Seven Years of bad Sex or Something
author's note:
I am also posting this on AO3, so don't get confused^^
Chapter 1
„Seven Years of bad Sex or Something“
note: Sherlock learns about social habits - and doesn’t like it one bit
"Tell me again, why I am here," Sherlock demanded as he and John left the cab. John saw him burying his hands deep in the pockets of his coat and shooting him an accusatory glance over the roof of the car.
John heaved a sigh. They had been through this quite a few times during the last hours.
"We are here because Scotland Yard wants to celebrate the capture of those drug sellers with us."
"But there are going to be people. And they didn't do anything to begin with, it was--"
"Yes, Sherlock," John interrupted him and suppressed an impatient flicker as he looked back at Sherlock who stepped to his side in front of the restaurant in central London.
"Yes, you are the genius that did it all. Please don't tell everybody too often tonight, I want to be invited to a truly outstanding restaurant again!"
"Oh, John, please! You know how I hate exchanging pleasantries if it isn’t absolutely necessary." Sherlock's voice dripped of disdain.
"If it is just the restaurant, we could go anytime…”
"Sherlock, for the love of god!" John turned around, facing the other man and grinding his teeth.
"Now would you stop being petulant. Greg and his team did help a lot, it’s their job. Don't ever forget how they don't have to let you participate at all."
"And how much help they were", Sherlock muttered a little too loudly for John to miss.
_______________________________
Ever since John moved back into 221B Baker Street a few weeks ago after Sherlock had resurfaced from the dead, (returning to the only place John had ever called home in his head had seemed the logical thing to do) there had been a certain tension between them. They had thoroughly lost their equilibrium. John noticed time and again how hard it was to get back to their old life style after two years of him trying to move on. And failing gloriously. It had nearly shattered him to watch Sherlock step off a roof to his “death” after Moriarty’s dreadful campaign to destroy his reputation and make everyone believe Sherlock was a fraud. A thing John had never believed, not even when Sherlock told him it was true. Which it wasn’t. He didn’t know why Sherlock had told him that.
He had fled 221B and rented a room in another part of the city. During his first night out in his new flat when he had tried to calm down with whisky he realized how much life with Sherlock had truly fulfilled him and what he was going to live without now. He missed their crime solving and the outstanding amount of trust and comradeship the soldier in him had always found so appealing. He had asked for a miracle, for Sherlock not being dead but for two solid years he dragged himself from day to day, trying to cope, trying to be a normal guy with a normal life, trying to blend in and hide the pain. He met uncountable women but felt only briefly blissful.
Living with Sherlock as a flatmate had always come easy to him. John had never minded his experiments cluttering their kitchen table, his playing the violin at ungodly hours, his general annoyance with the world, his particular shade on the autistic spectrum. How he himself never ceased to be amazed by Sherlock’s direct and on-the-spot deductions. How Sherlock shared the teensy exceptions, the tiny things he didn’t get right by 100% with John only. John had idolized him greatly, there was no denying it.
He had felt happy, whole. He should have been happy now as well… only he wasn’t. He was torn between yearning to understand why Sherlock had been cruel enough to let him watch how he jumped to his “death” and feeling relieved that it had just been a fake.
John realized his thoughts had gone a little astray as was their habit lately when Sherlock was close. It was an irritating mix of restless and frustrating anger and blood swirling concern, intersected with an insecurity he hadn’t known before and this new territory terrified him greatly. He was in control most of the time now, though, after he had completely lost it when Sherlock reappeared in front of a little pub John liked to have his lunch at one day. He’d nearly broken Sherlock’s nose in the process. Once he was alone in his flat afterwards he had cried, a whole new experience for him, but it had washed most of the shock from his system. To the world punching Sherlock in his dishy face still seemed an appropriate reaction, though. A reaction John had felt strangely proud of afterwards.
It didn’t help matters that Sherlock either thought he deserved the rough treatment John showed towards him when frustration and insecurity were just too strong to hold back. Or maybe Sherlock simply didn’t care. Sometimes he would sit in their living room, though, entirely focused on something John couldn’t see, face completely blank. Or he would spend hours in his mind palace, flipping his hands through empty air and John had to move their furniture out of his way. John mused how this was connected to whatever it was that Sherlock had done while he was away. Perhaps it was just his own personal way of fighting his demons and John found that making him play the violin usually helped.
John turned his head around to Sherlock inside the revolving door when they entered the restaurant and saw his face set into stressed lines. But when grey-green-blue eyes met dark blue for the briefest moment, John believed he saw an appraising flicker across Sherlock’s face, calculating. John felt his temperature rise but the moment was gone before he could delve further into it. He stepped into the foyer where a waiter greeted them and showed them to a room in the back of the building where Lestrade was waiting for them at the door.
______________________________________
All in all it was a pleasant evening. Lestrade and his team had been able to capture a group of drug sellers that had been selling to minors, causing two deaths in the process. The case in itself would have been no more than a 4 to Sherlock, as he had pointed out to John on several occasions, and he probably wouldn't have bothered with it in the first place. But, as John was constantly reminding himself, Sherlock Holmes just couldn’t cope with boredom. Their wall was ample proof - some things just never changed.
It had been insufferably easy, giving Sherlock no reconciliation whatsoever, to judge the gangsters, who loitered around schools and parks to sell their stuff, to trap them at it and send five of them to prison. Unfortunately no one seemed to know the location of their drug lab. Furthermore, two of them were able to flee the scene of their capture without having their faces seen, giving Lestrade a sprained ankle in the process of pursuit.
