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“Sherlock, open the goddamn door!”
John pounded his fist against the painted wood. Though he couldn’t be sure that Sherlock was ever actually listening to anything he said or did, the doctor hoped the loud, continuous thuds would prove effective in evoking some sort of acknowledgement. It wouldn’t have been the first time Sherlock had locked himself in the bathroom, but it certainly was the first time that John really needed to pee while the detective was doing god knows what in there. Mrs. Hudson was out, Sherlock wasn’t giving any indication he was alive, and John wasn’t sure if he could make it down the street to a public loo. If worst came to worst, John supposed there was always an experiment of his flatmate’s that he could ruin (though he wasn’t emotionally ready for it to come to that).
“Sherlock, I swear to god, I need to pee!” John once again pounded his fist on the wood. “Let me in! You’ve been in there for ages, open up-!”
The doctor’s fist cleared the door and punched right through the space between the doorframe and Sherlock’s shoulder as the detective finally decided to show his face.
“That’s not very polite,” Sherlock remarked as John grabbed a fistful of his shirt and tore him from the bathroom. “John I was busy-”
With a slam, John shut the door behind him and attacked his fly, fingernails clashing against the metal as he struggled to unzip it. “You aren’t busy, Sherlock, we have no cases today and I really needed to pee!”
Relief filled his bladder as it emptied into the porcelain bowl. John washed his hands and wiped the sweat that had accumulated at his hairline (it was rather scary how long he had gone before bothering Sherlock). As he scrubbed his hands, he took in the mess Sherlock had left on the counter. A black comb, a still-hot hair curler (one of life’s greatest mysteries: why Sherlock felt the need to further curl his curls), and a vain amount of hair product. A bottle of cologne without the cap had fallen into the sink, alongside little hairs of wet black stubble that had collected on the edges where they hadn’t yet been washed down, clearly related to the razor haphazardly set behind the faucet.
“Sherlock, do you have plans?” John asked as he opened the door to a disgruntled and half-shaved detective. Though he was no Sherlock Holmes, John had deduced that Sherlock would not have made such an effort in grooming had he not had something going on that night.
“I hope your piss was worth interrupting me-”
“It was, thank you.”
“-but yes, I do have plans. So do you.” Sherlock pointedly slipped past John and continued his shaving, grabbing cream from the medicine cabinet and seeming to forget that his cologne had been left in the sink. “Our date is tonight.”
“Date?!” John sputtered. “What date?” Was his face red? It felt quite hot all of a sudden.
“Our date,” Sherlock elaborated, unhelpfully. “The date I promised in order to make up for commandeering your date with Sarah Sawyer.”
The name sounded familiar, but so much had happened in the last few weeks that John no longer felt he had the same grasp on reality that he once did. When he didn’t respond, Sherlock sighed.
“Honestly, it’s embarrassing that you can’t remember your own girlfriends, much less your coworkers.”
“I just didn’t know she had a last name,” John lied poorly, searching for a mug around their mess of a kitchen to busy himself with tea. “So, er, a date? What kind of date? I think you might’ve told me while I wasn’t there.”
He heard Sherlock chuckle from the bathroom. “Oh John, a date is where two people who like each other go out and have fun. You of all people should know that.”
Indeed, the doctor did recognize his own words being parroted back to him, but he thought it was rather out of context. When he had said it originally, he was referring to his girlfriend and coworker (apparently). Sherlock, however, was just his friend and flatmate. Best friend, of course, and probably more after all they had been through, but still just a friend.
The detective strode into the kitchen freshly-shaven and smelling lovely. John had gotten used to his signature cologne while they had been living together and found it quite comforting; just the smell of him made the doctor smile quietly to himself.
“Do you want a cuppa? I boiled enough water for both of us,” John asked, extra mug in hand. When Sherlock didn’t reply, he turned and asked again and oh-
It was no wonder Sherlock couldn’t speak with a tie in his mouth. Signature black in color with purple accents that matched the shirt he was buttoning. The purple shirt. Fitted, elegant, accentuating his long, thin torso perfectly, and only brought out for special occasions (such as hunting Moriarty). John’s mouth went dry and his fingers slack, dropping the mug as soon as he laid eyes on the detective.
Sherlock dove after it, leaving his shirt halfway unbuttoned and his tie to fall to the floor. The catching of the ceramic was graceful as always, and the detective didn’t seem too put off by the interruption of his preparation. “I would love some, thank you.”
Thank you?!
John filled their mugs with a frown and knit brows. Sherlock never said thank you to him for offering tea. In fact, John was hardly sure that Sherlock knew what those words meant. Mrs. Hudson had probably never heard it from his lips despite making him tea almost every morning for a year. “Are you sure you’re doing okay, mate?”
“Quite. Now, tie or no tie? It’s not quite like me with the tie, but I bought them together.”
“Erm, no tie,” John said as he put sugar in Sherlock’s tea. He didn’t really have to think about it; Sherlock always wore his dress shirts without a tie, hardly ever bothering to button the collar or first button. To forgo this established trend would be strange. “Your tea is ready, by the way.”
