#bamf!watson

After that, Sherlock focused his entire considerable attention simply on John. He internally deduced every single facial expression, John could tell from his rapidly moving eyes. Sherlock, after all, was Sherlock, and he was clearly now experimenting with just what kind of effect he could have on John if he chose to. John was, for lack of a better word, flattered. He’d known Sherlock could be charming if he wanted to, but this was stunningly genuine. Sherlock seemed like a boy enjoying a new game he’d finally understood how to play. John kept waiting for the façade to crack, for Sherlock to roll his eyes at the silliness of dating and to just leave to experiment on something more interesting.

But Sherlock stayed. And laughed and talked and bloody flirted with John. That was not to say that John didn’t give as good as he got. At first, he felt himself blush and look away, ready to reign in his reactions to Sherlock, as he’d always done. But then he remembered that he was the one who had actually drawn Sherlock out with his unnerving closeness and casual touches over the past few days. He could want this, Sherlock had shown him that much. John pulled himself up a bit straighter and met Sherlock’s eye more steadily. Oh, this was achingly perfect, being allowed to just let himself go and show Sherlock exactly what he was in for.

He casually brushed their fingers together on the table. When Sherlock was being amusing or appreciated something John had said, John allowed himself to truly show how happy that made him. He thought that he usually wore his heart on his sleeve; well, here was the bloody placard. Let the entire restaurant, Mycroft’s cameras, every passer-by who happened to glance through the window see: John Watson was in love with Sherlock Holmes.

Sherlock seemed at first taken aback at the open, honest admiration shining his way. His lips parted and he looked confused, properly confounded for a moment, before something like pleased understanding dawned on his features. They were really doing this. He quickly drained the last of his wine, his eyes burning like fire into John’s. Suddenly, he knew this was it. They had to get out of there and get back home as quickly as possible or John wouldn’t vouch for his composure much longer.

It was late. They hastily pulled on their jacket and coat and Sherlock reluctantly pocketed his wallet when a relentless Angelo refused his money once again. They stepped out of the restaurant and John shivered when the cold night air came into contact with his heated skin. Darkness settled on the empty streets, slick from rain. John felt as if he was going to explode if he didn’t get to kiss Sherlock in less than five seconds.

He turned half-way, already standing close enough to touch him, but then he froze. Sherlock was standing still, staring at his phone. The screen illuminated his face as he frowned at it.

“What is it?” John stepped a bit closer, trying to see. Without thinking about it, his hand hovered over Sherlock’s back.

Sherlock looked at him, his face disturbed and torn. It looked like for once, he couldn’t decide how to. Some of the passion from a few minutes before still simmered underneath, yet now it was tampered with worry.

“It’s the man from the drugs bust the other night. He was found dead in the factory next to the warehouse.”

John saw the text from Lestrade. Can you come? it said, and John could practically hear the words in the man’s pleading voice.

“Well,” John cleared his throat and zipped up his jacket, his body slowly cooling down, his mind adjusting to the new situation. “Let’s go.”

Sherlock hesitated a moment, his lips softening into a smile. He seemed glad that it was John who made the decision. John returned the smile. We’re good. Plenty of time.

I’ll hold you to that. Sherlock’s eyes bored into his a second longer, before he flung his arm out, hailing the nearest cab.

They found the police in a small make-shift shipping office in a large container next to the warehouse of the original drugs dop. It was functional; a desk, a couple of chairs, an outdated laptop and a few empty shelves the only things in the room.

Sherlock watched as John stepped forward, efficient as ever, to kneel by the body. Who here could guess that not half an hour ago, this same John Watson had been ready to devour Sherlock alive if they didn’t get in a cab (and somebody’s bed) quickly enough? The doctor’s hands moved over the silent form on the ground, examining the eyes, the mouth, the neck. Sherlock couldn’t tear his eyes away from the precision in those hands. He realised it was a bit not good to be turned on next to a dead body, but…. He usually felt exhilarated by a case, so perhaps his brain was getting its wires crossed? Whatever the reasons, it was enough to drive him insane. His skin was still burning from before and, more annoyingly, his groin was protesting at the tease without a follow-through. Most tedious.

“Why are we here again?” He turned to glare at Lestrade.

The DI ran his hands through his hair. “Well, you were the ones to catch him,” he shrugged. “And… uh, the room was locked from the inside, there’s no murder weapon, no obvious cause of death and we don’t even know how he got from his holding cell to here in the last few hours, so I thought…” he trailed off.

