John arrived at 221 Baker Street significantly after Janine, judging from the shouting he heard before he'd gotten up a single step from the landing. Mrs. Hudson popped her head out from her flat, evidently having heard his arrival, and scowled at him like the fight upstairs was his fault.
"How do you get on, lettin' Sherlock go and have a girl like that? I swear, the only thing she likes about him is his name. Fame, and all that," she complained, only to startle at the sound of a clanging pot upstairs. John sighed, trudging up the steps. It didn't sound like delaying was going to calm anything. "He should have seen right through it, I think!" Mrs. Hudson called after him. John quickened his pace, not wanting to hear what Mrs. Hudson had thought when he'd left them both for nothing more than a bedsit.
He walked inside to see a laptop flying across the room to smash into the smiley face still painted onto the wallpaper. John winced, watching the computer fall unceremoniously behind the couch.
"Oh, hello. I've met you, right?" Janine greeted him, smiling politely as if she didn't hold their kettle in her hand, poised to throw at Sherlock's head.
Where'd she find that? John thought inanely before she let loose and the kettle smashed into the bookcase and sent Sherlock's books tumbling to the floor. Sherlock himself stood in the middle of the mess, dodging her missiles with remarkable skill. He was fully dressed in his creased black slacks and gray shirt, unbuttoned at the collar. The fine clothing helped hide how thin he'd become, but John could still see it in his face and how his adam's apple stuck out from his neck.
"Pleasure," John murmured, watching Janine go for the tea mugs next. He'd never particularly liked them, he mused, seeing one fly past Sherlock's head to shatter against the windowpane.
"You fucking humiliated me!" she screamed, throwing another. Sherlock caught it gracefully and used it to smack the next mug out of the air.
"By rights, you should have seen it coming," Sherlock replied calmly, mirroring Mrs. Hudson's sentiments. John hoped he got hit by one of the projectile mugs.
"Excuse me?" Janine snarled, stopping, and Sherlock let the broken mug in his hand clatter to the floor.
"Why did you like being with me, really?" he asked and Janine hesitated, pausing in her destruction. Sherlock smirked. "I'm not especially muscled or well proportioned. I'm not wealthy. Not your usual type. Nor am I not funny or kind, what uglier men use to be charming and sell themselves as better husbands. I'm impressive but not endearing. So why me? It's not subtle. Mrs. Hudson sees it. I'm a prize to be brandished about and dropped. You did not plan for a moment for me to become your husband. I'm a one-up card, to show your prowess. You're offended because I dropped you first. Look at the word you chose - humiliated, not 'hurt' or 'used'," Sherlock gloated, glancing at John as if to ensure that he was following, that he understood what Janine and he had been, that month. John swallowed, caring despite himself.
Only Sherlock would so proudly brag about being treated like a trophy.
"So, if I should have seen it coming, that you're such a brilliant asshole you'd never let yourself get used, why stop? Why tell me now?" Janine asked, shoving the last mug back onto the countertop.
"John," he answered, like that would end the entire conversation. Janine scoffed.
"Who the fuck is John?" she asked, throwing her arms wide. Sherlock glanced at John, looking unsure how to respond. John lifted his hand to wave. She had the good grace to blush, but she didn't apologize.
"Oh, right. But, who the fuck are you?" she asked instead. John scratched at the back of his hand, unsure how to answer.
"He's my ex-something," Sherlock said, waving away the question. John blinked at the term, something like hope nudging at him. Janine glanced his way, her gaze suspicious, before her eyes widened.
"Oh. My. God," she pronounced slowly, before turning back to Sherlock. "Watson. He's an actual person. I thought that was just like, your writing style or something, making up John," she said. John tipped his head back to stare at the ceiling but not before he saw Sherlock's face light up with delight at the new theory. "So you really are lovers, then?" Janine asked, suddenly sounding much less offended.
"Wait, a second ago you didn't think I existed and now you think we're lovers?" John growled, turning on her. She shrugged.
"Well, it's one of the two, innit?" she replied and Sherlock frowned at her, clearly confused by the statement, before turning back to John.
"Told you she was using me," he announced happily.
This is ridiculous.
Janine pointed a finger out at Sherlock.
"I'm going to make so much money off of this," she vowed. She drew herself up. "I'm buying a cottage. Nothing hits the spot like revenge with profits."
Sherlock scowled, clearly grasping her plan. John glanced between the two of them, dumbfounded at how she planned to take a nasty lover's feud and turn it into a downpayment. Sherlock groaned and dropped into his chair.
"You're not going to sell it to Magnussen, are you?" he complained, clearly expecting it, and Janine smirked. John raised his eyebrows, catching her plan. Even he could imagine the headlines. A day in the bed of Sherlock Holmes. It would be disgusting and it would have even more reporters staking out their front door.
"God, no, one of his rivals," Janine replied, sounding malicious. That caught Sherlock's attention. The man locked on her, his fingers coming up to tent in front of his mouth. He glanced at John and smirked, like that would pass on some complicated message. If so, John didn't get it. Still, he understood the redirected anger in Janine's eyes, and he could guess what Sherlock had concluded; they had an ally. Janine stepped into the wrecked living room. "Sherlock Holmes, you are a backstabbing, heartless, manipulative bastard," she cursed.
Or not an ally, John thought, wincing. They needed her. Sherlock smirked, unfazed. "You, as it turns out, are a gasping, opportunistic, publicity-hungry, tabloid whore," he replied, biting out the words as they came. Janine leaned on the empty bookcase beside the television and observed the two of them.
