Summary: Sherlock snoops through John's drawers and finds something. . . unexpected.

Rating: T (for implied sexiness)

Genre: Humor, Crack, Fluff, Romance, Silliness

Wordcount: ~2700

A note to the Brits: In American, 'drawers' can mean either box-shaped roll-out things in desks etc., or underwear. It causes far fewer mix-ups than you'd think. However, it does lend itself well to double entendres (see title).

A note to the Americans: In British, 'pants' means 'underwear.' What we call pants are normally called 'trousers,' 'jeans,' etc.

o

oOo

o

Sherlock's mouth dropped open. He could feel it. He could also feel his eyes bugging out of his head, and his entire body freezing, and his heart speeding up. It even felt like his hair was standing on end. Figured that the only thing in the world that could suddenly make Sherlock's hair go board-straight would be a John-thing.

He'd been going through John's drawers, looking for. . . for. . . for a something. Sherlock was sure there was a something. Even if there wasn't really a something, even if he was just going through John's personal things for the hell of it, he was sure he would have thought up an excuse, just in case John caught him.

Oh, god. John.

John catching him. John catching Sherlock looking through this drawer. This specific, particular one.

Sherlock was shaking. He was bloody shaking, and that had never happened before, not for this reason. When he was cold, sure, or really excited, or . . . or. . . or whatever. He knew there were other times, but frankly at the moment he was having trouble remembering his own name because he had come up to John's room and gone through his drawers and he had just gotten to the third drawer and he had opened it and

There. They. Were.

Right there. On top. Which meant. . . oh god. Sherlock reached out one tentative finger and touched them, just a little, and for a moment he wondered how cloth could be so hot, because surely it must be hot, because it burned his finger. But never mind that, experiments later, more data required about contents of drawer. So Sherlock forced his finger under one corner of the cloth, and then lifted, and then. . . yep. Yes, yes indeedy, yessiree, abso-fricking-lutely yes.

There were more underneath. Good god, there were more than one of the things. More than one. Team Prefix waved poly- and multi-. Team Circumlocution threw out multiple. Then plural. Masses. Multitudes. Multitudinous. Numerous. Myriad. Stacks. Swathes. Seas. Piles. Bunches. A few. Several. Possibly many. Possibly. . . possibly lots.

Myriad, myriad, myriad, myriads with beating hearts of fire. . .

And where the hell did that come from? Did he really just start thinking of poetry because. . . because. . . because of the stacks and piles and heaps of those things in John's drawer? Hadn't Sherlock deleted that poem, anyway?

Perhaps deletion only worked until the perfect moment arrived to utilize perfectly relevant information. . .

Apparently his hands had been waiting for his brain to be distracted, because the microsecond that Sherlock stopped focusing on his hands and started pondering his hard drive's permanent delete capabilities, his hands snatched up the top one of the things and brought it up to his eyes, which had also apparently only been waiting for his brain to get distracted so they could go over the thing in excruciatingly minute bloody detail.

The weave of the cloth, the red stitches in the white seams, the thick white elastic band with the red stripes, the. . . the. . . the. . . the wear patterns.

Sherlock's brain completely derailed for a moment, and all he was left with was the purely physical. Just his hands, just his eyes. His nose, too, it turned out.

His eyes wanted a closer look at the way the stitches under part of the elastic were loosening, and apparently his hands approved of this plan because they brought the thing up so close to his face he almost went cross-eyed and no, actually, his hands weren't obeying his eyes, they were obeying his nose, which was now. Rubbing. The. Cloth.

Oooooohhhhhhhhhh there was a god there was a heaven and surely heaven was as soft as the cloth on the tip of Sherlock's nose and beyond all doubt anything good and sacred in the world surely surely surely smelled like this.

Laundry detergent. Fresh socks, fresh bread, warm, clean, sweet, sweat, fresh-laundered sheets.

Sherlock's brain jerked back like it had been burned- which it had, because the mental image of what Sherlock was holding in his hands mingling with bloody sheets was bloody hot- but his mind stumbled back because there would be no escaping that train of thought once it began, not for anything, so better to think of anything else, anything else at all.

Unfortunately, what registered right then were the words 'wear' and 'pattern.'

Because wear patterns meant use.

And 'use' in this case meant 'wearing'.

And 'wearing' would mean. . .

Oh god oh god oh god oh god god god god god god god

John had worn them. Worn them enough to cause wear patterns. And- and there were more than one of the damned things. There were myriads of the things with beating hearts of fire and if the top one had wear patterns then probably at least one or two others would too and if there were multitudes of them it meant John liked them and John had been living here with Sherlock for months now and- and- and-

Conclusion:

John wore these things.