“Yes,” he mused. “So of course this has nothing to do with the fact that you’re clueless, tired and really just want this solved as quickly as possible so you can go back home where you hope that lovely redhead from reception will still be waiting for you.” Lestrade gaped. The people around them had fallen silent. Sherlock clapped his gloved hands together with a loud smack. “Well! For once, Detective Inspector, we find ourselves in similar positions. I also would very much like to get back to my date, which you so rudely interrupted. So let’s solve this and go home, shall we?” Sherlock gave him a cheerful grin and turned back to the body. “John?”

John stared at him, mouth slightly open in amused shock. He snorted through his nose but Sherlock saw his eyes darken and his cheeks flush. He blinked, then quickly pulled himself together as he realised his hand was still resting on the dead man’s pale throat. “Asphyxiated,” he said as calmly as he could.

Lestrade was looking between them as if the Queen had just bestowed him a knighthood. His lips parted and he gaped at John, then at Sherlock, then back at John, and a twinkle entered his eyes. “Date?” he mouthed, and John lowered his face to stop smiling. Dead body and all. Sherlock found it incredibly endearing, if pointless (nobody here cared either way) but he was also aware that all of this bantering was taking too long.

“You two?” Lestrade mouthed with an even more intrigued look. Luckily none of his officers stood close or they might have asked why their Detective Inspector suddenly looked positively gleeful at a crime scene. Perhaps Sherlock was rubbing off on him. John shot Sherlock a ravenous look, one that sent his brain spinning for a moment. Then he smiled back at Lestrade and shrugged. Lestrade huffed a silent laugh and then cleared his throat. “Right. You sure?”

“Yes, yes, he’s sure,” Sherlock replied before John could explain every single sign of asphyxiation. Time was of the essence. “Just because your team takes forever to determine a cause of death doesn’t mean there’s any doubt. Now.”

He stood and walked over to the door. “The room was locked from the inside. Our killer broke out the deceased from a holding cell – no small feat, I imagine – therefore, we’re looking for someone with significant experience in high-profile burglary. He’ll have known how to get around the security cameras at the Met; locking a door from the inside after he left can’t have been much of a challenge.” Sherlock picked up a thin white thread that clung to the opened lock of the door. “No doubt some ingenious mechanism that triggered once the door was pulled shut.”

A forensics officer quickly hurried forward and let him drop the thread into an evidence bag, looking as if Sherlock was going to swallow the evidence otherwise. He sighed at the idiocy of everyone besides John in the room. John… he quickly looked around …was watching him, an amused smile lingering on his face. All good then.

“Someone with that kind of skillset who also had something to lose by this man confessing everything – and he would have, he was a coward – now that should lower the potential suspects down considerably. The murder weapon is the more interesting bit.”

He stepped over to the body again. “John, what’s your estimation of the state of his throat?”

John clasped his hands behind his back. “Well, if he wasn’t dead, I’d be hard-pressed to say he was strangled at all.” He kneeled again and pointed. “Do you see these small marks?”

Lestrade kneeled by his side, examining two small, faint bruises in the dead flesh, just underneath the man’s jaw. “Yes?”

“Easy to miss here,” John soothed, hoping obviously not to insult the incompetent forensics team further. “But I’m sure they would have picked up on it at the morgue.”

“Yes, yes, John, stop being nice,” Sherlock muttered, earning him a fond eye roll from John.

“The killer pressed these two points to obstruct the air flow. The victim must have been drugged very heavily. Even if he was only asleep or lightly sedated, the body would have reacted instinctively to the lack of oxygen and begun to struggle. But there’s absolutely no sign of any fight, otherwise the bruises would be more pronounced or there would be additional injuries.”

“Right,” Lestrade said, rubbing his chin. “And he couldn’t have already been dead then?”

“His eyes and skin discoloration points towards asphyxiation, but of course you’d have to confirm all of this with the autopsy.”

“Of course he wasn’t already dead,” Sherlock scoffed. “If he’d died from the drugs he was given, there would be signs – dried sweat, frothing, saliva on his clothes, something like that. But he’s clean and looks fine… well, apart from being dead.” He stood up again.

“So… no murder weapon, then.” Lestrade looked disappointed. Sherlock knew the man liked a nice and obvious gun or knife at the scene, but he was rarely so lucky.”

“No…” he mused, but then walked quickly over to the single window. It was only a brief glimpse in the dark, but was sure that someone just slipped into the warehouse.

“Sherlock?” John was immediately by his side. Of course he’d picked up on it.

Sherlock pointed back at the body, speaking rapidly. “There’s a reason he did it here. He needed to come back and he killed two birds with one stone like this. Keep you baffled at the crime scene while he gets the rest of the goods.” He swirled around and rushed out of the door, John and Lestrade right on his heels.

“Sherlock, wait!”

