on one arm to study John's expression closely.
"Well of course I didn't mention that!" John turned his head to meet Sherlock's eyes, hoping to deflect Sherlock's questioning with confidence.
"Then what did you tell her..." A scowl crossed Sherlock's face as he put the pieces together. "If you didn't try to get her pity...You didn't say anything idiotic did you John, make some kind of moronic gesture to bribe her?"
John knew he had no chance of lying or downgrading it. "I just said...she could pop over with the results..."
"John you moron!" Sherlock fumed, pushing himself up off the sofa and disappearing into their room, slamming the door to make his point.
"What?!" John shouted after him in exasperation. "She's my friend you know, I can invite her over to where I live anyway."
"It was highly unprofessional of you." Sherlock shouted from inside the bedroom.
"You're questioning MY professionalism?" John said anger starting to seep into his voice. He grabbed up the vacuum tubes and storming over to the bedroom. He pushed open the door, to see Sherlock under the covers like a small child sulking.
He threw the tubes and plastic hugged hypodermic needle onto the bed beside the lump "You can draw the blood yourself if you're going to be a prat about it. Just get it over with and maybe you can stop being such a pain in the ass. Draw the red one first, green, then purple. Remember to invert the tubes 8 times and leave them in the kitchen. I'll drop it off tomorrow morning."
John grabbed the door frame, and before he slammed it he said, "And you know I don't care if I ever have sex with you. I asked this favour from Molly for you." He closed the door and went back down the stairs, to leave Sherlock to his huff.
A few hours, and several pints later, John re-entered the flat. He was still a bit peeved at Sherlock, but he wasn't going to stay out all night. Sherlock's coat was still there, so he could only assume he was still in.
He was in two minds about whether he'd be spending the night up in the spare room, although the thought of being alone all night, no warm body to chase away the nightmares pained him.
His anger at Sherlock softened though when he saw the 3 small blood collection tubes laying on the kitchen table. Like some kind of morbid peace offering. The sodium floride in them preserving the red blood in it's liquid form.
John sighed, and shrugged off his jacket to leave it draped over the chair of the kitchen chair. He went into the bedroom, where as he suspected Sherlock was still sulking under the blanket. Wordlessly he got ready for bed, before sliding in next to Sherlock.
The younger man still had his back to him, but John knew he wouldn't be asleep. "Thank you for doing the blood draw." He said into the back of Sherlock's neck. He sighed when there was no response. "This is nothing to do with sex, it's not as if I'd never touch you again even if the tests did find something." He stared up into the ceiling in the darkness. "I'm a doctor, and this is part of me caring for you..." he trailed off, turning onto his side to look into the back of Sherlock's messy curls. "But this isn't really about that is it? It's because I told Molly about you..."
John observed the slightest tensing in the other man's shoulder. "You have nothing to be embarrassed about..." He offered.
"I'm NOT embarrassed!" Sherlock snapped, pulling the sheets tighter around himself.
"Then what? Come on you know Molly, she's got a good heart, she won't..."
A sudden flurry of movement cut John off as Sherlock sat up to glare "I don't want more of her pity."
John sat up to draw level with the other man, "And you won't get that, you're clean, off the streets...she's going to be proud of you." Sherlock made a disgusted face, but John leaned over to give a light kiss those twisted lips. "Come on, happy endings are few and far between for her, it's the least you can do for her favour."
The brief physical contact seemed to melt something in Sherlock. "If I must..." He said, but his voice lacked the anger of before.
John smiled, before kissing him again, a bit longer this time. "Good." He muttered against Sherlock's soft lips.
The slight hitch in Sherlock's breath gave away that the tension was leaving his body. "Must I really endure her..." But his voice was low and heady, it was a very weak protest.
John chuckled before going in for another kiss, soothing away the last remnants of Sherlock's anger. "Yes." He whispered seductively, and finally Sherlock kissed him back hungrily, tongue tasting and exploring John's mouth.
They kissed and touched each other chastely into the night, before John fell asleep with his hand resting of Sherlock's bony hip.
"I don't see why we had to go to the bother of cooking for her." Sherlock complained from the dining table where he was using his laptop.
John raised a eyebrow from where he was washing up the closest . "We? Excuse me Sherlock you've not lifted a finger in the preparation of dinner."
"It has taken your attention away from more important things." Sherlock replied as his fingers continued to go over the keys, as he looked through the arrest reports in the last 3 months of Operation Spider web. "Which means it involves me and my time."