“Lovely!” Sherlock took the mug from John’s hands and chugged it, pouring the hot liquid straight down his throat as if he were a human drainpipe. “Now, have you seen my coat? I have errands to run.”
“It’s-it’s on your chair Sherlock. What is going on? I thought you had a date.”
“No,” Sherlock corrected, flying to his chair and donning his Belstaff with a practiced elegance. “You have a date. With me. At 19:00. Dress up, will you?” he asked, already down the stairs.
With me.
John guessed he had plans after all.
* * *
Sherlock had, naturally, thoroughly researched where to get flowers. What good detective hadn’t? Enough criminals conveyed hidden messages in bouquets given to their partners or arranged at dinners that decoding their language was a useful skill to have. Thus, Sherlock knew the best florists in London.
The detective settled on a quaint little corner store with a display of summer flowers outside, facing the street. A pool of water underneath the display told him that it had been changed out recently, while dried leaves and old petals of spring arrangements against the building’s edge signaled the beginning of the new season. The smell was intoxicating: naturally floral, but also rich and pleasantly damp. Sherlock loved going to florists when he was on a case (as opposed to a morgue) for the smells alone, and it reminded him of the gardens that had once been outside Musgrave Hall. Funny how that was one of the only things he could recall from the manor.
As he entered the store, Sherlock removed a neatly folded piece of paper from his pocket and assessed the room for the flowers that were on it. If he could spot the ones from his list, hopefully they would be in stock.
“Can I help you, love?” a young woman asked from behind the counter. Her hair was red, pinned up and thinning. Bitten nails and thinning hair suggested anxiety, though the nails may have been frail to begin with from an iron deficiency, which would also explain the hair loss. Perhaps it was a cycle. However, deep worry lines on such a young face--maybe twenty two and eight months judging by the scorpio tattoo on her arm--tilted the scale toward anxiety.
So Sherlock, assuming this would play a role in their interaction, approached with a smile. “I would love some help. I have a list here with the flowers I want in my arrangement. If any aren’t in season, I’d be happy to skip them.” He handed the paper over and waited patiently as the young woman looked it over. Her nametag said “Katy,” though it was horribly off-centered and whited-out, suggesting that it may have read “Katherine” at some point.
Katy--Katherine--looked worried by the time she got to the end of the list. “Dahlia’s aren’t in season right now and it’s getting pretty late for tulips. I know we have the tulips, but they just won’t be as lovely as the spring ones.” A people pleaser, perhaps. She wrung her hands, putting creases in the list. “I can ask about the dahlias if they’re important to you; they’re really beautiful. Let me go get my supervisor.”
“I appreciate it,” the detective said warmly.
As the florist disappeared, Sherlock breathed deeply and took in the room. It hadn’t changed much since the last time he had been there. His previous visit had been for a case where a husband had killed his wife. Turns out that he had been hinting at it since before they were married, giving her yellow carnations, marigolds, columbine, yellow lily, and lavender. Naturally, she had no idea that he actually was communicating disdain, grief, folly, falsehood, and mistrust until it was too late. John wrote all about it in his blog, though it never got as many views as Sherlock thought it would. The language of flowers was fascinating.
“...he wanted red ones? People never ask for those, they always want pink. Ask him if he wants pink.” A new voice from in the back. Older, female, a smoker.
Katy came out and returned to her position at the till, her nails more bitten than before. “Excuse me, sir, are you sure you didn’t want pink-”
“Pink dahlias, no. Red. Same with the chrysanthemum, I know red is not a popular color for those either.”
“I told you,” Katy muttered under her breath, presumably to the older woman. “We have everything, then. What size bouquet are you looking for? We have three sizes, the prices are up there-” she pointed to a sign on the wall “-and we can wrap them or arrange them in a vase. The prices for vases are also up there, along with ribbons, cards, extra decorations, and um…everything else.”
Sherlock ordered a medium bouquet for an amount of money that he would not be telling John about, but decided to skip a vase and just borrow one of Mrs. Hudson’s to save a little bit of money if the doctor ever found the receipt. Flowers were necessary for a date, so the detective didn’t mind the expense. The money could have otherwise been spent on cigarettes, nicotine patches, needles, and other drug paraphernalia that John hated, so Sherlock was sure he wouldn’t mind much.
“Your girlfriend must be so lucky,” Katy said as she tied a large white ribbon around the paper-wrapped stems. Sherlock thought the ribbon accented the baby’s breath, white roses, and honeysuckle nicely against the red of the red roses, tulips, chrysanthemum, and dahlia. “I wish my boyfriend would get me something as beautiful as this. Of course, he would have to go to a different florist.”
Sherlock chuckled. “I don’t have a girlfriend.”
“Oh! Well, someone special surely. A wife?”
“Don’t have one of those either, but yes, someone very special,” Sherlock admitted as Katy added the finishing touches to the bouquet. “Could I get a card? Just a little tie-on would be fine.”
Katy handed him a card and a pen (ballpoint, black ink, only slightly used). The card was blank aside from the store’s logo, with a little hole punched in the corner so it could be added to a bouquet. Sherlock uncapped the pen and wrote a little note to John, signing it with his name. When he was done, he handed the pen back to Katy.
