ASC- A New Friend- John x Reader Chap. 13

You quite literally bumped into John as you came out of your room, both of you giving a little awkward chuckle as you stepped back to create a gap between the two of you. He took the moment to look you over, you had changed into a worn pair of jeans with a hole in the knee of one leg and a plaid green button down shirt with the sleeves rolled up over your elbows. Your long hair was up in a sensible ponytail that just added to how casual your over all look was.

You offered him a quick grin, “Sent to deal with me again I see. I bet Sherlock asked you to wake me if I was sleeping.”

John nodded, “I told him no.”  

“Thank you for that but it was unnecessary. I’m actually going out,” you laughed lightly

“Out?” he echoed, tilting his head to the side in confusion.

You fought the urge to giggle and nodded, “For a walk. It’s a nice enough day and I need some fresh air. You are welcome to join me if you’d like. It would save you the trouble of having to report back to my family and I wouldn’t mind the company.”

Slipping past him, you started on your way to the door, sock covered feet making hardly any sound, and he trailed you like a lost puppy, “Shouldn’t you rest?”

You made your way down the stairs, tossing an answer over your shoulder, “I’m used to not getting much sleep. I did live with Sherlock for quite some time and I don’t have to tell you that he can keep you up for days on end when something motivates him enough.”

“But you haven’t been home in what… six years was it you said? You would have me believe that in all that time your habits didn’t change?”

You paused to pull open the front door, sparing him a quick fleeting glance to find that he looked genuinely concerned. You shook your head, “I appreciate your concern, John, but I promise you I’m fine. My job requires as much of me as Sherlock’s does and with all the traveling, my body is accustomed to abrupt changes and long periods without sleep.”

The mud on your shoes from the day before flaked off when you banged the soles against the top step and you quickly slipped them on while John ventured, “What is your job exactly?”

“Shall I assume you’re coming with me then?” you wondered, quirking an eyebrow at him, and he nodded, prompting you to continue, “Consulting Conflict Resolution Specialist is my official title. Sherlock came up with it back when I first started working cases with him so people would be impressed when he introduced me. Personally, I prefer problem solver- when people need something fixed they come to me.”

“So what do you actually do?” John asked, walking beside you as you meandered down a path that led off the grounds.

“A little bit of everything I suppose. I can be a detective when needed or an information gatherer and sometimes I do damage control type things but mostly I’m a mediator and a negotiator.”

“Sound interesting.”

You offered him a little grin, “It never gets old and people hardly ever get along so I’m always busy.”

A comfortable silence settled in as you walked and then he wondered, “What you do requires a lot more patience and people skills than what Sherlock does… you two seem so different. How is it you became friends in the first place?”

You chuckled, “It’s a long story that I’ll save for another time but I guess you could say that we were drawn to each other by the level of intelligence we share… we just happened to have different strengths- much like you and him do now.”

John looked confused and you let out an amused hum, “You didn’t think he chose you to accompany him on his cases just because you happened to be there, did you?”

“Actually, I kind of did,” he admitted, giving a short laugh.

“Sherlock chose you because you not only put up with his antics but you keep him grounded as well. There are a lot of things he is not good at but reading people’s character- that is something he is almost terrifyingly superb at. I doubt he anticipated you’d become a friend but he certainly chose you for who you are and your skill set.”

John looked to be thinking that over when you glanced his way to add, “I can see why he did. You’re a rather remarkable man, John Watson.”

The pink tint that came to his cheeks was entirely out of his control and you let out a mirthful giggle as you linked your arm with his, “You’re so fun to fluster.”

He gave a small, embarrassed chuckle but leaned against your side slightly, causing you to shoot him a sidelong glance and a shy smile. He couldn’t figure you out. One second you were teasing him and flirting and the next you were chewing you lip shyly and avoiding his gaze- were you messing with him or did you like him?

Both of you enjoyed the silence as you walked arm in arm, each of you relishing the fresh air and a chance to sort through your respective thoughts. You contemplated your argument with Sherlock earlier over your attraction to John, wondering what your brother was playing at by questioning his friend’s merits as a potential match for you and then contradictingly sending him to check on you.

You were trying to convince yourself that he was just being meddlesome for the sake of being meddlesome when John cleared his throat, drawing your attention to him as he wondered, “How did you know those things? Last night I mean?”

“Power of observation. I’m inclined to agree with Sherlock- people often look but rarely see.”

He pursed his lips in what looked to be something very close to a dissatisfied pout and you hummed softly in amusement before explaining, “Your full name was on the train ticket Mycroft bought you and your status as a doctor was obvious the moment you opened the front door for me from your handshake. The kitchen was a mess and I didn’t have to open the cabinets to know they were empty but there was a pan in the sink signifying that someone was at least attempting to cook and since it obviously wasn’t Sherlock that left you. As for wanting a night to yourself and a new password- everyone needs time off from Sherlock when living in close proximity and the man rarely uses his own computer when he knows he can guess the password of someone else’s. You don’t seem like one to come up with a password tricky enough to keep Sherlock out of your things- no offense.”

