A Study in Red

Written for the Red Pants Contest held by the wonderful ladies at fuckyeahjohnlockfanfic . tumblr . com and reapersun . tumblr . com

Disclaimer: I don't own anything but the words.

Day 1.

Started experiment today. Sherlock so insufferable about being able to read me (and everyone else) based purely on the logical behaviour and predictability of everybody not Sherlock made me fume. That snotty, smug voice he gets when he's recounting the brilliant deductions he's made about everything in the universe (bar the solar system, of course), especially about me. And everything's based on observation and motive – and let's face it he is brilliant at deducing solutions from clues. Even me – psychosomatic limp – gone within hours of meeting him. String of failed attempts at forming a committed relationship with a nice girl I could settle down with; "Oh John, your blindness to your true chosen lifestyle means every girl is going to run a mile when you try to get close – think about it; you love physical danger, you run on adrenalin, you work with me. How much time does that leave you to play happy families?"

And the worst thing is, I have a sneaking suspicion he's right.

Well, I'm going to stuff him right up.

Day 2.

Today he glimpses them. Just a 'casual' pulling up of my trousers. Which, beltless, are falling down a bit. They work their way down my hips again once we start the walk back to Baker Street. "For God's sake, John, have you never come across the concept of a belt?"

"Sorry, sorry," I say, hitching them up again. "Of course I've got a belt, but I guess I've lost a little weight lately and I didn't have time to punch another hole in it."

Like the spider to the fly, his glance goes, involuntarily I'd say, to the waistband of my jeans, where just a peep of the red underpants I'm wearing can be seen. I quickly cover them up, pulling the jeans up like Harry High Pants. His eyes narrow, then flick to my face, but I'm already doing blandface (the only facial expression he can't crack) and I turn and walk upstairs.

Sherlock follows me minutes later, and I let him see the awl I'm using to punch another hole in my belt. I do it up and there's no more waistband slippage. Sherlock's had his first view of the red undies.

Day 3

Today I find Sherlock going through the laundry basket – a unique occurrence, given that I do all the washing for both of us. "What's up, Sherlock?" I ask, though I'm pretty sure I know what he's looking for. "Don't tell me you're actually going to wash your own stuff?" I bend over to pick up the basket.

"Don't be obtuse, John, a brain of the calibre of my own cannot be expected to lower itself to such a mundane level. I am merely looking for..."

"Yes?" I ask him. He seems to have lost his breath a little, and I realise he's spotted them again; a glimpse of red above my jeans.

"Looking for...?" I remind him. He needs to finish his train of thought.

"Erm," he says, and he actually sounds flustered – Mr Long Tall Drink of Iced Tea sounds a bit breathless.

"Looking for...?" I ask again, and this time he answers, automatically "Er, something to find."

"Right," I say. "Glad we cleared that up. Good luck with that."

Day 4

Sherlock sits at the kitchen, testing the cellular differences between weedy seadragons and komodo dragons. I have no idea why. But I can feel his gaze on my back – no, why mince words – my arse, as if it were a heat ray from a fifties b grade sci-fi movie. I pour the tea into mugs and turn around to hand him his, just in time to see his eyes shift back to the microscope.

"John," he says and I turn politely though absently to him.

"Hmmm?" I enquire. "What can I do you for?"

He holds his mug out to me and accidentally on purpose drops it. "Damn!" he says. "Get that, will you John?"

"Why me, Sherlock? You dropped it."

"Can't," he says. "Crucial part of my experiment," he glues his eye to the ocular. "You'd better get it right away, before the floor gets sticky."

I grab a cloth and bend down, wiping tea from the floor, just as he obviously planned. But I bend away from him – he won't get any new data from this little situation he engineered. I hear him sigh frustratedly and wait to see what he'll do. Sure enough he's out of his chair – crucial experiment indeed – and grabs the dustpan and brush. Moves behind me to hand it to me and again I can feel that laser-gaze on my backside.

But he'll be disappointed today. I'm wearing my normal, serviceable undies, navy blue cotton with a black edge. I have a dozen or more of these and I never wear any others. Well, as he is discovering, almost never. And he's seen these daks many a time.

Day 5

Jumping over a barbed wire fence as we chase the killer we've run to earth holed up in an isolated chinchilla farm, I unknowingly tear the back of my jeans; a small triangle of blue ripped away, revealing a flash of red. Sherlock is behind me and catches up as I wrestle the man to the ground. Sherlock comes and sits on him as I phone Lestrade who's staked out at the nearest farmhouse.

"Is something the matter, Sherlock?" Lestrade asks. "You seem somewhat...distracted."

Sherlock puts on his most withering voice and stares snidely at the Inspector. "Indeed, no," he says. "If I were distracted you would still indubitably be trying to locate your quarry."

Lestrade rolls his eyes at me just as Anderson walks past and says, "Hey Doc, you've torn your jeans."

So. Distraction explained. It takes all my will power to not look at Sherlock. I shrug. "Hazards of the trade," I say. And assume my best blandface.

Day 6

I'm really starting to enjoy this sense of power I have over Sherlock. I often see him out of the corner of my eye, studying me, frowningly. And I'm almost certain that he's gone through my underwear drawer. Not that he'll find them. Mrs Hudson looks after them for me when I'm not wearing them. I was dubious about letting her in on my experiment – I worried that she'd give the secret away to him, accidentally. But she's a bloody marvel, that woman. Thinks it's hilarious.

I'm not going to wear them again for 9 days – an arbitrary number which I hope is random enough for Sherlock to find incomprehensible.