“Let me just tie this on for you…Mr. Holmes,” Katy gasped. “You’re Sherlock Holmes?! I read your blog all the time! You’re really a bit shorter than I had imagined.”
“It’s John’s blog actually,” Sherlock corrected. “Dr. Watson’s.” Sherlock was used to the misunderstanding. John wasn’t.
Katy smiled knowingly, handing the detective the bouquet and the receipt. “Are these for him, then? For Dr. Watson?”
“For someone special, like I said. Thank you, have a good day, and hope your anxiety gets better!” Sherlock tucked the receipt in his pocket and hurried out the door. He knew John wouldn’t want people to think anything.
* * *
Dress up.
Dress up?!
John had been standing at the foot of his wardrobe for well over fifteen minutes. It was as if he had never owned nor donned clothes in his entire life. The feeling was familiar--and yet distinctly different--to getting home from deployment in Afghanistan. For months, he had done nothing but wear the same strict military-approved clothing and uniforms. When he got home, the sheer amount of choice was overwhelming. It took a long time to feel comfortable and like himself in his own jumpers, slacks, and button ups. In a way, he had made that his new uniform, replacing military camouflage with soft cable knits and muted trousers.
But once again, his uniform would no longer be an option. What the hell did Sherlock even mean by “dress up?!”
John pulled out a cream dress shirt he hadn’t worn in ages. It smelled like mothballs and looked almost yellow against his skin. Who was he kidding, he never wore it for a reason. Back to the wardrobe it went.
Next was his suit jacket from Harry’s wedding. John slipped it over his current clothes and found it uncomfortably tight. He must have gained weight since then. Besides, it was way too formal. Wardrobe.
A white button up with a stain, a blue one that smelled weird, a grey one that looked weird, and a plaid one that was too casual. John found himself taking out every shirt he owned before finding a reason to put it back. What was he doing? This was Sherlock taking him out after all, nothing actually serious. The detective would probably take him to a morgue to people-watch; that was Sherlock’s idea of the perfect date. It was absurd to think he would care so much about what John wore.
So the doctor picked something he liked. A light brown cashmere jumper--the nicest he owned--and a white dress shirt go go under it. Yes, that felt right. He wore jumpers all the time, this was just an elevated version of that. To compliment the jumper, John went with dark brown slacks and socks. Matching the gold hardware on his belt was a wristwatch from Mrs. Hudson. John suspected it may have once been her late husband’s, or at least was bought with the considerable funds he must have left her, because it looked quite expensive and the doctor only pulled it out for special occasions.
When John looked at his reflection in the standing mirror, he felt a deep satisfaction in what he had pulled together. It wasn’t black-tie “nice” by any means, but John suspected that Sherlock would find it suitable nonetheless. The earthy tones of his outfit brought out the remnants of brown in his rapidly greying hair, which he fought with to lay flat in the back. Something about the whole thing felt right, and that was good enough for John. Something about his hair had to be done, though.
“Come on…” he muttered under his breath. “Please cooperate with me here.” John found a comb in his bedside table and ran it through his hair a couple times in the mirror. Just when he thought it would stay put, a couple strands would spring back up and ruin the look. “Lay flat for me, will you? There we go…”
“If you insist,” a voice said from the doorway. “I didn’t think that was our relationship, John.”
John’s heart leapt into his throat. “God, fuck, Sherlock-!”
“Just Sherlock is fine; people never liked when I tried to play God.” A coy smile played on the detective’s lips and John could tell he was enjoying the exchange. “As for the fucking, I assure you, you would know if I had been pegged by God.”
“It sure would explain a lot if you were,” John joked. “I better let Mycroft know, we’ve made bets on what the stick up your ass was.”
“Mycroft’s projecting. If I didn’t know better, I would think he wants a stick up his own.”
John sputtered. “Are you saying your brother is-”
“Gay? I’m sure Gavin would know something about it.”
“Who?”
“Gabriel.”
“We don’t know a Gabriel or a Gavin, Sherlock.”
Sherlock frowned. “Gerald? Gary? Grayson? George? Come on, John, you know. Gohn? No, that would be silly. It’s-”
“Are you talking about Greg Lestrade again?” It was by no means the first time Sherlock had called Greg the wrong name over the several years he had worked with the DI. John almost thought that Sherlock had intentionally purged the knowledge from his mind palace (just like the solar system), but would never say that in front of Lestrade himself.
“Lestrade! Yes! Mycroft gets on very well with Grant Lestrade. Are you ready to go?”
“Am I ready-” John blinked, thinking he should be used to Sherlock dropping bombs of new information after several months of living together. “Yes, I suppose I am.”
Sherlock held out an arm for John to take, which he did awkwardly. The detective must’ve noticed or deduced something from John’s body language, as he said: “I don’t bite, I promise,” which frankly was the least of the doctor’s worries.
“So where are you taking me?” John asked as he tied his shoes and Sherlock re-assumed his coat.
