Fic: A Most Horrendous Excuse

[ladytauriel]

Rating: Teen and Up Audiences
Fandom: BBC Sherlock
Pairing: Johnlock (John Watson/Sherlock Holmes)
Word Count: 2,524
Summary: John goes on a Valentine’s Day date, but gets interrupted by a murder, a chase, and Sherlock’s interference.
Author's Notes: This is written as a gift for my Secret Valentine, Liz! Thank you to my beta, YourOwnLittleWonderland.

John adjusted his tie in the mirror of the doorway at 221B with the air of a winner of a proven argument, while Sherlock curled into himself in a ball of grumpy sulking and tangible frustration.

“Where are you going?” petulantly huffed the latter, who was actually supposed to be asleep. Why wasn't he asleep?

“A date,” John replied breezily, admiring his professional looks. Always important to dress accordingly.

“Her sister is a drug addict,” came the muffled retort. How did he manage to keep his eyes open on his couch, albeit not so comfy, lying there after a difficult case and a series of sleepless nights? John would have much preferred him sleeping. Definitely not talking.

“I'm aware.”

At that, Sherlock turned onto his other side and pinned John with a look of disbelief. “What?”

“I did actually get to know her before asking her out on a date, you know,” John amended. “Her name is Jennifer Stanley, and she's from the university. Works as a nurse at a primary school in the area at the moment. I ran into her while at the shops a few weeks back. We hadn't been friends, but we had talked during out uni years. She's a nice woman.”

“She doesn't take care of her sister as much as you'd like her to,” Sherlock dead panned, ignoring John's endless monologue.

A tense, familiar and yet still awkward silence fell in 221B. If Sherlock listened hard enough, he thought he could hear the declarations of love being made all over London. The standards set by society and company’s need to sell as many flower bouquets and boxes of chocolates on Valentine’s Day was taking reign of humanity.

“Well, that's something we have in common, then, don't we?” John responded without looking at Sherlock, grabbed the keys, and left.

Sherlock sighed. It had been worth a shot.

~

An awkward series of conversations, a bottle of Pinot Noir, and a contemplative internal monologue later, John was grimacing at Jennifer's jokes and familiarly frowning in his discomfort. John didn't really have a thing for oral obsessions with flowers, so when Jennifer suddenly had a rose between her teeth, as if she was about to jump into an overly enthusiastic tango, he realized it would not a good night for him. In public and at a formal gourmet diner, having flowers stuck between one’s teeth was a little disturbing.

Jennifer thought it was hot.

Checking the bill, that he made sure quickly arrived, John discovered that she had ordered considerably more than only one glass of wine.

He sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. Jennifer had disappeared in the bathroom, leaving him to regret having hoped for the first successful date of the past several years. The only thing that would make this night, John thought with his default internal sarcasm, would be a played out murder-suicide right at this restaurant. He grinned, wondering what Sherlock would say to that.

Actually, Sherlock wasn't about to make John wait in his wonderment.

“John, if you care the least to avert your gaze from the candle upon your table in your attempts to recall our dinner at Angelo's during the first night of our acquaintance,” came the ever-present voice from above John's right shoulder, “you will be able to see the man forty five degrees to to your left, sitting by the window. He plays a vital role in our new case.” John took roughly a couple of seconds to understand that the granting of his wish had in fact been a better outcome than spending any more moments wasted in boredom at this table, with Jennifer stuck in the restroom for what seemed like a fortnight. He turned to face Sherlock, whose smug look of content and half-smile threatened to break through the cover of seriousness and poise.

Sitting down next to John, dramatically pulling off his scarf in a façade to appear unaware of the said individual. “The tapping of his index and middle fingers on his right hand indicate his restlessness, while the slightly shaken expression and fleeting eyes around this room and the street to his left are an indication to his obvious concentration on something that has been preoccupying him.”

“What if it's about a date? A woman turned him down on Valentine's Day?”

Sherlock shot John a displeased look. “Hmm, he's obviously feigning this disguise, but the reality of him being here tonight for a date is quite unlikely. The bulge slightly above the anatomical location of his left hip is a gun.” Sherlock waved his hand around with excitement and exuberance, tilting his head characteristically. “Could it be a phone? No, because his previous exchange over the mobile had been made on an iPhone 5S, which takes up minimal room in the pocket. A wallet? Of course not; it's in his hand!”

