Five Times that John and Sherlock Seemed Like a Couple
(And One Time that John Didn't Have the Heart to Complain)

1.

John forked a piece of pasta, swirling it through the pasta sauce smeared on his plate. He never tired of Angelo's and he wondered why he hadn't eaten here before he had met Sherlock.

"Is that helping?"

"Oh." John swallowed, taking a drink of his coffee. "Yes. Very much."

Sherlock looked away, looking less than pleased. "Your stomach was growling so loudly that it could have given us away, if the need had arisen for us to hide."

"Can't help it," John said, over another bite of his pasta. "You said we didn't have time for breaky."

"I didn't have breakfast, either, John."

"You never have breakfast," John said, putting his fork down to reach for the garlic bread sitting on the edge of the table.

When he looked back to his pasta to pick up his fork, he found that it was gone.

Blinking, John looked under the edges of his plate, even moved his coffee aside.

"Sherlock, where did my-" He looked up at the detective, finding the curly-haired detective with his fork in hand, chewing what was probably John's pasta. "Sherlock!"

Sherlock looked away from the window and back at John. "Hm?"

"My fork?"

"Yes," he said, handing it back to John. "The pasta is good."

"That doesn't explain why you stole my fork!"

"Obviously, John, because I wanted to try your pasta. At least make an effort to try to keep up with the facts."

John looked from Sherlock to his fork. "I want a new fork."

"Oh, don't be ridiculous."

"I don't want your saliva, thanks," John said dryly.

"We share saliva all the time."

John felt his face grow warm. "Don't say that!"

"Why not?"

"Because you make it sound like we sit around..." he dropped his voice, "snogging!"

Sherlock rolled his eyes, looking back at the window. "You know that wasn't what I was talking about. I was talking about us sharing silverware or drinking from the same mug occasionally. Besides, it's not true."

"What?" John asked, focussed on using his napkin to wipe off his fork.

"The kissing bit. You and I both know that we aren't a couple. You tell people all the time. What's the big deal?"

John sighed in exasperation, going back to his lunch.

But he found that his appetite had gone off and he just wanted to go back home... and never go out into public with Sherlock again.

2.

John slumped back against the wall, gasping for breath. Sherlock was not far behind, although his breathing was barely quickened compared to John's gasping. It wasn't fair. John had been in Afghanistan and he was the one who was out of breath more quickly.

"Why..." he gasped, leaning over to brace his hands on his knees. "Why do we... end up... chasing people through London... all the time?"

Sherlock took a breath. "I don't know. Just for fun."

"Fun? This... Sherlock... is not fun."

"Okay. We run after criminals so we make sure your psychosomatic limp doesn't return," Sherlock said, drawing in another deep breath afterwards.

John looked up at him, eyebrows raising. Sherlock graced him with a brief smile.

John laughed breathlessly and he heard the rumbling of Sherlock's laughter next to him. There was just something about chases that made them laugh. Especially when they stretched for seven blocks.

"I think... think we just ran a mile..." John muttered, straightening up.

Sherlock scoffed, smirking. "Not quite. Although you do sound terribly out of breath. Maybe we should do this more often."

"Yeah, well... You don't exercise for exercise's sake and... neither do I."

"We could start."

"No, we really couldn't."

Sherlock chuckled again and John laughed with him.

His laughter died off when a group of people that were walking by gave them a double take. They nudged each other in the side and started whispering, the girls giggling as they scampered away.

John scowled.

Couldn't two blokes stand and have a laugh?

To the people's defense, John realized that he and Sherlock did look a bit... out of the ordinary. Out of breath, windswept, and laughing amongst themselves, each with a glimmer in their eyes (well, Sherlock always had that glimmer during a case and John imagined that he did, too).

"Ugh," he muttered, scrubbing his hand across his face. "Come on. Let's go home and have a cuppa before anyone else starts wondering what we're up to."

"If you wanted to know, they thought that we were-"

"I don't."

He could practically hear Sherlock smirking.

3.

"I can assure you that this is not what it looks like."

"And I can assure you that I do not want to know," Lestrade replied.

John hastily re-buttoned his button-down shirt, his fingers clumsy over the buttons as Lestrade's abashed gaze fell on them.