“Oh I’m not taking you anywhere,” Sherlock said, opening the door to reveal a limousine parked outside 221B Baker Street. “Mycroft is.” The detective got the door for John as they got in. Up front was Mycroft’s hired driver as well as Anthea, who were each equally responsible for kidnapping John whenever the eldest Holmes brother had need for him. Such a delight to see them again.
Anthea looked John up and down and he couldn’t help but remember unsuccessfully hitting on her twice. In his defense, it had been a very long day and she was very pretty. He turned away and tried to pretend she wasn’t there.
“Where are we going, Mr. Holmes?” the driver asked once Sherlock had opened his own door and sat down.
“This address. Maybe you are familiar already?” Sherlock handed a piece of paper up front, which was taken without further acknowledgement.
John studied the detective across from him, wishing he was anywhere as good at deducing as Sherlock. The whole situation was foreign to him. He had never been on such a confusing date, and it had only just started. Not only that, but being on a date with a man, much less his best friend and flatmate was an experience he never thought he would have.
And yet, he was excited in a way he had never been before either.
“Nervous?” Sherlock observed. At John’s inquisitive look, he elaborated: “your breathing quickened and you’re fidgeting with your sleeve.”
John didn’t know he was doing either of those things. “This is the third time I’ve been kidnapped in this car at the behest of a Holmes brother, you know.”
“Interesting. Not as romantic as I thought. Champagne?”
“Please.”
Sherlock poured two flutes of sparkling liquid, handing one to John and keeping one for himself, which he nursed politely. Some described Sherlock Holmes as mannerless, but anyone could see that he came from money. The casual way he handled expenses, the refined grasp on every wine glass or champagne flute, the elegant way he dressed to compliment every single one of his features. John may not have been able to deduce this in a couple of seconds, but it was obvious once he saw it. Sherlock, in spite of all his quirks and destructive tendencies, was graceful and elegant and raised to be a gentleman.
“You are nervous.”
John took another sip of champagne. “I haven’t been on a date in a while.”
Sherlock’s brows furrowed. “You went on a string of dates last month. Four of them. She stopped seeing you unexpectedly, around the time we solved that case. You were upset, tried to get her back, and- ohhh. She thought we were together. That’s why this bothers you.”
It did, at first, bother John. Being Sherlock’s best friend and flatmate didn’t always coincide with being in a relationship. Some used John to get to Sherlock, some immediately assumed he was gay (he wasn’t, as he was on a date with them, a woman), and some didn’t understand why he had to drop everything at a moment’s notice for Sherlock.
Sometimes John didn’t even know.
“She…she didn’t like you much.”
“Very few people do. More champagne?”
John hadn’t realized he had finished his glass. He held it out to Sherlock, who also refilled his own.
“They never seem to get that I can’t…can’t just leave you. We work together, we live together, my blog is about you!” John sighed into his champagne. “You mean so much to me and I can’t be with someone who can’t see that. I can’t be with someone who thinks we are together, either. That defeats the whole purpose, doesn’t it?”
Sherlock was silent. It was the same silence as when he wanted John to observe the same thing he already had. John had taken it to mean that he was listening.
“And the thing is, you don’t even correct people when they say we are together, which just makes me seem like some sort of idiot that doesn’t get the joke that everyone else is in on.” The doctor took a deep breath and loosened his grip on the flute. He didn’t need Sherlock to point it out as if he were a crime scene to be investigated. “It’s lonely to feel like everyone has a grasp on your dating life except for you.”
Sherlock moved to the seat beside John, bringing the champagne with him. John could feel the warmth from the detective’s body even through his sweater and Sherlock’s coat. He moved closer slightly.
“I’m married to my work, John,” Sherlock said, staring out the window straight ahead of them. “You, however unexpectedly, have become an integral part of my work and my life. Even if we aren’t together, we are always together. Sherlock Holmes comes with Dr. John Watson now. We may not be a couple, but we are a pair, don’t you think?” A reassuring hand found John’s arm. “I warned you, John, but I have never regretted letting you into my life.”
John laughed a little into his drink. “You warned me that you play violin and that you talk to yourself for days on end. That’s hardly warning me that you would take over my life.”
“No, I suppose it wasn’t,” Sherlock admitted. “But you’ve taken over mine just the same.”
They sat and sipped their drinks a few moments more. John finished his, Sherlock finished his. Sherlock nonverbally offered another, John gratefully accepted.
“Do the rumors not bother you?”
“That we are together?”
“Yeah.”
“If they did, I wouldn’t be here. Neither would you. Besides, I would consider myself lucky to be the apple of Dr. John Watson’s eye, even if I had to compete with his sociopath of a flatmate: Sherlock Holmes.”
John’s face felt warm. It was nice that someone thought that. “I think I’d get death threats from all the girls in Britain if I were dating detective Sherlock Holmes,” he returned. “You should see the comments I get on the blog. They really think you’re something with your dark curly hair and your beautiful cheek bones and mysterious job.”
Sherlock touched his curls self-consciously. “What’s wrong with my hair?”
