Actions

Work Header

For you, there's only me

Chapter Text

John walked into the flat after an awful day at the surgery. He’d been thrown up on twice—which is really, twice more than he ever wanted—had to admit a young teenager when he’d seen the slashed scars on his wrists and arms (and been punched by said teenager trying to get him to reveal them from under his shirtsleeves), and been dumped once again by his latest girlfriend Marie, for Sherlock-related reasons (wasn’t it always? Couldn’t it just once be because he’s too short, or too old, or just really anything about him once in awhile? Why did it seem that everything revolved around Sherlock? Like his life was Sherliocentric).

Sherlock was sulking in his regular spot on the couch. It had been an entire five days without an interesting case (because of course there were always cases, just none worthy enough of the Great Sherlock Holmes, Consulting Detective). The last one was “brilliant, fantastic, even better than the triple murder in the locked office with the baby,” and all those other words Sherlock never used to describe John.

Okay, so John was pathetic. He was a completely, utterly, pathetic excuse for a 40-year old man who was mostly straight (though apparently not anymore), who had somehow fallen for the most inaccessible man in the entire world. A man who was married to his work, had the emotional control of a toddler, and who was literally so close and yet so unattainably far from him. Which was why he had been trying to date Marie, of course, because if he waited for Sherlock to magically fall for him, he would have waited a hundred years. And then some. John sighed.

“Have you moved at all today?” He asked in way of greeting. Sherlock grunted in response, not moving from his scrunched up position on the sofa. “Well, you’ve got to eat today. I’m making dinner and you are eating it.”

“Eating is bor—”

“And keeping you alive,” John interrupted. “You have not eaten for three days, Sherlock. You need to eat.”

“I go more than three days without food when I’m on a case, John,” Sherlock whinged, drawing out the John so it sounded more like Jaaawn. John wondered what his name would sound like on Sherlock’s lips when he came. No. No, he did not think that. Because then he would be walking around with a half-aroused penis, and it makes it quite difficult to cook with all those fantasies of Sherlock swirling around in his head.

“I’m making risotto. You like risotto, Sherlock.” God, it was like cajoling a kid into eating his vegetables.

“Mergh,” was the response John got. He accepted it as an ‘Okay John. Thank you so much for cooking and looking after me,’ and set about starting dinner.

 

—

 

With Sherlock sitting across from him and scooting food around on his plate (“Sherlock, I can tell how much you’ve eaten whether or not you’ve moved it around on your plate a hundred times to make it look like less.”), John always had an excuse to watch him. God, of course Sherlock was infuriating 80 percent of the time. Who was he kidding, 98 percent of the time. But it was the intimate meals like this, with a meter between them, Sherlock eating the food John had cooked, and the shared time together, that John loved. It was when he got to see the Sherlock without the arrogance and drama.

The sun was about to set, and with the lack of lights on, the sunlight filtered through Sherlock’s hair, catching on the curls and angles of his face. John felt like he could breathe Sherlock in.

“Why do you always insist on dating such insipid women one after the other if you know they won’t last more than a few weeks?” Sherlock broke the silence in his usual snarky way. Of course he knew Marie had dumped him by looking at John’s cuffs or something.

John blinked a few times to bring himself back from blatantly admiring his flatmate. God, he probably had fucking hearts in his eyes. “Because that’s what people do, Sherlock. We try to find someone to spend time with and love and get laid.” Because you won’t date me.

“People are idiots.”

John shrugged. “But they’re happy idiots.” Sherlock gave him such a look of disgust John was tempted to laugh. “Love makes people happy.”

With a derisive snort, Sherlock pushed his plate away. “Stop, I’m getting sick.”

John let go of a giggle. “Stop being overdramatic, you twat.”

This right now was good. What they were was good.