"Look, it's hot in here," John said, picking up Sherlock's jacket and flinging it at him.

"Honestly, John, the facts are obvious," Sherlock replied calmly, his fingers working smoothly to button the top two buttons of his shirt and to roll down his sleeves. "Why are you so flustered?" he asked, without any real curiosity, as he buttoned his cuffs.

"Because it looks bad," John muttered, scrambling to his feet.

"Really, John, I can understand the undressing bit, but I really wish you two would have given me a heads-up," Lestrade muttered. "What I want to know is how you two got trapped in a walk-in sauna with the heat turned up the whole way."

"The suspect's idea of a prank, no doubt," Sherlock said, standing after he had put his shoes back on. "Planning on suffocating us or, perhaps, steaming us to death," Sherlock muttered, sounding annoyed.

"I'm sweating to death," John muttered, gathering his jumper and coat as Sherlock picked up his Belstaff.

"We both are," Sherlock said as they walked past Lestrade. "I'm showering first when we get home."

"What?" John looked at him. "No! I'm sweating more than you are."

Sherlock raised an eyebrow. "Do you really want to test that theory?"

"... No," John muttered.

Lestrade sighed from behind them. "I don't understand how you two get into so much trouble. I thought he was bad enough," he said, pointing to Sherlock, "but then you came along and now you're getting locked in saunas and end up half naked."

"Don't be crude, Lestrade, we weren't half naked."

"Can we just stop talking about this?" John asked, feeling his face hot from blushing, and not from the steam that had been slowly choking them.

Lestrade was right.

Only John and Sherlock could nearly sweat themselves to death by sitting still.

4.

"Why... am I here," John asked, teeth clenched in annoyance.

"Because this is where the murder took place."

"Sherlock, I could care less. It's not going to happen again."

"Shh," someone said from behind them.

John sunk a little lower in his seat, feeling self-conscious.

Sherlock had talked him into going to this little theatre on the Strand to watch some play that John had no idea what it was about.

This was the theatre where the case of the Aluminium Crutch had taken place and Sherlock was keen on the theatre now. A murder had occurred live on stage. It had been the highlight of Sherlock's week.

But, honestly, that was months ago. He could hardly expect another murder on stage.

Sherlock did like theatre, though, and it was a healthy habit, so John didn't want to discourage it.

"The wife's going to elope with her brother's best friend," Sherlock whispered.

"Have you seen this before?" John asked, glancing at Sherlock.

"No."

John sighed. "How do you know?"

"The bracelet on her wrist is real diamond and amethyst-"

"Shh!" came the voice from behind them again.

John gave Sherlock a look that said 'nevermind' before looking back to the stage.

Some time passed, the wife started having an affaire with her brother's best friend, and the play had just gone into Scene III when Sherlock leaned over.

"The ladder's going to fall over and break the window and the husband's going to figure out that his wife is having an affaire."

"How do you know that?" John griped. It was such an odd connection to make that it left John disgruntled. Sure, Sherlock's mind was superior to John's, but how did a broken window and the details of an affaire connect?

"Because the brother's friend left his jacket on the ladder while he was painting the house. The husband is going to find it and-"

"Would you two get a room?!"

John blushed from the tip of his ears to his neck. He turned around to apologise, but he found the words "No, we're not-" on his lips first.

"Take it outside!" demanded the person behind them before they pointedly looked back to the stage.

John, feeling mortified now, turned back to the stage.

He could feel Sherlock's eyes on him but he refused to look up.

5.

"I have never been more awkward in my life," John mumbled.

"Understandable. Your two left feet and general lack of grace is not helping the progression of our dance."

"I don't know how to dance."

"Which is why I said 'follow my lead'," Sherlock replied, in the tone of obvious.

John tried to beat back the butterflies in his stomach and force the blush from his face, but it was a lost cause.

"Everyone is staring," he whispered, trying not to catch anyone else in the ballroom's eye.

"And that means that the one person who isn't watching us is too preoccupied by the murder that they're about to commit."

"There's more than one person not watching," John murmured.

"I know."

John suddenly felt his support back away and he immediately panicked- he didn't know how to dance!- but Sherlock's hand was still in his and he found himself being spun around before being brought back to Sherlock's chest.