Thinks he can solve anything with observation and logic does he? Well, Sherlock, you've had the chance to observe. What sort of logic can you use to solve this puzzle, given that there is no method in my madness? No motive that you could guess, because it's based on whimsy and impulse. There is absolutely no reason behind the red undies, except to stymie your much vaunted intellect.

That's it. That's the experiment.

Day 7

Sherlock has taken to making me walk up the stairs in front of him. Says he's worried my limp might make a comeback.

Day 8

He 'accidentally' barges into the bathroom as I'm shaving in my undies. My boring navy undies he's seen a million times. I catch his reflection in the mirror and he looks disappointed. I raise my eyebrows at the intrusion, and then lapse into blandface.

Day 9

We're on a case in Yorkshire and I fall headlong into thick, black mud. It's pouring with rain and when we get back to the twin hotel room we're staying in Sherlock eagerly tells me I'd better strip. "You'll get pneumonia, John," he tells me solicitously. "Here, come and I'll help you."

I play along, accepting his presence in the bathroom as I undress myself. He's not remotely interested in any of my outer clothes. I feel weird, almost like a stripper; I can feel his anticipation as I undo my filthy, sodden jeans and slide them down. Revealing my good old navy underpants.

Sherlock actually 'tsks' with frustration at the sight, then tries to turn it into a cough.

"Sounds like it might be you catching a cold," I tell him. "Better get yourself dry, Sherlock."

I push him out of the bathroom and step under a hot, steamy, glorious shower.

Day 10

Sherlock is being a total twat, talking down to everyone we meet, insulting my intelligence, sneaking a packet of fags out onto the roof, where, from below, he looks like an actual chimney. The Case of the Red Pants is driving him insane, but he won't ask me, and I'm not volunteering.

Day 11

I don't think I can hold out much longer. I wasn't planning to wear the damned things for another 4 days but he's taken to tormenting poor Mrs Hudson about her complicated love life, not to mention her herbal soothers. I apologise to her for his behaviour when he eventually buggers off, but she gives me a wide, impish grin. "Oh John, love, don't you worry about me. I just keep thinking 'Oh yes, my fine buck? Well I know something you don't know.' It makes me feel no end chuffed."

"Mrs Hudson, you're a doll," I tell her, as I gaffer-tape the undies against my chest. Big, thick sweaters hide a multitude of sins, I've always found, and this one's no exception.

Day 12

Good Christ, I've created a monster. I donned the red underpants today, planning to tease Sherlock as per usual, but when he sees them peeking over my waistband I very quickly find myself in a situation I'd never have anticipated; he's slammed me against the wall and kisses me. And it isn't a friendly kiss, either, it's a full-lipped, open- mouthed, tongue-fucking, facesuck.

"Bloody hell, Sherlock!" I say, when we break apart to breathe, "What are you doing?"

"What you want," he says, hoarsely.

"Sorry?" I ask. "Come again?"

"What do you mean 'again'? he says, confused.

"It's a figure of speech, Sherlock," I explain. "It means 'what do you mean'?

"What do I mean?" he asks, and batters his mouth onto mine again, then draws back. "What do I mean? I mean that you've been giving me this message for the last two weeks, and I've finally worked out what you want."

"Erm, Sherlock, what message? I haven't sent you any messages."

"Of course you have, John. And I admit it's taken me much too long to work out the meaning." He kisses me again. "But I have, and yes, John, I want you too."

"Um," I say, intelligently. It's hard to come up with witty repartee when you're being turned inside out by a man whose every pore, I now realise, oozes sex.

"I liked your way of asking, though, John. Those red pants. When you stopped wearing them I thought you must have given up on me. I'm not usually so slow on the uptake and I was very peeved with myself that I took so long to crack the case. But tonight – well, John, was it a last ditch effort? If I didn't get it tonight, would you have given up altogether? Would I have missed this?" and he's kissing me again, so hard that I can't answer his question.

When he comes up for air I push him away, gently.

"You think that when I was wearing those undies I was signalling my desire and availability to you?" I ask.

"But of course, John. What else could it possibly mean? There was no logical pattern to the incidence of your wearing of them."

I laugh at him. "Exactly," I tell him. "It was an experiment, Sherlock. I was experimenting on you."

He scowls at me, juggernaut brow, eyes still black with arousal. "You," he says, snarkily, "you experimented on me."

"Well yeah," I tell him. "I figured I owed you one for the Baskerville case. Plus, it was fun."

"Explain this experiment, John," he says, imperiously. So I do.

"So you weren't trying to seduce me," he says.

Well, no," I tell him, apologetically.

"Or saying you wanted to have sex with me?"

"Sorry," I say, gently.

"I always miss something," he murmurs, and his face momentarily droops with disappointment.

He draws away from me, and I can see him packing himself back into his box.

"No Sherlock, come here," I say, and I cup his face in my hands and kiss his mouth. "Just because you got the aim of the experiment wrong, doesn't mean that the results are invalid. You showed me something I didn't know I wanted. Call it an unintended consequence."

"Unintended?" he asks, hesitantly, and I can see he's getting paranoid about what's happening between us.

"Yes, Sherlock," I say. "Unintended." I kiss his lips, and chin, and neck and ears, know that I will do anything, now, to keep this thing that is unfurling itself so sweetly between us. "Unintended, but very welcome," I breathe into his ear and he shudders. "Come to bed, Sherlock," I growl, and take his hand as I lead him upstairs to my bedroom.