John was standing with his second glass of champagne next to Molly, several detectives and Anderson, who was chattering animatedly and had just finished his fourth glass, in a corner of the room Scotland Yard had booked for the evening. He felt stupid smiling as Anderson launched into the glories of policemenship. How John should have considered taking this as a career after leaving the army. John was thankful for the distraction as Lestrade limped into their group.
Sherlock was nowhere to be seen.
“John, can I have a quick word?” Lestrade staggered tipsily when he put his arm around John’s shoulders and pulled him out of the loose circle. John was nevertheless thankful and together they sauntered into the direction of the back garden. Lestrade raised his champagne glass and clinked it to the rim of John’s glass. Both smiled to each other, Lestrade bending forwards to stare into his eyes over-dramatically, and drank.
“Just wanted to thank you again,” he said but John just shook his head.
“It was nothing, just Sherlock being…”
“A genius, as usual,” Lestrade chipped in. John shrugged. There was nothing else to say on the matter. John saw Lestrade’s face taking on a very paternal expression.
“I missed him. Hell, even Anderson missed him. And you, for that matter. Police work just isn’t the same without you.”
“Yes, it feels good to be back,” John admitted and opened the door to the back garden. Lestrade followed him out and John had to grab his shoulders to steady him.
“It’s really good to see you back with Sherlock, mate, you didn’t seem yourself after… you know…”
He stopped.
John froze for a second, caught off guard by an array of increasingly complex feelings. He licked his lips before forcing them into a straight line and gave the D.I. a guarded look.
“Yeah… that sounds… weird, coming from you, Greg,” he said before clearing his throat.
“But thank you… in a way…”
Did people truly see that in them? Two parts of the same entity with the only option of fitting closely into each other? Unsound without the other part? Actually telling him to his face was a new feat, though. He knew people talked about them, they always had. But it was usually in low voices behind their backs.
Just a week ago Molly had told him the same when Sherlock had been to the morgue with him, fussing over the body of a teenager supposedly killed by adulterated drugs their suspects had sold. She had been waiting for Sherlock to go about his business and asked John to the kitchen for coffee, both knowing it would take Sherlock at least half an hour before he was satisfied with the results of Molly’s examination on the bodies. John had felt completely dumbfounded when she stated how pleased she was to see them back together. It must have been quite a struggle for her to sound careless. And, despite growing anger, John had blushed madly, his ears tingling as if Molly’s word had burned him. He had been in a rush to leave as soon as convenience and courtesy allowed.
Lestrade continued, totally oblivious to John’s inner turmoil.
“It must have come as a blow, seeing him surface again. Actually, I was so relieved. I have always wanted to know… Did you two… mmmh… talk about… your… mmmh… it all?”
John stood rooted to the spot. He didn’t know what to say. It got worse when he saw Sherlock approaching them from somewhere in the murky back garden, tight smile plastered on his face. John’s stomach suddenly clenched with anger and uncertainty despite the carefully calm surface of his face. Of course they hadn’t talked! They never had, at least not about something as meaningful as that. Terribly intimate things had always happened between them but it had been nothing he had ever questioned. Because there had never been any need to talk about it. Because with Sherlock such things as “personal space” and “boundaries” simply didn’t exist anyway. So it had always been perfectly normal. Everything had changed when Sherlock came back, though. It had forced John to acknowledge potentialities. And to feel like a coward about it.
He looked down at his feet.
“Ah, Sherlock, there you are. Enjoying yourself?”
Count on Lestrade to be completely oblivious. John clenched his fist around his glass of champagne and hoped the ever omni-observing detective hadn’t been eavesdropping.
But Sherlock gave nothing away.
“Tremendously,” John heard him answer.
“Just a bunch of “friends” celebrating an event, how lovely.”
Looking up without meeting his eyes John noticed Sherlock’s glass was still half full, the champagne presumably gone stale. He chuckled under his breath because he knew Sherlock wasn’t much of a drinker, anyway.
Lestrade proved to be a different matter.
“Such a charmer,” he said good-naturedly and obviously had to suppress a giggling fit. Then he raised his glass.
"Let’s not get this champagne go to waste,” he announced and Sherlock gave John one of his long-suffering-looks.
“Here's to you guys and your crime solving."
Sherlock rolled his eyes, but raised his glass nevertheless.
“Just because it’s you, Gideon, I will forgive your drunken state,” he said and put it to his lips. But Lestrade stopped him, wide-eyed.
"Wait, you need to clink your glass to mine and look into my eyes, otherwise it's seven years of bad sex."
John, having raised his glass himself, fought a heavy giggling fit seeing Sherlock stop in his tracks and give the D.I. a sarcastic look.
"Seriously? Superstition? My, you must be more drunk then you let on."
Sherlock shook his head but Lestrade nodded emphatically.
"Yes, that's what you got to do and because it also affects me here, Sherlock, don't be the grinch. Seven years is quite a time and I just got divorced."
The D.I. raised his glass again, an expectant look in his eyes. Sherlock's lips turned into an annoyed line.
"Why would I care about a stupid saying that only serves as social kit for drunken people?" he exclaimed.
Here he goes. So Sherlock.
"And in what universe is there a connection between neglecting a bad social habit and bad sex? Ah, and don't you think three years would be enough to scare every drinker off, since we're talking about symbolism anyway? Did you know what percentage…"
"For god's sake, Sherlock, give that man what he wants,” John interrupted and raised his glass. Lestrade looked like he’d had serious trouble keeping up.
"To social kit and good humour with friends.", Lestrade said after shaking his head and pinching the bridge of his nose. He clinked his glass to John’s, looking him full in the eyes, then turned to Sherlock with a questioning look.
Sherlock succumbed.
"To social stupidity and other stuff I don't need to understand."
Their glasses clinked, Lestrade drank happily, John smirked and Sherlock rolled his eyes.