There was a moment of quiet and you wondered if maybe you’d gone a bit too far, you still didn’t know John very well after all, before he broke out in a wide grin, “That was fantastic!”

You had to stop walking, you started to laugh so hard, and he gave you a confused look. Between laughs, you managed to choke out, “No wonder Sherlock keeps you around- you’re remarkable and you willingly stroke his ego.”

You slowly recovered, offering him a wide grin, “Where have you been all my life? Sherlock would have been so much easier to live with with you around.”

John went to respond when the grey sky finally decided it had had enough and started to shower you with a light rain. You quickly grabbed John’s hand and took off at a run, glad that you were close enough to your destination that you didn’t have to go very far in the rain. The both of you were panting softly by the time you pulled him under a large gnarled looking tree with branches enough to shelter you from the water falling from the sky. You exchanged a glance and then started giggling, John with his hands on his knees as he tried to recover his breath and you leaning on his shoulder for support.

Once your shared case of the giggles died down, you moved over to the tree trunk, tracing the double helix DNA scar Sherlock had carved into it when you were teens. John stepped over behind you, running a hand over the Oxytocin molecule you’d drawn next to it, “You and Sherlock came to this tree often, didn’t you?”

“Whenever we wanted to get away,” you nodded, “I used to come alone and then one day he followed me and it became our place.”

“What does this stand for?” he asked, giving an upwards nod to the mark under his hand. You offered him a small smile, pointing to the DNA, “Teenage boredom. He carved the strand of DNA and said nearly everything alive is made of the same building blocks- from this tree to him and me. I carved the chemical structure of Oxytocin- the hormone that is believed to be responsible for intimacy. It was a good natured jab at his claim that relationships were pointless since even science accounts for the human need for intimacy- it's in our biology.”

“How did he respond to that?”

You waved a hand for him to follow and walked around the wide trunk to pat another carving, “He carved one of the proposed structures of Humic acid. It’s produced by the breakdown of organic matter. He reasoned that since it is found where something has died or decayed, essentially everywhere, that we are always surrounded by death just as much as we are surrounded by life.”

“Wow, that’s…”

“Dark? Sherlock’s always been a bit morbid,” you chuckled.

“He’s such a hypocrite- he keeps saying my blog romanticizes the truth but this seems oddly poetic,” John huffed tracing a finger over the scared bark and you placed a hand on his shoulder with the soft lilt of a laugh hitting his ears a moment later.

He glanced over at you, “Why did you bring me here?”

“It’s quiet and I like it here. I thought I would share,” you shrugged, walking back around the tree and sticking your hand outside its circumference to feel the rain that was still coming down.

John just watched you for a moment, rubbing at his hair to help it dry. You hair was plastered to your face and neck and your clothes were covered in a smattering of darker spots just like his but you didn’t seem to mind in the slightest. A smile curved at your lips as you caught some of the rain in your cupped hands before letting it fall to the ground with a little splash. You’d brought him some place with a lot of meaning to you, shown him part of your life that he doubted anyone aside from you and Sherlock had ever seen. There was definitely something to that no matter how causally you'd brushed it off.

He took a few steps closer to you and you suddenly turned, running into him again, but this time you didn’t step away and neither did he. Your chin lifted to look at him- he wasn’t much taller than you, maybe and inch or so, and your eyes were nearly level. You appreciated that for a moment since with Sherlock you always head to crane your neck to look him in the eyes and you could never quite see into them over the distance. With John it was different, you could see the grey-blue of his eyes quite clearly and it was almost as though you were looking into his very soul. You tilted your head slightly as you thought, ‘People say that, right? The eyes are windows to the soul or something like that?’

Neither of you noticed that the gap between you was slowly growing smaller as you each searched the other’s eyes, until your lips were about to touch and you stopped staring as they fluttered closed. The moment of contact never came as the loud sound of a car horn startled you apart. John looked royally peeved when you both turned to find Mycroft, sitting almost smugly in the driver’s seat of the same grey Bentley you’d taken from the station.

He raised an expectant eyebrow and the two of you scrambled over to hop in, finding the floor and seats already covered with towels to keep the interior clean. Mycroft simply offered, “Mother sent me to see to it you didn’t walk back in the rain and catch a cold,” as explanation for his presence, turning the car around to take you back to the house. You gave him a wide grin and a thank you before starting up a conversation about one of the books you’d both read while John crossed his arms over his chest in a sulk and glared at the back of the other man’s head. He was more than sure he’d interrupted on purpose. What was Mycroft’s deal?