John's hands immediately fell into their proper place, out of instinct, as his heart pounded wildly in his chest.

A few people in the audience clapped and cheered.

Sherlock had, in a desperate moment, grabbed John's hand and dragged him onto the ballroom floor. Before John could protest, he was swept into an intricate dance that drew everyone off of the floor and left them being a solo act. John had never been more mortified in his life, but Sherlock's reasoning was, as stated, the one person who wasn't watching them make idiots of themselves was too preoccupied to care.

"Sherlock, if you do that again, I'm warning you, I'm going to puke," he mumbled.

"Refrain from that; we've nearly gotten everyone's attention."

Their dance continued for a few more seconds before Sherlock suddenly dropped John's hand, streaking across the dance floor. John came to a stop, staring after Sherlock in wide-eyed panic- his dance partner was gone!- before he noted that Sherlock was chasing someone now and John hastened after him to help.

John didn't stop blushing until they were safely locked away in their flat and he refused to broach the topic of Sherlock's dancing skills... ever... again.

+ 1

John rolled over, sighing tiredly. He was half asleep and he had been woken up by... something.

They had been taken out of town on a case, and ended up needing to spend the night at a hotel. They were sharing a room that only had one bed and not even a sofa. John had been terrified of the consequences of that until Sherlock said that he wasn't sleeping, and this was one night that John was not going to push him to rest.

No, he had just gladly taken the bed and fallen asleep...

... except he had been woken up by something.

Something tickled the back of his neck and he sleepily reached behind him to brush it away. His fingers got caught in a mass of curls and he realized, with a jolt, what had woken him up.

"Sherlock!" he exclaimed, wrenching the blankets up to his chin as he leaned away from Sherlock, who was curled up in bed next to him.

Sherlock opened an eye tiredly. "Oh. You woke up. Dull." He closed his eye.

"What are you doing? Get out of my bed!"

"It isn't your bed," Sherlock mumbled. "Hotel's bed... Lay down."

"You said you weren't sleeping-" John started, but then checked himself. "Get out of the bed!"

"I'm tired, John," Sherlock complained, opening his eyes again. "The power's gone out and my phone doesn't have a signal; the heating is off and it's freezing. You have all the blankets and you have body heat, so lay down and go back to sleep."

John didn't know if he wanted to get out of bed and lock himself in the bathroom to escape Sherlock or punch the detective for crawling into bed with him. But he was starting to notice the chill in the air that Sherlock was talking about, just from sitting up and not being cuddled into the blankets, and found himself fighting a mental battle.

It was cold and John wasn't cruel... but if anyone knew about this...

"John," Sherlock groaned, trying to tug the blankets closer.

"You can not tell anyone about this," John warned, laying back down hesitantly. "Ever. Not a word."

"Who would I tell?" Sherlock mumbled, his forehead resting lightly against John's shoulder.

John flinched, immediately making to move away but he stopped himself. Not cruel, not cruel. Sherlock was cold. This was like hypothermia. Completely normal. Completely fine. They were not gay. They were just cold.

Sherlock's hair tickled John's neck again. He felt a chill run straight down his spine, clear down to the tip to his toes.

"Told you it was cold..." Sherlock mumbled.

"That wasn't the reason," John whispered back.

"Oh. I can't control my hair," Sherlock muttered. "It's a mess when I sleep..."

"I know," John said. "I've seen you sleep before, just never slept with you... Slept beside you," he amended, because the alternative sounded... bad. Very bad.

"Mhmm..."

Sherlock's quiet snoring broke the silent. It wasn't snoring so much as the quiet inhale-exhale routine of Sherlock's even breathing, but it was oddly comforting in the otherwise tense environment.

John drifted off much more easily than he ever thought he could.

1 - I plan to write a story where Sherlock teaches John to ballroom dance.

2 - I plan to write a power outage story (again).

3 - I love Sherlock and John sleeping together, without actually sleeping together, because I hate Johnlock, but Sherlock being all cuddly and clingy in his unconsciousness for one reason or another is SO adorable to me. Sorry if I offended any non-slash fans. I pretty much detest Johnlock and I love this, so maybe I'm just weird. :p

I do not own Sherlock. Thank you!