“Nothing,” John amended quickly. “They love them. The girls, I mean. They think they frame your face nicely and that they’re always perfect. Sometimes I get comments saying that they want to tuck little pieces behind your ear like this.” John reached up and tucked a single black curl behind the detective’s ear, gently brushing the sides of his face as he did. Sherlock’s quiet inhale was deafening.
“I suppose I just lived the fantasy of about a thousand British teenage girls.”
“Was it everything you hoped for?” Sherlock asked, smiling softly.
“And more.” John returned the smile. “It’s really quite intimate what some of these people want to do to you, not all innocent like touching your hair.”
“I worked very hard on my hair.”
“Well they want to work hard to mess it up, figuratively speaking. Or maybe the other way around.”
“I see. In that case, watch out for death threats, John. They may take us living together as a personal attack. I’m sure those are the rumors you are so worried about.”
The rumors didn’t seem like such a big deal when it was just the two of them, giggling into their champagne. So what if a couple teenage girls thought they were together? John had Sherlock to protect him, or at least solve his murder if he was unexpectedly kidnapped and killed by a hormonal adolescent with a thing for tall, pale, dark-haired sociopaths. Well too bad for them, Sherlock was his tall, pale, dark-haired sociopath.
“I suppose they don’t matter. They aren’t true, after all.”
“They aren’t true,” Sherlock repeated. He swirled the champagne in his glass, as if it suddenly became unappetizing. “We’ll just keep the thing between us, shall we?”
John grinned. “What thing?” he asked coyly.
“The thing with my hair.”
“Oh, you mean this?” John leaned over the detective so he could reach the other side of his face, tucking another loose curl behind an ear. He didn’t need to watch his hand, no, he had done it with enough girls not to be clumsy with it. Instead, he watched Sherlock: the way he swallowed and his eyes got wide. “What’s so wrong with that?” the doctor murmured, voice low.
“Nothing at all.” Sherlock breathed in deeply and John was happy to say that he had, once again, lived the fantasy of internet strangers all over Britain. “You might have missed some, actually.”
“Sorry, love. Let me fix that for you.” John set down his empty glass and properly positioned himself to see both sides of Sherlock’s face. With one hand under the detective’s chin, he carefully inspected the hair at his temples for any curls that may have eluded him. A small piece on the right had indeed fallen, and John took his time to drag his fingertips across Sherlock’s skin until the black curl was just as delicately tucked as the others. “There you go…”
When John pulled away, Sherlock remained frozen in place. The only thing that moved were the wide eyes that followed John’s.
“And you think people will talk.” Sherlock swallowed. Hard.
“And you said it didn’t matter if they did.”
“You know, John, I-”
John never did know, as the limo came to a halt and Anthea made an impatient noise in her throat, signaling that they had arrived at Sherlock’s destination. The space beside him became suddenly cold as the detective practically leapt from his seat and flew out from the limousine, appearing just as instantaneously outside John’s door as he had disappeared out his own. Sherlock extended a polite hand to help the doctor with an expression so serious that John would’ve felt more awkward not taking it than doing so.
Once out of the vehicle, the doctor could finally assess where he had been taken. “Are we…are we in Brixton?” he marveled. The neighborhood felt familiar somehow, but John couldn’t quite place why he had been there.
Sherlock’s mouth twitched in a way that confirmed his hunch. “Let’s see if this will jog your memory.” He led the doctor by the hand--John didn’t remember still holding his hand--down the street to an abandoned building complex. Of course Sherlock’s idea of a good time was going to a place they would surely be murdered. Why wouldn’t it?
Sherlock let go of John’s hand to pick a padlock that had been placed on the door. If it had been any other person, John would’ve been worried. Instead, he placed his now empty hand in his pocket to stay warm, and said nothing.
“After you.”
“I don’t know where I’m going-” John objected as they entered, but once he saw the balustrade, he knew. It looked different without Scotland Yard overrunning it, with officers and detectives and crime scene tape galore. No, the foyer was empty save for a trail of red rose petals that began at John’s feet and led up the stairs, but it was unmistakably Lauriston Gardens. Rose petals though? Odd.
“If you’re worried that I’m going to kill you, I would’ve done it already,” the detective said as he passed John and began trudging up the stairs. “Mycroft’s car would’ve been better, they could dump your body for me.”
“That’s a really nice thought, Sherlock, really lovely,” John called up to him, deciding he had no choice but to follow. The detective had been careful not to step on the rose petals, so John did the same. Was it some sort of weird sex thing? Why else did people put out rose petals? Did Sherlock count as “people?”
When they reached the top--the very room in which Sherlock and John conducted their debut case as a team--the detective moved to the side to reveal a candlelit dinner. A large checkered picnic blanket covered “Rache” and the place where Jennifer Wilson’s body had once laid. Candles and more rose petals were placed around the edges of the room, illuminating the scene with a soft warm glow. On the blanket sat a large basket, containing something that smelled like takeout, a large bottle of wine, and a bouquet that looked like it could swallow John’s head if he went to smell it.
It was the most romantic thing anyone had ever done for him.
And it was executed by Sherlock Holmes.