In their flat.

A LOT.

Who knew when? There was no way to know. Possibly he wore them all the time. Possibly they were varied with similar items of different colors. The element of uncertainty was oddly thrilling. But. . .

Sherlock heard a gasp and realized it was himself, because the next deduction was obvious:

John. Wore. These. Things. And. Talked. To. Sherlock.

Now it was his brain that was on bloody fire because that was the single hottest thing Sherlock had ever thought and hot things burned and his brain was burning with the thought that at some unknown point John had stood in front of Sherlock with his cheap jeans and silly oatmeal jumper and had been calm and reasonable and pleasant and good-smelling and underneath it all had been these things.

Sherlock meant to say something intelligent, because at that point he needed to hear his own voice to anchor himself to reality. He meant to say something intelligent and coherent, he really did, but what came out was more like "Hhhunnjj."

He stared at John's wallpaper. He fisted his hands so tightly around the thing he was holding his knuckles cracked. He cleared his throat and tried again.

What came out this time was "Ohgod."

"Sherlock?" called John's voice from downstairs. "Did you say something?"

At the sound of John's voice the edge of the open drawer grazed Sherlock's head as his knees gave out and he sank to the floor. His ears were buzzing, but it appeared that they were now tuned to John and John-things, just like the rest of Sherlock, so even through the buzzing he could hear the distinctive sound of John's footfalls on the stairs.

The stairs leading up to his room. Where Sherlock was kneeling in front of an open drawer. And holding one of the things.

Still unable to stand, Sherlock scrambled to shove the thing back in amongst its myriad hot fellows before slamming the drawer shut. He barely managed to close the drawer and let his hands fall innocently to his sides before John strode in and stood in the doorway.

John. John. John John John John-

John's hair was lovely. John's face was lovely. John himself was generally lovely. John was wearing a stupid cable-knit oatmeal jumper, but it was a John-jumper, so it, too, was lovely. John was wearing also-lovely John-jeans. John was standing in a typical John-stance: his shoulders were squared, his jaw was set, his feet planted firmly apart, his hands on his hips, and suddenly Sherlock was moving.

"Oi!" cried John, automatically throwing up his hands in a futile attempt to block the six foot raging whirl of over-balanced, half-crouching consulting detective that suddenly launched itself at his midsection.

"What's gotten into you?" John managed to ask, just before Sherlock overbalanced even more and lurched into him, wrapping his arms around the smaller man's waist.

Sherlock was trying to speak, but it wasn't working very well. His hands were doing what they wanted to all on their own again, and were tugging at the waist of John's jeans. Considering the fact that there appeared to be miles of bulky jumper in between said John-jeans and Sherlock's fingers, said tugging achieved nothing.

"Sherlock!" John pulled on Sherlock's hair until the younger man was forced to turn his face up towards John's.

John's eyes were blue. They looked brown from far away, but that was just because they were so dark. Eyes weren't supposed to be that dark and that blue at the same time. Sherlock ought to know. His eyes were blue most of the time, and much lighter than John's. How could John's eyes be so dark and so blue and so absolutely perfect all at once?

Their eyes only held for a moment before Sherlock opened his mouth. What came out was a shrieked: "Are you wearing them?"

"Wearing them?" asked John, as he seemingly unconsciously gripped Sherlock's fingers to stop their tugging at his jeans. Didn't move them, though, just held them in a vice-like grip. "Wearing what? Sherlock, I swear to god if you put anthrax or itching powder in something I could even theoretically wear I'm going to kill you and use your own methods to make it look like an accident."

Sherlock's mouth hung open. Stayed open. Some teensy tiny part of his brain that didn't suddenly have "Property of John H. Watson" branded onto it waved a tiny flag and screamed that if his eyes didn't stop bugging out of his head long enough for him to blink they were going to get uncomfortable.

That was it. That was it right there. Screw the things. They could wait. They were pretty, and hot, and there were myriads of them, but they were just things, after all.

John, though. . . John was perfect. John was lovely. John smelled like antiseptic and tea and fresh linen and John-smell and home and sick people, and Sherlock stared at his face and realized it was covered in pores, and also realized that no matter how interesting wear patterns on elastic bands might be, they would never be as interesting as the wear patterns on John's skin.

"I'm going to kiss you," Sherlock said aloud, and that was all the warning John had before Sherlock wrapped his hands around the back of John's neck and did just that.