He didn’t. Adrenaline pumped through his veins as he ran for the warehouse. The game was on.

Of course, everything went south very quickly after that. The suspect was indeed in the process of retrieving the rest of his merchandise in the warehouse, but one of Lestrade’s officers had gotten in his way by the door. He’d dragged the young man with him to a back room, where Sherlock confronted him. What he hadn’t counted on was that it was rather difficult to manoeuvre in this office, especially in the dark. The man managed to shine his torchlight right in Sherlock’s eyes for a moment, blinding him, and had quickly immobilized him, a practised hand restraining his arms whilst another pressed a knife to his throat. The whole thing couldn’t have taken more than a minute.

Footsteps came closer. Sherlock heard John calling his name. He desperately tried to kick the killer holding him, but his stupid coat got in the way. He was also partly focussed on the young policeman clutching his side, blood slowly seeping out, his face contorted in agony. Wound not too deep; painful but probably manageable if help got here fast.

“Jones!”

“SHERLOCK!”

John and Lestrade took in the scene even as the murderer slowly backed away to the other door. Sherlock’s eyes did not leave John. He could see he was planning something, anything, probably something reckless. He shook his head almost imperceptibly and saw John frown. The man dragged him along, there was nothing he could do. Sherlock deliberately moved his eyes to the doorway through which John and Lestrade had come. Then he looked aside, trying to indicate the door he was being pulled towards. There’s another way.

John’s eyes lit up with understanding. His eyes flickered to the doorway and he nodded. He stopped moving forward. The last thing Sherlock saw before he was dragged through the door and it fell closed was John’s determined look, fists clenched at his sides.

As soon as the door clicked shut, Lestrade yelled orders for an ambulance into his radio; but John was already leaving, hearing the DI shout after him. He jogged back through the warehouse, frantically looking around.

“John! Where are you going?!”

John ran to another door. He didn’t even feel his feet hit the ground; all he could sense was his violently beating heart and his pulse throbbing in his temples. All he could think was that he had to get to Sherlock.

The murderer was dragging a squirming, resisting man, he couldn’t have gotten further up than the first floor. That was, of course, assuming that Sherlock was right (he usually was) and that the back corridor led to the staircase. John had no time to second-guess the looks he’d given him. He ran up the secondary stairwell, taking two steps at a time. He thanked his luck that the factory was old as he began kicking at the door to the first floor. After a few kicks, the lock finally gave and the door swung inwards.

After a few turns, he reached the open space of the main factory floor again. Around the hall, a metal walkway stretched alongside the wall. When he peered through the door, he noticed it was even darker up here. But Sherlock had been right; he could hear two sets of footsteps ascending and clanging loudly on the metal grating. He withdrew when he noticed them coming closer and waited for his moment. Slowly, the steps became louder. John held his breath. He heard Sherlock struggle, and both men were breathing loudly through their mouths with the effort.

Finally, he was close enough. In one fluid motion, John stepped through the doorway, immediately into the path of the killer. Clearly, he hadn’t expected him; the man jumped violently, drawing back. But then he made his first and final mistake. He removed the knife from Sherlock’s throat and thrust it towards his newest foe, and that was all the opening John needed.

With speed and unerring precision, he twisted the man’s arm and pulled his body off-centre. The killer let go of Sherlock; he was surprised and not expecting this kind of opposition from John. He still tried plunging the knife forward even as Sherlock finally slipped from his grasp, coughing, ducking away a step, breathing. John felt better instantly and hooked his legs around the man’s, brought up a hand against his shoulder and flipped him, using his loss of balance to tip him sideways. One hand shot out and twisted the knife from him; John quickly kicked it away when it landed, sending it tumbling down to the factory floor below. He had him now.

Sherlock had stumbled to his feet. “John…” he rasped and grabbed something in his pocket. The killer struggled and rambled something aggressive, readying for another attack. John quickly rammed his elbow in his nose and heard a satisfying crack that shut him up. He turned him around, pulling his arms behind his back; Sherlock shuffled closer, still coughing, and brought out a zip tie (of course he had one in his pocket, John thought) to wrap sloppily around the hands John was holding forcefully together. With a sharp tug, Sherlock tightened the hold, drawing a startled cry from their quarry.

Once the man was tied up, John forced him on his knees and the man tumbled to his side, coughing and spluttering with his nosebleed, but unable to do much else. He just let him slump there and stepped back. John heard footsteps ascending the stairs to their level quickly, but he ignored them for now.

All his focus was on Sherlock, who was leaning against the wall, steadying himself, rubbing his throat. He was breathing heavily, looking a bit sick. John felt something twist in his stomach; rage and possessiveness and fierce protectiveness. Nobody was going to touch Sherlock ever again, to threaten him like this, or….

