Fic: Core of the Problem (Sherlock BBC)

[keep_counting]

Title: Core of the Problem
Characters/Pairings: Sherlock/John, Mrs. Hudson,
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Cursing and Sherlock being Sherlock, spoilers for the first season. Pre-slash  ~ Slash. Mentions of violence and people hitting each-other - and people with bad tempers. Really bad tempers.
Word Count: 2,157
Genre: Humor, Romance. Teensy bit of h/c
Disclaimer: If I owned, John would be cuddled to death and I would be doing just that to procrastinate my studies, instead of writing fics
A/N: This is a sequel to THIS, so you should probably read that before you delve into this one. It is dedicated to yourebrilliant and xjill who requested it. Hope you like it! (and appreciate the pains I underwent, as Mycroft yet again managed to sneak out of my grasp!)
Summary: Everything, John thought - absolutely, bloody everything - was just an experiment to Sherlock Holmes.

 

Core of the Problem

 

John Watson was a patient man.

He hadn’t always been: when he was a child and Harry had been annoying him at every turn, pushing and kicking and calling him goddamn Johnny… well, then he’d often lost his temper, a temper that was considerable and grand in its scope.

He’d learned to curb it somehow in the army: his superiors did not see kindly to him shouting at them at all, so he’d learned to grit his teeth and clench his knuckles and count slowly, just count to ten.

However, John was still human and sometimes gritting your teeth and even counting to a hundred is just not enough: especially not when you are living with the man who is the very epitome of trying people’s patience.

Despite all of that, John has never actually lost his temper with Sherlock. Sure, he’d yelled at him quite a few times, walked out late at night, slammed doors and the like. But he’d never been angry enough, so mind-boggling angry that he actually wanted to scream and hurt just for the sake of seeing Sherlock flinch.

That is to say, he’s never lost his temper with Sherlock, until the day the man decides to kiss him.

If Sherlock had been acting odd lately – and really, that was the wrong word to use for someone who acted odd all the time – John had decided not to put too much thought into it: they’d barely been living together a year and despite liking to think himself attuned to most of Sherlock’s moods and whims by now, he knew there were still a lot of surprises left.

Well, this was one hell of a surprise. Both the cleaning and the kissing. Actually, John wasn’t completely sure which he was most shocked about, but thoughts like that quickly left his mind as Sherlock’s tongue expertly flickered out and licked his upper-lip. Oh. God.

So, clearly not that it wasn’t a nice kiss. And it wasn’t that John didn’t want Sherlock to kiss him. Quite the opposite in fact. But the words ‘married to my work’ still rang loud and clear, a red warning sign glaring in his mind. It still stung a little, just thinking about it, especially considering how later on, the attraction he would admit he had for his flat-mate hadn’t subsided at all. But he’d told himself he could deal with it. So what if his heart beat a little faster every time Sherlock turned to study him closely - he knew it wasn’t going anywhere and he could live with that. Even if Sherlock frantically removing the bomb from him at the Pool, normally elegant and careful fingers slipping and sliding in panic, had made his heart not just pound, but race like it was going to burst through his chest and shatter in a million, beautiful pieces.

But nothing was going to happen. He’d convinced himself of that.

So yeah, Sherlock kissing him? Quite the shocker. Which is why he (after moaning very loudly and gripping the front of his flat-mates shirt) opened his eyes, untangled his hand and took one large step backwards.

If Sherlock proceeded to glare at him, John chose not to notice. His mind was too busy stumbling through everything that had just happened, catching up and processing and oh my god, Sherlock had just kissed him!

Must. Calm. Self.

“John?” Sherlock’s voice was a bit rumpled and John felt a shot of pride at noticing how disheveled the other man looked. His lips where red and his shirt where tangled where John had been gripping it. He looked absolutely alluring.

And he was currently looking at John with that goddamn calculating look that John both loved and hated: the one that said: ‘I’m figuring you out’. The one he gave to clients and new Yarders and the severed fingers in their kitchen.

Everything – absolutely, bloody everything – was just an experiment to Sherlock Holmes.

“Knock it off,” He hissed, feeling trampled on and humiliated and of course, how could he be so foolish as to believe for even one second that Sherlock-goddamn-consulting-detective-Holmes would miss the glaringly obvious fact that John was in love with him?

Wait, in love? Oh, this is just bloody brilliant, isn’t it?

Feeling even angrier now – in fact, he couldn’t remember being this angry since grade school, when Harry had poured blue paint all over him – he stalked closer again, lifting his chin to glare directly at Sherlock’s face and – not for the first time – desperately wishing that he where taller.

“Seriously, Sherlock, I don’t know what you’re playing at, but this… this isn’t…”

There was a brief flare of something in the other man’s eyes – John hoped, God how he hoped, that it was something akin to regret – but then it was gone, replaced by his usual mask of indifference, completed with a little head tilt in order to carefully study him. It did not help John’s temper one width.

“I must say I’m surprised, John,” Sherlock murmured, his voice low and tantalizing. “I was under the impression that you had come to grips with your sexuality. Apparently, my hypothesis was wrong, but I can…”

John’s fist connected with Sherlock’s face, causing the other man to stumble and give him a look of deep, utter surprise and shock. John turned around and stormed towards the door, leaving it rattling in its frame as he slammed it, for once not at all proud that he had rendered the Great Sherlock Holmes speech-less.

*

John walks around for hours, the day giving away to the night and the tendrils of cold snapping at him. When he finally goes back home, it’s because he’s cooled down in more ways than one and he’s shivering when he steps in through the front door.

