Disclaimer: The characters of Sherlock are not mine, nor is the story, nor are the characters from the original stories by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. I make no monetary profit from this.

Note: A modern retelling of The Adventure of Charles Augustus Milverton, with various elements taken from a whole lot of the other Conan Doyle stories.

And Martin Freeman on Sherlock: "Obviously it's Sherlock's show but there's far more parity than I think there often is in that relationship. I know [creators] Steven [Moffat] and Mark [Gatiss] primarily wanted the show to be about that relationship as much if not more than anything else. [It's about the relationship] and how it develops and how it changes and the things that wind each other up, the things that they genuinely sort of love about each other as well. It's the gayest story in the history of television… People certainly run with that which I'm quite happy with! But we all saw it as a love story. Not just a love story, but those two people who do love each other - a slightly dysfunctional relationship sometimes, but a relationship that works. They get results."

(Source: -www-.-digitalspy-. /tv/s129/sherlock/news/a320978/martin-freeman-sherlock-is-gayest-story-ever-.-html)

He totally ships it.

The Seduction of John S. Willoughby

Part Twelve

John Watson ended up buying flowers for Sarah.

He had gone over the argument (or was it a fight?) with Sherlock in his head, and while he was justified in shouting at and using physical violence against his flatmate (even if the bit about the solar system had been very random – and there was something that was bothering him about Sherlock's response to that that he couldn't put his finger on), he felt a vague sort of guilt over his singular assessment of the virtues of women. It wasn't wrong or particularly offensive (in fact, it was anatomically correct), but it had been crass and made him feel uncomfortable to the depths of his jumper-wearing soul. He felt he ought to apologize to someone, and Sarah was a woman, and giving her flowers would assuage his feelings of guilt towards womankind and score points. Good things all around.

They were nice flowers too, daisies in a tastefully arranged bouquet, and he left them on her desk at the surgery for her to find.

The flowers didn't keep him from being bothered by other things. To be honest, he hadn't expected that they would, seeing as 'other things' consisted of his male consulting detective flatmate trying to seduce him, but he had hoped.

It wasn't, John reflected, that he had anything against being gay, or, for that matter, finding out if he wasgay. In Afghanistan, he had found that at some point, you stopped fighting for Queen and country and the safety of people sitting quietly at home a thousand miles away, and started to fight for the men fighting – and dying – next to you. And it was brotherhood in a very deep, actual life-and-death sense, and for some of the boys, well, that sentiment turned into another kind of feeling entirely. The Greeks had gotten that bit right about warfare. John would be lying to himself if he didn't admit that he'd felt stirrings of the kind himself, only he hadn't ever felt the need to act on them, so he figured that meant he was straight. Or maybe only very mildly bi.

Anyway, whatever he was, he'd like to find it out for himself, thanks, and not have it forced on him by a hormonal Sherlock Holmes.

Who he liked, actually. He was a maddening flatmate, arrogant, bloody-minded, and all kinds of insane, but John Watson liked him. He used to suspect that Sherlock liked him too, as much as he was capable of genuinely liking anyone, but that was before last night and this morning (which seemed to prove, disturbingly enough, that Sherlock liked him very much indeed, platonic be damned).

John didn't know how to deal with it. It had been easy that morning, when immediate, decisive action had been called for, but how was he supposed to go to the flat now? What was he supposed to do with Sherlock? Thank him for his interest, and point out that while he was not against liking other men, he wasn't quite ready for that kind of thing at this point in his life? Have a blazing row with him? Ignore him? Hope that Sherlock was the kind of drunk who didn't remember anything he did under the influence of alcohol, and pretend that none of it had ever happened? Take a self-defense class and holler 'No means no!' if he tried anything again?

He briefly considered calling Harry again, but he didn't know what he would tell her. And he wasn't in the mood to deal with her gloating – oh, yes, she would gloat – at the moment.

And maybe all of this would be better if he could figure out why he had killed a man to save Sherlock, why he ran after him on his cases, why he stayed at 221B despite the violin music at all hours and the bits of dead people and doing practically all the housework and everything. He regretted none of it, and would probably do it all again, but now that Sherlock had brought it up in that light, John couldn't stop himself from wondering.

He supposed that blaming the proper alignment of planets didn't really cut it. (And there it was again, that little, niggling thing at the back of his mind, what was it about Sherlock and the solar system?)

He also very much doubted that 42 was the answer despite the gravity of the question.

And this was the state of John Watson's mind for the entire day. As a result, he was distracted and a little distant and abstract when dealing with his patients, and when he was alone, he sat with a piteously worried expression on his face, looking for all the world like a lost puppy that had just been kicked.

Sarah noticed this when she came in to say 'thank you' for the flowers. She asked him what the matter was.

John looked at her helplessly. The things that were the matter jostled each other on the tip of his tongue, demanding to be spoken, but he didn't know how to tell her that he didn't want to go home because his flatmate might jump him, or that he had spent the day contemplating his sexuality. All he could say was, "I used to believe in Narnia."

She smiled at him and sat down on one of the chairs in front of his table. "Didn't we all?"

John sighed, looking more like a lost puppy than ever. Sarah reached across the table to squeeze his hand. "Hey. Thanks for the flowers. They're lovely."

"I'm glad you liked them."

"What's the occasion?"

"Oh, nothing specific. Just a spontaneous celebration of your numerous womanly virtues." John made himself smile back at her.

"That's very sweet of you. And I think there's more to your being glum than not finding Narnia in your closet."

"It was the bookshelves, actually." He decided that he might as well come clean about at least part of what was on his mind. "And Sherlock's being impossible to live with. I mean, he is, on a normal basis, but he outdid himself yesterday."

"Oh. What's he done now?"

"I'd really rather not talk about it." John shifted in his seat, and looked Sarah in the eye. "Are you doing anything tonight?"