Sherlock Holmes, I swear if you EVER do that to me again on a crime scene, I'm going to handcuff you and tie you down to your chair until you apologize. -JW
Oh please. Like I haven't already learned to pick both styles of my handcuffs. -SH
I mean it. NOT GOOD. And you're not the only one in the flat who owns handcuffs. -JW
That pair in the box under your bed barely count. Took me less than five minutes, even without using the quick-release latch. -SH
John blinked, then glared at his phone. Because of course Sherlock would have already rooted through his small collection of sex toys. Because Sherlock was a bloody git with no sense of boundaries or decency.
Guess I'll have to wrap your hands in duct tape first so you can't move your fingers. I'd enjoy seeing that. -JW
And since you bloody well never apologize, you might have to stay that way for a long, long time. -JW
Sherlock's reply was almost instantaneous: You try it and I'll start deducing the reasons behind your failed string of girlfriends. And why they're dissatisfied with your technique in bed. -SH
I've been trying to be tactful and not say anything, but that's only as long as I'm not peeved at you. -SH
John growled aloud, not caring if there was anyone else on the nearly-deserted sidewalk close enough to hear him.
YOU'RE peeved at ME? I'm not the one who sicced a clueless flirt with halitosis on my unsuspecting flatmate and then took off with his wallet so he couldn't take the Tube home, you ass. -JW
It wasn't my ass she was ogling. -SH
John rolled his eyes. Everyone ogles your ass, Sherlock. You're just too oblivious to notice. -JW
A longer pause, in which John managed to cross the street without getting run over by a tour bus. He didn't hear the chirp, but when he checked his phone again on the other side there was a new message.
Even you? - SH
John bit his lip. The answer was yes, of course, but Sherlock was Sherlock and therefore must have known that already. So if he was asking . . .
Only for a change of pace from having to watch the rest of you being an ass on a regular basis. -JW
But if you tie me down to my chair, my ass will be the one part of me you can't ogle. -SH
WHEN I tie you down to your chair, I won't need to. -JW
You sound so sure you can make me say I'm sorry. -SH
John snorted. I can make you say anything I damn well want to. I'm just that good. -JW
Not what your last girlfriend said. Or the one before that. -SH
They just didn't last long enough for me to get really creative. -JW
Oh? And what kind of creative would that be? -SH
It suddenly hit John that he was flirting. With Sherlock. In the same way he usually flirted with women he picked up at a pub. The idea was a bit disconcerting, but somehow not as strange as it ought to have been. He did ogle Sherlock's ass on a fairly regular basis, after all - it's not like it could be helped. The man was bloody gorgeous, even when he was being an arrogant bastard with no sense of boundaries. And even better, now that John thought about it, Sherlock's lack of social etiquette might be a good thing here. Because if he didn't realize that he himself was being an emotionally crippled berk on a regular basis, he surely wouldn't notice or care if John pushed the boundaries of "just friends and flatmates, really" a bit too.
Wouldn't you just like to find out? -JW
If I say no, you're going to try to go through with your threat, aren't you? -SH
Not that I think I'd mind the handcuffs or being tied down, mind, just the apology. -SH
I don't want to give you the satisfaction. -SH
John grinned at his phone. Pity - I would have enjoyed designing an experiment in which both of us got the satisfaction. -JW
. . . -SH
. . . -SH
How do I know you're not bollocks at experimental design? -SH
I bet you don't even have a credible hypothesis. -SH
Sometimes it felt like Sherlock had honestly forgotten that it took quite a bit of science, actually, to get into medical school. Or that John had, one upon a time, been a rather good student. Probably would have been an even better student if his science classes had involved experiments like this . . . He ducked into an alley so he could lean back against a wall and typed rapidly.
Fine, then. Abstract: Sherlock Holmes is a berk who strongly needs to be taught that his giant brain is not the center of the universe. This experiment will address that. -JW
Introduction: Sherlock Holmes is a berk who strongly needs to be taught a lesson. References: behavior from birth to present. -JW
John Watson is a pissed-off flatmate eminently capable of teaching him that lesson. References: army, medical school, second-form teacher who sent him up for having a creatively foul mouth. -JW
Hypothesis: John Watson can get Sherlock Holmes so desperate he'll bloody well agree to anything, up to and including an apology. -JW
Materials and methods: 1 Sherlock Holmes. 1 chair. 1 pair handcuffs, "barely count as real." 1 length rope. Approx. 1m duct tape if Sherlock is annoying enough. -JW
Am I missing anything? -JW
He made it all the way to the next corner before Sherlock's reply came.
Results and conclusion? -SH
Well OBVIOUSLY. Haven't done the experiment yet. I'm still five blocks from the flat - if you want to be gone when I get home, now's your chance. -JW
He tapped "send," turned the phone off completely, and stuck it in his pocket. Whatever Sherlock had to say now, it wasn't worth slowing his pace for. Sherlock could bloody well say it (with or without an upfront apology) when John got back to 221B. Probably one of three things would happen: the most likely was that Sherlock would be gone when he got there, and would stay away in a fit of the sulks for several hours. Slightly less likely would be that Sherlock was there and would imperiously declare that he'd deleted the entirely of the conversation (from both his brain and his phone) and did John happen to pick up any nicotine patches while he was out?
The third, and vastly least likely possibility, was that Sherlock would call his bluff, would be there in the flat and stubbornly drawing attention to the fact that he had no intention of apologizing. John really didn't want to think about how badly he wanted the third possibility to be true.
He picked up his pace.
Baker Street came into sight, then Speedy's, then John was unlocking his door and starting up the stairs. He got to the top, opened the door - and stopped.
Sherlock was standing at the window playing the violin, back to the door. Shirtless. Pretending very hard to not have noticed that John was home.
John shrugged off his coat, hung it up carefully, closed the door behind him, and went up to his room to look through the bag under his bed.