"You lied to me. You lied and lied," she said and this time, she sounded hurt. Sherlock smile faded somewhat, faced with that. He ran his hand over the empty mantle, where his pinned bug collection used to be.
"I exploited the fact of our connection," he said, like that was better. John decided it was better not to get involved, though he wanted to argue the point. Janine scoffed, plenty capable of tackling that on her own.
"When?" she asked instead and John blinked, unsettled by the strange question. Sherlock stopped his fiddling, clearly confused as well.
"Just once would have been nice," she said. John shook his head, unsure what she was possibly talking about. Surely not sex - what woman would say it would have been nicer to have gotten used and fucked for it? But then, Sherlock pulled his hands behind his back, like he did when he felt awkward, and John wasn't so sure.
"Oh," he said and John could see that he was rubbing at his hands behind his back. "I was waiting until we got married," Sherlock joked and John knew they were talking about sex. Sex they hadn't had, apparently. John grabbed the zipper on his coat, unsure if he should leave but wanting to look like he was planning on it. He wanted to stay, to hear it confirmed once more that they'd not had sex, that Sherlock had not done that to a person, to himself, for such disingenuous motivations.
"As you've said, that was never going to happen!" Janine protested and Sherlock mouth twitched, a badly hidden smile. A triumphant one, John guessed, watching Janine's shoulders fall when she realized what she'd confessed. She pulled herself up, her disgust and hurt falling away.
"So, we're good then?" she asked lightly and Sherlock smiled.
"Yeah, of course," he said quickly, and moved to grab his notebook off of his desk, stepping over the broken pottery chips without a concern. "So, you want to get revenge on Magnussen, do you?" he asked, turning away from her before she had the chance to answer. He unfolded the notebook to the right page without any need to shuffle through them and handed it to Janine. The blueprint, John guessed, walking forward to sit down on the couch. He missed his chair, but that was little to lose, if it meant he and Sherlock were beginning to function again.
They never had sex. That wasn't supposed to be important. But it was. Janine inspected the blueprint in front of her, clearly recognizing it.
"You need me to get you through the elevator," she concluded, drawing a long nail over the paper. Sherlock tipped his head in acknowledgment. Janine smirked and looked up from the notebook. "I'm going to say you made me wear the hat," she announced. Sherlock groaned dramatically, sounding pained, but John knew he was ecstatic; they had her help.
"No," Sherlock intoned, catching both of their attention. John waited, knowing the man wasn't done, but Janine opened her mouth to respond. "We don't need you to get us through the elevator," Sherlock clarified, picking his box of pinned bugs off the ground and returning it to the mantle. He pulled a tiny bit of metal from his pocket and held it up against the light. "We need you to plant this," he announced and tossed it to her. Janine caught it deftly and pocketed it, not looking particularly curious about the tiny device.
"Where did you get that?" John asked and Sherlock shrugged.
"Come on, John, surely you know how often Mycroft tries to bug this place," he replied, gesturing vaguely at the ugly lamp by the couch. John laughed quietly, acknowledging that.
"Do mention my drug addiction to the press, won't you?" Sherlock asked dismissively, taking back his notebook and throwing it onto his desk.
Janine left, flashing John a strangely friendly smile and flipping Sherlock off at the door. Sherlock smiled back, like that was some secret handshake between them, and finally she was gone. Sherlock made his way across the room and started shoving at the couch until John got up from it and moved to help him.
"I've arranged a meeting with Magnussen to discuss terms for Lady Smallwood's letters. Not that it wouldn't be quite counter productive to get them back," Sherlock commented, occupied in digging his laptop out from where it'd fallen. John moved to lean on Sherlock's desk, watching him.
"So what's the meeting for, then?" he asked, picking up a torn up rag from the kitchen off Sherlock's desk to start fashioning a sling for himself. Apparently he wasn't going home anytime soon. Sherlock straightened, his laptop in one hand, and shoved the couch back into place with his knee.
"To convince him that I've nothing for him. He'll judge me incompetent and mainly harmless, and send the letters back to their safe keeping, for later use in blackmail," Sherlock explained, opening the laptop in his arms. John hoped it still worked; he much preferred Sherlock to use his own. "He has clearly anticipated Lady Smallwood's case against him, to have gotten the letters out of his vault. Now, he must decide there is no use keeping them on hand, as she is clearly informed of his power and I am useless."
"So assuming Janine has gotten to the letters first…" John followed and Sherlock snapped the laptop closed again.
"We'll be able to track them, yes," Sherlock replied. "So the next step: find a way to look incompetent," he said, striding over to his desk like that was a task worth researching.
"Other than the drugs, presumably," John drawled, flipping the loose piece of fabric over his shoulder and Sherlock nodded, apparently missing the judgement there.
"Yes, precisely. This will require something more," he agreed, sitting down at his desk and tenting his fingers in front of his face. His thinking pose, John recognized, holding one end of a knot with his teeth and pulling it closed with a painful jerk of his right arm. "Indian?" Sherlock offered suddenly and it took a moment for John to parse that he wasn't offering a solution to the Magnussen case. John spat out the sling fabric, recognizing the taste of cleaning chemicals on the rag, and nodded. He didn't want to think too much about what he might have ingested.
"Sounds good," he answered and Sherlock nodded back, like there wasn't anything unusual about making dinner plans together. John finally zipped up his coat, happy not to talk about it.
~~/~~
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