“Surely those are not the only thing a man can hold in his pockets,” John murmured, frowning. Sherlock barely noticed.

“In this case, they are, for I have just been informed...” Sherlock trailed off, looking down at his own mobile, “...by my own dear brother, that the call was to the one I recognize to be tonight's murderer.”

“And... Where is he, exactly?” John inquired, looking around with wide eyes? “Is he here? Because Christ, if he is...”

“Then what?” Sherlock countered with an urgent expression. “You'll storm off with a disappointed expression of determination, much more to the likes of me, off to get your date and leave? John. There's no need to pretend your heart isn't racing from the chase right in front of your nose. The game is on!”

With a swish of his coat, Sherlock turned and flew through the door of the restaurant, pulled by his brilliant mind and it's power source: the intoxicating excitement and exuberance of the chase.

Sherlock's devouring ambition and sparked excitement inevitably led John through the door and into the chilly London evening. He barely even remembered to leave a note for Jennifer on the table. It was always like that with Sherlock and John; solving crimes was like the annual endeavor of migratory birds - unbinding the inner spirit, unhinging an invisible barrier in their hearts, and bringing out their need for the certain lifestyle. Sherlock was the wind blowing from the arctic to the tropical isles, and John was the lonely swallow forced to keep up in flight.

Two hours later, Sherlock and John fell into the foyer of 221B Baker Street with the regular laughter that accompanied the thrill of enthusiastically pulling the threads of their delicate, short human lives yet returning with the ending of a successful case. Manly giggles, or so John preferred them to be, intermediates John's labored breaths, and he thought back to their first chase together, famously named "A Study in Pink." It had been during the jovial time of the night that John had realized many things about himself and the relationship of his new flatmate of one day. Sherlock was a direct factor of change in John's life. He cocooned him in a warm blanket of dangerous adventures, excitement-triggering adventure, and friendly company, slowly saving the other. With every glance, interaction, and build bond, John took a step away from the cliff that would only lure him down into a deep darkness.

“The man in the restaurant had hired a ruggedy thug that loitered around the street in the night to kill his wife,” Sherlock breathlessly recounted, “who he learned to have cheated on him earlier this week. Her lover was already dead, killed by the husband, Jason Stevenson, himself, and Lestrade came to me with it an hour after you left.”

“You figured it out so quickly?” marveled John.

“Of course,” snorted Sherlock. “He gave me some photographs of the crime scene. A broken locket found on the floor near him, with a photograph of the lover and his wife? It was simple really.”

“Why would he hire a killer only now?” John mused.

“He didn’t want it to seem too obvious. However, he didn’t understand that being at the restaurant to watch the events unfold in front of him would make the whole thing a bit too obvious for a consulting detective.”

John grinned. “The consulting detective, who is obviously preoccupied chasing down jealous men on Valentine’s Day. I bet he thought it would be the last thing on anyone’s mind in that restaurant.”

Sherlock nodded with a satisfied expression. “Exactly.” He looked over at his friend. “John, I marvel at your ability to decipher that. Usually you are a bit duller. However, you are pointing out the obvious again, so maybe I shouldn’t thank you.”

The creases on John’s forehead indicated concentration, confusion, and discomfort. Why would that be? Sherlock still needed to learn the open book that was John. Maybe it wasn’t so open. He wanted to smooth out the creases. “I know what you think on the mater,” John continued. “Valentine’s Day is a most horrendous excuse to be focused on love and pleasing a loved one, and not one you would opt to use, being the concentrated, intense, and strange man that you are.”

“Of course I wouldn’t use it,” Sherlock airily responded, waving a hand. “I’m not the type to care about whether or not I have to present the person I care about with flowers and chocolate. But even if I were, why should it be only on Valentine’s Day that I prove my emotional attachment? It is completely absurd, and one of the reasons I will never understand the society run by people, with an IQ as low as Anderson’s.” Suddenly, his demeanor changed, and looking away, he muttered, “Besides, I show my unlikely affection in other ways.”

John looked up at that. Sherlock? Showing his affection towards another human being, whose intelligence Sherlock would probably ridicule and insult? “You? Affection? To whom? And how?”