John turned to the detective, mouth agape and not sure how he could ever close it. “You-? I-? How-?”
“I don’t know how your night with Sarah was supposed to go, but I wanted to make up for it somehow. You were right, it was wrong of me to sabotage it just for a case.” Sherlock looked awfully pleased with himself in spite of his apology, standing there with his “I’m Sherlock Holmes and I know I’m good at everything” smile, and for once, John didn’t hate it.
“You’re brilliant.” Sherlock began to shake his head but John cut him off. “No, really, this is loads better than anything I have ever done for any girl in my whole life. I had forgotten all about Sarah until you said her name today, and even then I barely remembered who she was. This is incredible, Sherlock. Extraordinary.”
“I wanted to show you a good time.”
“Good? This is bloody brilliant,” John laughed. “Is that Chinese? I’m starving.”
Sherlock knelt on the picnic blanket and opened the basket, revealing dishes, chopsticks, and chinese takeaway. “It was supposed to allude to the Chinese show we saw that night, but we haven’t had takeaway in a while anyway and you and Mrs. Hudson always cook. You deserve a break.”
John had never been so grateful to see food in his life. There was nothing like three glasses of champagne on a near-empty stomach to get John tipsier than he wanted to be. A part of him supposed he didn’t need to be worried; he was with Sherlock, after all. Donovan didn’t know what she was talking about, Sherlock would make sure nothing bad happened to either of them, a little tipsy or not.
“So what’s with the flowers?” John asked, shoveling food into his face.
Sherlock sipped his wine. “Isn’t that what people do? Buy their date flowers? I thought they were nice.”
“They’re beautiful. What does the note say?” John reached for the little tag tied onto the ribbon.
“Nothing!” Sherlock lunged across the picnic basket and tore off the slip of paper, pocketing it. “It’s nothing, just something the florist puts on. My mistake for not taking it off.”
“Well that’s all right,” John supposed, going back to admiring the bouquet. “You really nailed it with the red and white, it looks classy. What are these red ones here?” He pointed to a flower with a bunch of little pointed petals.
“A dahlia.”
“A dahlia; pretty. And this one?” John pointed to another red one, with long skinny petals that curled inward.
“Chrysanthemum.”
“A mouthful, gorgeous though. And this?” A cluster of small white flowers.
“Baby’s breath.”
“Baby’s breath,” John mused. His face was beginning to feel hot as he ran his fingers over the soft petals in the bouquet. “They’re lovely. You’re lovely, really, for buying them for me…after all….” It was definitely a bit warm. John was feeling it under his jumper, sweating more than he wanted to admit. Another sip of wine for him, then.
Whatever the sudden source of heat was in the room, Sherlock appeared to be feeling it too. He removed his coat and set it behind him, neatly folded in half. The top button of his purple dress shirt was undone, as always, and long pale fingers began to undo the next, revealing smooth bare chest beneath. There was something about the way he moved so gracefully, without effort or thought.
John found himself mesmerized, and quickly found himself engaged in his meal. Chinese, delicious; Sherlock, being Sherlock. There was nothing to it.
They lapsed into a comfortable silence, only interrupted by the occasional “pass the” and “do you?” The pair ate together every day, and Sherlock was not one for conversation while they did. Often, he would only start to speak after John had left the room and was washing dishes. John didn’t mind, if Sherlock had something important to say, he would say it. Besides, they had their work to do, and John had learned to be grateful when Sherlock decided he was hungry and should stop to eat in the first place. Eating felt like a luxury on those busy days, though it was nothing compared to the luxuriousness of their date.
John reached for the bottle of wine and poured himself a new glass, topping off Sherlock’s as well. He missed the rim at first and a little red liquid spilled over the edge, dribbling onto the blanket.
The detective laughed to himself and swirled the drink in his glass. The wine John had spilled was now on his hand. “Trying to get me drunk, Watson?”
“You’re the one who kept refilling my champagne…” John grumbled into his drink.
“Oh you’re drunk already, aren’t you?” Sherlock’s grin sent butterflies aflutter in the doctor’s stomach. It was their secret smile, the one Sherlock wore when it was only them in on a joke. The corners of his mouth turned down and there were sparkles in his eyes--John loved it.
“I’m not drunk, just a little…tip-” John hiccupped. “-sy.” He met Sherlock’s eyes and snorted into his glass.
“If you’re tipsy now, then I don’t want to know what drunk John is like,” the detective laughed. Maybe it was the intimate setting, but John could swear Sherlock was the most relaxed he had ever seen him; casually sprawled on the blanket, violet sleeves rolled past the elbows and shirt unbuttoned to reveal his sternum.
No, relaxed wasn’t the right word.
Loose.
Undone.
John found himself mirroring his pose, wishing he was just as effortless. “Guess then. Guess what I’m like when I’m drunk.”
The detective lit up at the challenge, leaning toward John as if inspecting him. The smell of candle smoke, the flowers, and Sherlock’s cologne was intoxicating. “You slip up. Less restraint, less control.” Sherlock took a sip of his drink without taking his eyes off John. “Not just motor skills; you don’t guard your emotions. You let yourself feel what you’re really feeling.”