"Oh shut up will you, it's just a casserole. It's dinner for you too you know." John said wiping his hands dry on his jeans. "Now clear that laptop off so I can set the table."
"Lamb casserole with dumplings, how very school dinners." Sherlock sneered as he slapped his laptop closed to move into the living room.
John sighed, Sherlock had been snipping all afternoon since he found out Molly was coming tonight. He'd tried not to rise to the bait, refusing to let Sherlock spoil his mood This was their first visitor other than Mycroft and Mrs Hudson. It made things feel almost...normal. Well as normal as living with Sherlock Holmes got.
He done his best to tidy the flat, shuffling away the countless pieces of paper, photographs and maps that Sherlock used in his `investigation`.
The dining table was at least clear, and most of the crockery matched, he was quite pleased with himself but he'd daren't voice that to Sherlock who seemed to reject any attempts at domesticity.
He was just about to send a text to Molly to ask whether she was ok to find her way from the tube, when he heard the door knocking down stairs and Mrs Hudson opening it. "Oh you're for the boys!" He heard Mrs Hudson exclaim in surprise, before he headed them off at the top of the stairs.
"Up here Molly." He told her, and greeted her in the way of a quick kiss on the cheek. "Thanks for coming out of your way..."
"Oh it's no problem!" The mousey woman eyes darted around the flat, before widening in delight at seeing Sherlock who hadn't lifted his eyes from his laptop screen. "Sherlock! You look..." She was obviously going to say some kind of pleasantry like `well` or `fine` but Sherlock cut her off.
"Not homeless." The dark haired man said dryly. "So do we open my HIV test results before or after dinner?"
Molly blushed, and reached into her pocket to pull out a sealed white envelope "Um here they are...I didn't look!" She squeeked.
John shot Sherlock a warning look, and took the envolope from her. "Dinner's ready." He said going over to Sherlock and dropping the envelope onto the laptop in front of him.
He tried to ignore Sherlock and the envelope while he took Molly's coat, but he could hear the envelope being ripped open, and then a few moments silence as Sherlock scanned the results.
"John." Sherlock said from behind him. "I am disease free, we may procede to the next stage of our sexual activities!"
The world seemed to freeze, as Molly looked from Sherlock, to John, mouth slightly agape. "Sexual? You mean...you two..." She looked at him, asking whether it was a joke or not.
He wanted to deny it, to spare her feelings she obviously had towards Sherlock. And he was annoyed Sherlock had done that, he had intentionally been cruel and tried to embaress John in one foul swoop.
John let out a sigh. "Yes, it's true...we are..." He searched for the best word. Partners? Lovers? Boyfriends? "Together." he settled on.
"Oh...I see..." Molly said trying to hide her disappointment. "I...didn't know you were gay."
This is just not what he wanted to talk about over dinner. "Well...it's a long story...and nothing ever happened at the shelter, I mean I'm not using it take advantage of..." He said in a rush. "I mean, do you think I could ever take advantage of that git." He tried to smooth over the situation with a bit of dry humour.
Molly giggled politely. "It's really none of my business..." She said, and John was sorry to see the hurt behind her eyes still.
"Sorry, I should have warned you." John said softly before clearing his throat, "Dinners ready, lamb casserole, my mum's recipe." He tried to change the subject and guided her to the table.
Sherlock had gone back to his laptop and John slapped the laptop lid closed and went to his side to lean over into the other man's ear. "Not on. You promised you'd be nice." He said in a low voice that warned they would be discussing this later. The blond man straightened up, and snapped . "Come eat dinner." He said more loudly.
They all settled down at the small dining table and Molly and John chatted about the clinic, to which Sherlock would occasionally interject some cutting observation about the staff or other users he knew.
Things seemed to be going ok, and they barely noticed the knock from downstairs. They did hear Mrs Hudson cry out from down there, "Sherlock! Dr. Watson!" And all three diners stopped what they were doing and looked towards the sounds of heavy footsteps of multiple people coming from up the stairs.
The door swung open, and there stood a slight man, in a very expensive suit. He smirked and mischief twinkled in his dark eyes. "So sorry to interrupt dinner." He said in an Irish lilt. He brandished a MET badge in one hand, and a white letter in the other one, a search warrant. DS Moriarty playfully smiled at Sherlock. "But it's a drugs bust."
Author's notes: OMG I bet you thought this had been abandoned! Well there you go, there is always hope! Thanks to all the reviews, they were really instrumental for me not to forget this story. Hopefully next update a bit quicker!