John kissed him back, his hands instantly tangling in Sherlock's hair, and later Sherlock would have the mental capacity to be surprised about that. At the moment, though, he had the mental capacity of a man very much in love being thoroughly snogged by the man he was very much in love with, which is to say his mental capacity was essentially nil. Were he able to think at all his thoughts would have been about the fact that John-mouth was hotter than anything Sherlock had ever thought, and wet, too, and slippery and moving and ooooohhhhhh, Sherlock really really wanted to do this a lot. Every day. Repeatedly. Probably until forever.

All of a sudden John was laughing, and Sherlock was laughing too, and that was when he learned that laughing is not conducive to non-sloppy kissing. John's hands took hold of his face, gently, and turned his head so that his face was nestled in the crook of John's neck, and when had John grown tall enough for them to fit together like this? Oh. Sherlock was still kneeling. His knees hurt. Well, that was all right. His face was in John's neck, and his arms were around John's waist, and one of John's arms was around his back and the other was over his shoulders with his hand was holding the back of Sherlock's head, and Sherlock's knees could go be damned because he and John were still laughing.

"What-" John began, then pressed his lips to Sherlock's temple as a few more giggles tried to escape. A moment later he began again, "What the hell brought that on?"

Sherlock smiled into John's neck, purely for the thrill of feeling John's pulse accelerate against his lips when John felt Sherlock's smile against his skin. Then Sherlock stood as quickly as he could, and was impressed with himself for not immediately toppling over, considering the fact that his blood had apparently decided that his extremities could do without for a while and had rushed off to more important areas.

He did overbalance slightly, but that was all right, because his chest pressed against John's and pinned the smaller man to the doorway, Sherlock's hands on either side of his head, Sherlock once again towering over him. Which, of course, was as it should be.

John's eyes were sparkling, his smile huge and boyish and genuine, and his lips had never looked better than they did now, swollen and kiss-red.

Aware of the fact that he was smiling like a loon and wholly lacking the mental capacity to care, Sherlock leaned down to whisper into John's ear, "Third drawer."

John tensed. Sherlock panicked. Perhaps he shouldn't have said anything? Clearly John knew that Sherlock had found the- the- the things John kept in there. And, yes, all right, John was more interesting than anything else anywhere ever, and hotter, too, but the things were also damn pretty, and Sherlock suspected he would never get over his attraction to them. But what would John say if he found out? What was John going to say, now that he knew Sherlock had found them?

John slipped a hand up to rest firmly against Sherlock's nape, holding his face against John's neck so he couldn't see his face.

"I went through your drawers, too," John said, and that was not what Sherlock was expecting.

It was surprising. It was John-like. It was hotter than hell.

"I'll give you my excuses later," John continued, and was it possible for a man who wore cheap jeans to have a voice like really, really expensive whiskey? "But let's just say I found a few things of yours, too."

Sherlock shivered. John wrapped a leg around Sherlock's calf. Sherlock shivered more.

"I'll make you a deal," John breathed, directly into his ear.

Sherlock nodded. Barely.

"I will wear the things in the third drawer," John said as Sherlock's eyes rolled up in his head, "if you wear the blue ones in your top drawer."

Sherlock groaned like he was dying and John wrapped his arms tight around him and god.

"Does," Sherlock said. Then he had to wait a few minutes for the rest of the sentence to finish lining up in his head before it could jump out of his mouth, "Does that mean we get to have sex?"

John chuckled, and Sherlock could feel it vibrating through every point of contact, and he shivered again, so he sucked the skin at the juncture of John's neck and shoulder into his mouth to anchor himself, and then John shivered, which was just about the most wonderful thing Sherlock had ever felt.

"So much sex," John said. Sherlock nibbled his neck approvingly.

Clearly seeking more of Sherlock's approval, John continued, "I expect that eventually we may even- hhhng!- manage to be actually ah! naked for some of it. However, for the first, oh, two times at least," John paused long enough to very slowly, very deliberately run his hands down Sherlock's back to grab two handfuls of arse, "I'm not letting you take off your blue silk boxers."

Wholly incapable of speech, Sherlock made a noise against John's throat that the shorter man somehow managed to interpret anyway.

John laughed. "Yes, I promise. As long as you're still wearing the blue ones, I'll leave my red pants on."

Oh god. They were going to have sex and John was going to wear the red pants from his third drawer.

Sherlock may have fainted.

Certainly he was very soon in bed.

o

oOo

o

Author's Note: Look directly below this. There is a review box. Please, please, please, put a word or two in there ("Brillaint," "Bad grammar," whatever), and submit. Reviews are love. :)

Explanation of above fic: It's along story, but basically, tumblr. On tumblr, Sherlock/Johnlock fans celebrate the wonder that is Red Pants Mondays. This fic was written for that glorious day.