A/N: WARNING for suggested wording of rape related things. and fighting. And underage drinking. It's all resolved, though. Thanks for reading! Please review!
There's a party at the Watson home afterwards. The booze is flowing, kids everywhere are absolutely drunk.
Sherlock arrives late, since he had to go home after the game to have dinner with his parents. He took the opportunity to shower and re-dress before arriving at John's.
He wanders the large home looking for the star, his star.
"What an edge," he hears a guy, the wide-receiver, say while downing another glass of clear liquor.
"This place is a right gin mill," another says. "Watson ought to win the championship more often."
It upsets Sherlock that this is all John is to them.
Finally, he finds John.
John grins at him as Sherlock walks up.
"Look at you all dolled up," John says, stroking Sherlock's cheek and peering at Sherlock's clean clothes. John's wearing a t-shirt and he still smells like locker room. No doubt he, and the others, didn't have time to properly shower.
John is already buzzed, Sherlock can tell. The red tinge to his cheeks is pleasant against John's skin, and his eyes are so wide they're glittery blue, but John's uneasy lopsided grin is unnerving. Since the scouts are each in attendance, John is more composed than he should be. For that Sherlock is thankful.
"I'm going to get you some water," Sherlock says, turning away.
John grabs his hand. "No, don't leave."
Sherlock stands still, but his eyes whip around making sure nobody noticed John grabbing for him so quickly.
John opens his mouth to say something, Sherlock doesn't know what, when one of the teammates passes them. Sherlock rips his hand away from John's.
"Aye, Johnny Boy!" he yells, clanking his glass against John's.
John meets him halfway too hard, for his glass shatters into many pieces in his hand. Sherlock gasps, but John just laughs.
"My gin, you hood!" John yells at his friend, but he's not angry, he's still laughing.
Sherlock notices red staining John's fingers. "John, you're bleeding!"
John looks down at his hand. "Ahh, look at that."
Sherlock grabs his arm and pulls him upstairs and into John's bathroom. John giggles as Sherlock sits him on the toilet and gets toilet tissue to clean his hand.
"You might need stitches," Sherlock says.
"Nonsense," John replies.
Sherlock cleans up the blood as much as he can, then gets a bandage for the wound. He figures he'll go downstairs to find Mrs. Watson and tell her what happened.
"I'm going to get your mom," Sherlock says, moving to leave.
"No," John whispers, "Come here."
Sherlock pauses.
John stands and places his clean hand on Sherlock's neck, using it as leverage to pull him in for a kiss.
Sherlock tries to pull away; the stench of sweat and alcohol surrounding John makes Sherlock's stomach turn. He feels nauseous. John has him pinned against the sink and is trying to push Sherlock's legs apart so he can stand between his thighs.
"John, stop," Sherlock whispers, trying to close his knees.
"Why?" John asks, not stopping at all. "Don't you love me?"
"Yes, but-"
"Then let me."
John kisses him again, but Sherlock shoves him off harder. John stumbles backwards against the wall.
"What's eatin' you, babe?" John asks, anger prickling his voice.
"Don't call me that," Sherlock says, using a deeper voice than usual to hopefully show John that he's not a vulnerable little kid. "Not now."
John furrows his eyebrows. "You're a tease," he says.
"I'm not a pushover."
"All these other dames are," John says. "All these girls my sister brought."
"Fine," Sherlock says, reaching for the doorknob. "Do whatever you want, but don't call me again afterwards."
John grabs his arm before Sherlock can turn the doorknob.
"Ow!" Sherlock cries, trying to get out of John's grip.
"Why you gotta treat me this way?" John asks through gritted teeth.
"What're you gonna do, hurt me?" Sherlock spits, "I thought you were a good guy." Then, he yanks his arm out of John's grip and leaves before John can get a hand on him again.
Sherlock runs out of the house, knowing John is behind him. They get outside to where many cars are parked, where nobody is paying attention to them, then John tries again.
"Sherlock!" he calls. "Stop!"
Sherlock doesn't stop. He rushes past a car that he notices a few people are sitting in, not really noticing who is in it.
Suddenly, they hear a loud, shrieking scream coming from the car. Sherlock turns around, hearing a girl yell, "Stop!" and recognizing the voice instantly as Harry Watson's. He moves to the car, hoping to do something to help her, but John beats Sherlock there.
John throws the driver side door open and yanks out the first body he can reach. It's a young boy, a boy in Sherlock's class, so John immediately punches the boy in the face.