He doesn’t know what to expect – this really isn’t a scenario that he has ever anticipated happening – but Sherlock sitting calmly with his violin, playing actual music for once, is most definitely not what it is. He tentatively apologizes, but Sherlock waves him off, assures him that he didn’t hit him that hard and then – just as John is about to ask him what in the name of all that is holy made the other man kiss him – he stands up and mumbles something about getting tongues from Bart’s and he’s out of the flat before John can say another word.

He guesses it’s the closest to an apology he’ll ever get from the man: Sherlock most likely sees and recognizes that John is uncomfortable about it, and actually goes out of his way for the next few days, not mentioning it. And John is uncomfortable. He’s uncomfortable knowing that – even after killing and nearly being killed for Sherlock – he’s still nothing but an experiment, a slightly interesting puzzle that will get thrown away as soon as the pieces fits. For now, entertaining, but one day as uninteresting as when he first appeared.

He doesn’t care about you. He can’t – it’s just not in his nature.

John thinks fine, and leaves extra pain-killers by the sink (because despite what Sherlock says, John knows how hard he punched him that day), knowing that Sherlock won’t take them until John’s gone to bed and he convinces himself that he can ignore this as well and everything will get better.

Only it doesn’t. And really, how could it? When all of the sudden, Sherlock’s little jibes and remarks and the pestering way in which he orders John around: all of the sudden they’re not just a small annoyance, they’re infuriating and maddening and it all escalates when one day – after Sherlock has made John chase after some common thief while taking care of the real threat himself, ending with a trip in the Thames for the good doctor – John has had enough and there’s shouting and yelling and he can hear Mrs. Hudson’s hurried steps on the stairs and then, for once, it’s Sherlock that leaves, grabbing his coat and scarf and storming right past their land-lady not giving her a second glance.

John is left standing in the living-room, shoulders falling and lifting in an unsteady rhythm as he tries to draw back the breath he just used to hurl curses and insults at his flat-mate and he has never felt so stupid and so foolish in his entire life.

“Mrs. Hudson.” He gently says as she appears in the door, eyes widen and mouth open.

“Oh, dear. Is everything alright?”

Yes, everything’s fine, John thinks of saying, but really, only a fool would believe that, so he sits down on the couch, defeated beyond doubt and breathes a hopeless, ‘no’ into the air.

Mrs. Hudson disappears but comes back with tea and biscuits and John thinks that he doesn’t know anyone who can make tea in less than five minutes and that possibly, Mrs. Hudson might be an angel sent from Heaven, because her smile feels like the first genuine one John has seen in days.

“He’s a bloody idiot is what he is,” He grumbles, reaching for his mug.

“Is that why you threw that paper-weight at him?” Mrs. Hudson asks, in that patient voice John’s mother always used whenever he or Harry was throwing a fit. John smirks at the shattered glass on the floor.

“I wanted to hit him with something harder than his head.”

“Oh. I take it his head won out then.”

That wrestles a laugh from John and he can feel just a bit of the crippling pain in his chest fading away, because Mrs. Hudson isn’t acting frantic and worried, she’s acting like she knows something he doesn’t and he really shouldn’t allow himself to hope like this…

“You know, Sherlock really surprised me the other day,” She starts and John thinks that Sherlock is a huge surprise in himself, but let’s her continue. “He actually came to me for advice.”

“You give us advice all the time.” John breaks in, thinking of the rather memorable Nail-Polish Case.

“Oh, well yes, but Sherlock, the dear boy, he never comes down and asks, does he? And he did the other day, when that vacuum cleaner wouldn’t work.”

John thinks that that should mean something, but he doesn’t let himself finish the thought, instead pointing out to Mrs. Hudson that their vacuum cleaner is now ten different kinds of dead and that, despite the well-intentioned and remotely successful cleaning, there are still samples of skin stored in their fridge, not to mention the eyeballs in the microwave.

And Mrs. Hudson just laughs and pats his knees and John thinks – not for the first time since moving into Baker Street – that he’s missing the point completely.

*

The epiphany hits him like a tidal wave, leaving him gaping and flabbergasted and, to be honest, terrified to the core. But also undeniably happy, like someone whose just been told that Christmas and New Year came yearly this time around.

“What?” Sherlock snaps as John continues staring at him. He’s seated on the ambulance, Lestrade having insisted that he get a check-up after his brief, but fierce struggle with the thug they’d just apprehended.

He’s glaring too, and all John can do is smile at him, like the most foolish fool ever to walk the earth.

“You thought he had a gun.” He murmurs, memories recalling what had happened minutes earlier. “You thought he was going to pull it out, didn’t you? And you jumped in front of me.”

“Your skills of deductions are on par with Andersons,” Sherlock’s tone is bored, but his eyes are flickering as if he’s embarrassed.

John is still smiling. “You actually care about me.”

For the second time in the span of a few days, Sherlock looks surprised, that adorable look that he gave Molly when she was storming out of the lab, he’s not gay! And this time, John feels nothing but happiness burst in his chest.

“Of course I… are you dense? Do you think I would put up with your inane blogging and you hiding my violin – never mind that I can easily find it – and your insistent on taking home dull and brainless girls… and… and your…” He seems to have run out of annoying things to list about John, which definitely means something, because if anything, Sherlock never runs out of words. But now, he’s clearing his throat and looking decidedly uncomfortable and quietly murmured, in a voice that John has never, not ever, heard him use before: “Of course I care.”

There’s as much trepidation as there’s honesty in his tone and it makes John’s heart clench. But it’s impossible for him to wipe that grin off his face, so instead he just declared. “I know.” And bends down to kiss his friend, not caring that the place is crawling with officers and that Lestrade is currently staring at them like a meteor has just dropped down in front of him.  

Sherlock doesn’t seem to care either, if his insistent response and grip on John’s shoulders are anything to go by.