“Right as always.” It always impressed John, Sherlock deducing anything.
Sherlock shook his head. “No, no, there’s something I’m missing. Why haven’t I seen you drunk before? Your sister? She has a drinking problem.” Blunt as always, but still correct.
“Harriet got mixed up in some stuff as a kid. Didn’t always run with the right crowd.”
“Underage drinking, most likely unsupervised. Overdose? Sexual assault? Assault is more likely being a girl…” Sherlock must’ve finally caught the expression on John’s face and fell silent.
A lump formed in his throat. “That one.”
“You don’t get drunk unless you’re with someone you trust.”
“Yes.”
“Well then,” Sherlock sighed, expression unreadable. “Glad to have deduced that.” He finished up the last few bites of his dinner and began packing up, stacking takeaway containers and crumpling his napkin into a tight ball in his hands.
John tried to meet the detective’s eyes but was unsuccessful. “Did I do something to you?” It wasn’t as if John had just shared a deeply personal and intimate part of his past; a justification for his vulnerability and present-day behavior. No, it wasn’t like that at all.
“It’s what you didn’t do.”
“Enlighten me.”
Sherlock took a deep breath, between his fingertips, a rose petal. “You ask what I think you’re like when you’re drunk, as I have never seen you as such. I deduce that your hesitancy to become intoxicated around others stems from a childhood experience where your sister was taken advantage of while under the influence. Thus, you developed a fear of being in the same situation knowing the trauma it caused. However, given that I have yet to see you intoxicated as such, my own friend-” he said it scathingly, enunciating every syllable. “-Doesn’t trust me.”
When Sherlock finally looked at John, the petal in his hands had turned to pulp, staining them a deep pink. There was anger there, yes, but also a deep and raw sadness.
And John, well,
John just laughed.
“Sherlock!” he cried, reaching for the detective’s hand. Rose petal remnants fell from his fingertips as John took them in his. “Sherlock, I’ve had more to drink tonight than I have had in the last year combined. I’m plastered, I’ve had God knows how much champagne and wine—what is this, thirteen percent? You’re better than this, Sherlock.”
The detective looked unconvinced, but John gave his hand a gentle squeeze.
“Look, I’m here in Brixton, half an hour from our flat, in an abandoned building where a woman died, with you, getting drunk. If I didn’t trust you, none of those things would be true. This has been the most thoughtful, kind, romantic thing anyone has ever done for me. You said you wanted to make up for hijacking my date with Sarah? You surpassed any expectations I had the moment you told me to dress up.” God, John was about to tear up. “You must be a little drunk too, not to think about all that, hm?”
Sherlock’s hand slipped from his. “You said you were just tipsy,” he said dejectedly.
“And you’re off your game when you’re drunk,” John joked back.
“I’m just tipsy.”
“Oh, but when I say that I’m tipsy-”
And then the smile was back--his smile, only for John—and John knew everything was all right in the world.
“So…can I trust you to get me home in one piece?” the doctor asked with a laugh. He downed the rest of his wine in a single gulp.
“Obviously,” Sherlock promised.
* * *
Sherlock wasn’t quite sure how they ended up back in the limousine, nor was he convinced that he had actually texted Mycroft to ask for it back. One minute, he was upstairs with John—drinking, promising to get him home safe—and the next he was falling over him into the vehicle, the bouquet of flowers narrowly avoiding being crushed.
“You lovebirds going straight home or do you need dropping off at the insane asylum first?” Mycroft’s hired woman asked. Sherlock had heard John call her Anthea, but Sherlock knew better than to assume that was her real name.
“Hey, you know what?” John answered loudly. “Sherlock and I don’t care if you talk about us.”
Sherlock, in question, had most certainly reevaluated his earlier conclusion, and was now under the impression that John wasn’t just drunk, he was nearing shit-faced.
“That’s nice, boys,” Anthea said. Her expression said that trash bins had entered into the back seat, not the two of them. John was right, however: Sherlock didn’t care.
They started driving and John had no issue with sinking right into Sherlock. He was wearing Sherlock’s coat—again, Sherlock was not quite sure how it got there—and seemed content to sit propped up against the detective. Sherlock tried to focus on the gentle rise and fall of the doctor’s chest to calm his racing heart. In…and out, in…and out. How could he have ever thought John didn’t trust him? The man was pressed against him, drunk and nearly falling asleep.
“John?” Sherlock whispered, moving greying hair from his friend’s face. “Are you going to fall asleep on our date?”
The doctor grumbled and shook his head, shaking hair back into his closed eyes. “‘m not tired.”
“If you weren’t tired, your eyes would be open.”
“They are open,” John insisted. He turned his face into Sherlock’s shoulder so the detective couldn’t see him.
A laugh escaped Sherlock’s lips. John was always interesting, that was why Sherlock was so captivated by him. No matter how many times he deduced the doctor, he was never one hundred percent right; there was always something left to discover, something left to know about John. He was brave, John was. Brave and fiercely protective. Kind to Sherlock, even when Sherlock was certain he could never be deserving of it. This was the same man that stayed calm with bombs strapped to his chest, the same man who served in Afghanistan as an army doctor, the same man who was bored without danger, and he was curled up on the seat of a limousine beside Sherlock, oh so soft and lovely and…snoring.