"What the fuck do you think you're doing?" John yells in the boy's bleeding face.
"The stupid bitch started it!" the boy yells back, so John punches him again.
Sherlock, who is at the passenger side, notices there's still a boy in the car with Harry, so he throws the passenger door open and yanks that boy out, too. He's much bigger than Sherlock, but Sherlock's had fighting lessons since he was a kid and can take the boy down easily.
Which is what he does. While the boy is distracted with his undone jeans, Sherlock punches him once in the ribs, the perfect spot to drop him to the ground. Sherlock doesn't let up, he just keeps punching the kid over and over, taking out all the aggression he has in his body; he uses all the anger he feels towards not only the two boys for hurting Harry Watson, but also the anger he feels towards John for not understanding Sherlock's own "no".
"Sherlock!" Harry shrieks when the brute's body slumps.
Sherlock stops three hits after the boy is out. He slowly backs up to the car, wondering what the fuck he just did, until Harry is grabbing his shoulder over the door. He then snaps out of it and helps Harry out of the car. Sherlock tears his jacket off and places it modestly over Harry's shoulders. She wraps her arms around his neck as John continues to beat the other boy.
A minute later, Sherlock realizes John might kill the boys, so he pries Harry off of him to go to John. Stepping over two bleeding boys, he roughly pulls John away right on time for a lot of people to gather and for John's dad to exit the house.
"Get out of here, Sherlock!" John yells.
"John, I'm not-"
John gets in his face and yells again. "Go!"
Sherlock lets John go, then backs away down the drive until he can turn around and run.
Sherlock doesn't hear from John the next day. Not that he'd expect to anyway; normally John would be in bed with a hangover all day. Plus, with the fight, he has no idea what is going on with John at all. John could be in jail for all Sherlock knows.
Still, over all of that, Sherlock can't help but fear that since last night's conversation in the bathroom, their relationship is over and that's why John hasn't called.
He doesn't see John until Monday morning. Everyone's still treating John like a celebrity, so he knows it's John surrounded by the crowd of students awaiting to talk to him about the big game and the even bigger party.
John finds him before class, though. As he's gathering the books needed, John pops up next to him.
"Hello," John tries.
Sherlock glances at him, noticing his big black eye and swollen lip. "Hi."
"You mad at me?"
Sherlock shuts his locker and turns to walk down the hall. John follows. "What's it to ya?"
"Level with me, Sherlock. Do you want me to leave you alone forever, or can we just...forget about what happened? I'm so sorry."
"You hurt me, John. And you scared me. What the hell happened the other night?"
"In the bathroom..." John sighs. "I'm sorry. I was drunk, I wasn't thinking, I shouldn't have tried to do anything."
"And outside?"
"I snapped. They were hurting my sister, Sherlock. They said it was her fault, that she was askin' for it since she was drunk and flirtin' with them. But she wasn't, you know that. She didn't want 'em to do anything."
"So are you in trouble?"
John shakes his head. "No, it was considered some form of self-defense. Those boys are in trouble, though. For hurtin' my sister."
"Good."
John nods in agreement.
"You still hurt me."
"And I won't ever again, I promise."
The hall is nearly empty, so Sherlock pauses and turns to face John.
"Why? Why me?"
John glances at the passing students, clearly uneasy. "Can we talk about it later?"
"No, you approached me. You get to talk."
John clears his throat. "Truth is...I'm completely stuck on you. I love you and I'm sorry that I said what I did and that I hurt you. I promise I don't want anyone else, babe. Just you, always you."
Sherlock watches him unconvinced, but his stomach does ecstatic flips when John calls him 'babe'. "I don't like that you were drinking alcohol."
"I won't drink again, then."
"Promise?"
"Yes, I promise."
With the hall completely empty now, Sherlock leans up to kiss John lightly on the lips. John smiles through the kiss, but Sherlock feels uneasy still.
Still, he's relieved John is okay, so he wraps his arms tight around John's neck.
"I'm glad you're okay," he whispers.
John drops his books so he can rub Sherlock's back. "You too," he says. "That's why I yelled at you to get away, I didn't want you hurt."
"I know."
"I'm sorry I yelled."
"I know."
John pulls back and holds the back of Sherlock's head, digging his fingers into Sherlock's hair. He kisses Sherlock again, then pulls back to smile at Sherlock.
"I love you," John whispers.
"I love you, too."