Sherlock was promptly bothered and uncomfortable, that he had caught himself in this situation. A thousand times over, he cursed the fact that his still existent human heart had made him make the last remark. Surely, John wouldn’t make him state the obvious and completely embarrass himself.

“It’s probably not something you want to hear, John,” Sherlock responded awkwardly, yet in full honesty.

John knew, that whatever Sherlock had to say, he wouldn’t be as pleased to hear it, as he would be to hear something… else… about who won Sherlock’s attention everyday. John was jealous. Yes, yes, no need to accuse him of being a lovestruck idiot in denial, as that was clear to John now.

“Sherlock!” John exclaimed with as much fake excitement as he could muster. “I need absolutely all of the details.

Sherlock took a deep breath, and plunged into the world of the unknown for the very first time.

“I don’t love through gifts of chocolate, because he prefers tea, and would probably feed me the chocolate himself, complaining about my weight. I don’t care the least for flowers, because he prefers daisies instead of roses, and surely they are not the flower most suited for Valentine’s Day? I can give him a jar of strawberry jam, but he knows I will be too lazy to go to the shops to buy it, and so he does it for us, and then makes me sandwiches. I would give him my physical affection, but he doesn’t crave it, and I would kiss him senseless at the end of every day, if only the merest glimpse of evidence would indicate to me that my intentions are welcome. I would never show my love on Valentine’s Day through these conventional means, but by God, John, I show my love through my means. I care enough to bicker; I love enough to complain about the milk that I actually do not need. I refrain from making him stare at my experiments, at least nowadays, and I tell him in my mind that he is the illuminator of my existence, trading my rare smiles for his compliments. I gift him my knowledge of the world as it is and he returns in with his knowledge on the workings of a human heart, metaphorically speaking.” Sherlock sighed. “We coexist together in a more fitting way than I would think possible. It is in the every day, the every simple day, that he motivates me to be more if a human than a machine, and, because I love him, I try.”

John had started out listening to the speech in wonderment and sadness, wondering how Sherlock was capable of such emotion and such a confession, that was not meant for him. However, as Sherlock's explanation wandered into the territory of domesticity that they both shared together, John realized that these feelings that Sherlock described, as well as his loved one's actions, mirrored John's own. For an agonizingly long minute after Sherlock's monologue ended, John sat with a blank expression, barely able to break through the shock to think over what Sherlock had just told him. The minute felt like an eternity, and John thought he heard the ticking of the clock slow down.

“Well,” Sherlock suddenly began, jumping up from where he was sitting on the couch, “I'm going to make a cuppa. Would you like some tea, John? Yours is better than mine, I know, but-”

“Sherlock,” John interrupted him, his shock fading into quiet amusement. “Come here.”

Sherlock came to a dead stop in his walk to the kitchen, but he did not turn around. His order could have meant anything, and Sherlock didn't know whether he wanted to be around when he found out what it really meant.

John could sense that Sherlock's body movement meant that he was preparing to dash, his thoughts almost screaming, projecting his nervousness.

“Sherlock!” John repeated with more force, when Sherlock finally faced him. Sherlock looked up, and the emotion that was written across his features and that was overflowing in his eyes shocked the doctor.

John walked towards Sherlock with such an air of determination, that Sherlock could not help but imperceptibly brace himself for any kind of physical attack. It didn't help that he knew that it would take more than this for John to willingly hurt him.

Sherlock was not inspecting that sturdy, powerful, yet careful arms that slipped around his waist, or the golden hair that now tickled his lowered chin.

“Sherlock,” John said, as meaningfully as possible.

“John?” Sherlock responded questioningly, unsure of whether he could have miscalculated John's own feelings to such an extreme degree.

“I love you, too, you sodding idiot,” John murmured affectionately, finally looking up into the detective's eyes. Then, unexpectedly, he broke out into laughter.

“John?” Sherlock asked in frustration. “John, are you laughing at me for being so dull? John.”

John's giggles died away. “It just happens to be Valentine's Day that brings us together. Despite your hatred for the holiday and all of its festivities, it suited you just as well as others. You'll never be able to forget it!”

“Hmm,” Sherlock responded, “you're right. And I don't mind in the least.”