John stepped up to him, his heart beating wildly in his chest. “All right…?” he managed, Sherlock’s scorching glance drawing him in like a moth to a flame.

“Yes… yes, of course I’m…” Sherlock swallowed and stopped himself, reaching out with one hand. “John,” he whispered.

That was all he could take.

John rushed forward, into Sherlock’s arms, pressing him up to the wall and then he was kissing him.

Sherlock moaned as their lips met, the sound being absorbed into John as he parted his lips, setting his nerves on fire. His tongue plunged into Sherlock and felt a tremor go through the body in his arms. Hands ran down his back and he felt them draw him even closer, sending stabs of pure need directly to his groin.

Amongst panting kisses, John was whispering his name and you’re safe and Sherlock simply breathed him in, murmuring oh God John and clinging on for dear life, and their soft voices mingled in the electrified air between them. John felt like he was drowning, all the adrenaline making his head spin and then he remembered they were on a walkway quite high up in the large factory hall and he stopped himself for a moment to fight the vertigo. Sherlock pressed his forehead to John’s, catching his breath, steadying them both.

“John…” God, Sherlock sounded wrecked. It set John’s chest on fire. He looked up and their eyes met before John leaned in again to…

“Oh! Hello…?”

John jumped and immediately stepped back, startled by Lestrade’s voice. The DI had managed to follow them, finally, his gun drawn. Two more police officers were running up behind him, but Lestrade waved backwards. “Stand down, it’s under control…” he coughed. “Or at least, one of them is,” he added with a relieved snort, glancing at the resigned lump of a man on the floor.

The officers came up to him and secured the culprit, pulling him to his feet. They left down the stairwell again and Lestrade turned to John and Sherlock, who still maintained a decidedly deliberate distance. He rocked back on his heels, grinned at John and wiggled his eyebrows. He lowered his voice a bit. “Well!” He sounded relieved. “Couldn’t wait to get back to your date, huh?”

John stared at him, then at Sherlock. He took a deep breath. A smile quirked on his lip. “Oh… it was just… an experiment.”

Sherlock’ answering smile slowly bloomed on his face, and he laughed.

John sobered a little, straightened his jacket and raised his chin. A few more things needed doing. “Your officer…?”

“Oh!” Lestrade remembered. “He’s okay. Jones’ ribs reflected the knife and he’s responsive and not losing too much blood.” He finally held out his arm to indicate that they should probably get back downstairs.

“Do you want me to have a look?” John opened the door that brought them back to the corridor Sherlock had been dragged from and took the stairs.

“Ta, much appreciated, doctor,” Lestrade said, before glancing at Sherlock. “You all right?”

“Fine,” Sherlock drawled, but John thought he heard traces of insecurity… and perhaps arousal in his voice. Both made him shudder. He needed Sherlock alone, back at Baker Street, as quickly as possible.

Downstairs, two people were holding pressure on Jones’ wound. John kneeled next to the man and asked them to give him some space. He began examining the wound – thankfully, it really wasn’t deep. The young man looked up at Sherlock, his face pale. “T-thanks,” he muttered, giving the detective a weak smile. “Saved my life.”

Sherlock pressed his lips together in acknowledgement, and John felt him shift uncomfortably.

The man smiled even as he winced. “They really shouldn’t call you freak,” he muttered.

John felt his heart warm a little more towards the guy. “Too right, but stop talking,” he chided gently, probing the wound before pressing whatever piece of clothing had been sacrificed back against it.

“You’ll be fine, the wound is only superficial – it hurts worse than it is.”

The man coughed a little. “That it fucking does, pardon me Doctor Watson.”

John laughed and gestured for the policewoman next to them to come closer again. “What you did was the only thing we can do until the paramedics get here,” he said and returned her hand to press on the fabric. She nodded and kneeled back beside his patient. John already heard the sirens of the ambulance outside and knew his work here was done.

He got up and almost without noticing it, he reached out. Sherlock moved closer as well, a small smile lighting up his tired face. He grabbed John’s hand and didn’t let go.

He looked at Lestrade. “You’ll get our statements tomorrow, Greg,” he said, his voice still rough. Lestrade looked surprised but pleased and gave them both a warm smile.

“I’ll make sure of it,” John added. He grinned and gave one last nod to Lestrade before he and Sherlock walked out, hands clasped tightly together.

I had to edit this chapter rather heavily after I accidentally turned the crime scene into a gore-fest. I temporarily forgot this was a fluffy one-shot. Well, it’s become longer than I expected, that’s for sure ;-)

Also on Ao3!