“There we go.” He had figured John was about to crash; he had a lot to drink and, if Sherlock was right, did not drink regularly. For a while he did a good job at masking how drunk he was, but he was only human after all.
Sherlock readjusted his hold on the vase of flowers. He would return the vase to Mrs. Hudson eventually—that, or she would find it in 221B and take it back. It was a relief that John liked them, as Sherlock worried for a moment there that he had come off too strong. Maybe the candles were too much. He hoped he had snuffed all of them before leaving…. It would be an unfortunate mistake to explain to Lestrade if Sherlock went back to get his things and found the building as ash on the ground. Candles or no candles, flowers or no flowers, maybe it was a good thing that John didn’t read into the date too much. It was only supposed to make up for his commandeered date with Sarah, after all.
Sherlock pinched off a stem of baby’s breath from the bouquet with his nails and twirled it between his fingertips. The little white flowers spun round and round, turning into blurry spirals as they did. Flowers were one aspect of a date he could get behind. A secret language hidden in plain sight, how captivating. The baby’s breath he chose for sincerity. John was the only person he could truly be sincere with. While Mycroft might understand him better, sincerity was never something they were good at. No, sincerity was for John.
Sherlock placed the white flower behind the doctor’s ear. John shifted in his sleep as his fingers brushed against skin, and the detective was worried he would wake. Sherlock would have to wake him eventually, but not now.
Not now.
* * *
John was beginning to feel it as he walked into 221B.
Sherlock had shaken him awake, almost carrying him from the vehicle and to their door. John leaned heavily on the railing as they made their way upstairs, creeping past Mrs. Hudson’s to the landing outside their living room.
“Well then,” John said, rubbing his eyes.
“Well then.”
“Was our date everything you hoped for?”
Sherlock shrugged. “I have no basis for comparison.”
“Was that-”
“My first date? Took you long enough to figure it out.” A twinkle in the detective’s eye told John he was joking; John just didn’t know what part he was joking about. “A date conducted purely on theory and advice from the internet. An enjoyable experiment.”
John was still too hung up on the first date part to process that he just went on a date based on internet advice. “You’ve never gone out? Not with anyone? Not ever? The great Sherlock Holmes has never dated?”
“Who am I supposed to go out with?”
“Girls!” John exclaimed. “Pretty women!”
“So you’re saying,” Sherlock began. “That I should’ve found strangers to tolerate me for an evening instead of spending my valuable time on this Earth with my esteemed coworker and flatmate, who, may I add, I more than tolerate?”
“Yes! Meet someone! Connect with someone!” John was not used to spelling out the obvious for the detective. “Sherlock, this date was amazing. Any girl would be lucky-”
“So it’s settled,” Sherlock interrupted. “You had a good time, I had a good time, let’s do this again.”
John just stared at him for a moment. Purple shirt distressed, flowers in hand, dopey grin on his face. Of course Sherlock wasn’t interested in finding someone else to go out with. This was fun for him.
“Okay, fine.” John gave in. “But I’ll have you know, I don’t put out until the third date.”
“Oh that’s fine, you know where to find me if you change your mind.” Sherlock winked and John blushed what could only have been a deep scarlet. “Just down the stairs and past the kitchen if you’ve forgotten.”
“Thanks for the directions to my own flat….” John rolled his eyes and tried to appear composed.
“We’re both a little tipsy, maybe you’d forgotten.”
“Yeah, yeah.”
Sherlock smiled. “Goodnight, John.”
“Goodnight, Sherlock.”
John watched the detective enter their flat and close the door behind him, leaving John with nothing else to do but go upstairs to his room. He skipped a little up the stairs, a spring in his step and mood brightening with every stair he climbed. He felt like a teenager again, giddy after his first kiss. There was something about how Sherlock had said “you know where to find me” that had sent butterflies soaring violently in his stomach. It was probably just because it was Sherlock, John concluded as he opened his bedroom door. Sherlock was never flirty; of course John reacted strangely. Why wouldn’t he? It would be more strange if he hadn’t reacted at all.
He pulled pajamas from his wardrobe—just flannel pants, really—and threw them on the bed. He took off the watch from Mrs. Hudson and set it on the bedside table, checking his pockets to make sure he hadn’t forgotten about anything.
Such as forgetting that those pockets didn’t belong to him, and that he was wearing Sherlock’s coat.
There was hardly anything in the pockets anyway, just a little slip of paper that John figured was garbage. He pulled it out, intending to do Sherlock a favor and toss it in the bin for him. The paper was stiff—like a tag you would find on new clothes at the store—and had a gold logo on the front. It was a little torn, but the gold made it look important nonetheless. John held it closer to the light of his table lamp and squinted at it. The lettering on the front read: Elizabeth’s Floral, but when John turned it over, he ran his fingers over the detective’s untidy scrawl.
Love,
Sherlock Holmes