Live In Love

What Did You Call Me?

"Sh-Sherlock?" John stammered as his wobbly legs led his body out of the alley. "What did...what just happened?"

"I kissed you," he said matter-of-factly, holding up his hand to hail a cab. "Now, what would you like to eat?"

John paused for a moment. "Why?" he asked softly.

"Well, I figured by now you would be hungry so-"

"Not the lunch, you git. Why did you kiss me? In front of everybody?"

Sherlock frowned and turned to look at him. "They were being cruel. I wanted them to stop."

John furrowed his brows a bit. "Sherlock..."

A cab arrived in front of them and Sherlock climbed in without a word. John followed in after him and shifted so he was looking at Sherlock. "We need t-"

"Le Mercury," Sherlock interrupted John to tell the driver.

The cab pulled away from the curb and Sherlock looked at John. "We don't need to talk about it," he said, finishing John's sentence.

"Actually we do. Maybe I didn't really appreciate being attacked like that in front of our colleagues."

"Colleagues? You call those people our colleagues? A more appropriate term for them would be distracting, useless, imbecilic pieces of sh-"

"We work with them almost daily. They are our colleagues."

"No. I work. Everyone else just stands around with idiotic expressions on their face."

John pursed his lips. "You...are treading on very thin ice, Sherlock."

"Oh, come now, I didn't mean you," he said softly.

"Right," he murmured.

Sherlock looked over at him. "John," he said softly. He reached for his hand. "Really. Not you. Never you..."

John closed his eyes with a sigh and took the other man's hand. "I just...I get worried that you think I'm an idiot."

"Well compared to me, you are."

John yanked his hand away.

"Not good?"

"Yea, a bit not good," he snapped.

Sherlock sighed and put his hand over his face. "John, I'm trying," he murmured. "I'm new at this. I don't know what to do..."

"Well now who's the bloody idiot?" John grumbled. "I'm Sherlock Holmes. I know everything under the God blessed Sun and I make sure everybody knows it. Even when I don't know it, I act like I do just to make everyone else seem numpty."

Sherlock frowned a bit and looked down at his lap in silence.

John fumed a bit more before exhaling softly and looking at Sherlock. He pulled the other man close and gently kissed the top of his curls. "I'm sorry I lost my temper," he whispered.

"I deserved it," Sherlock murmured.

"No, you didn't," he shook his head. "I need to learn how to control that." John began playing with Sherlock's curls. "I just worry about how they will treat you now. They already teased you enough before this...I hate to see how they'll be now."

"Well that's what I have my big, strong, soldier for, isn't it?" Sherlock asked with a hint of a smile.

John chuckled. "I was just a doctor."

"You had bad days."

John began laughing. "You're awful, you know that?"

Sherlock looked up at him with an actual smile now, the corners of his eyes crinkling. "Yea. I know."

John leaned down and kissed him softly. "Maybe next time we just stick with insulting and not an impromptu make-out. I didn't like the feeling of Anderson watching us..."

"Yet another thing he has ruined for us."

John rolled his eyes with a smile, not saying anything else as he watched the city pass by outside the cab window.

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Roughly an hour and a half later the pair had finished eating their lunch. John carried the leftovers while Sherlock trailed behind him with a smug look on his face.

"Sherlock?"

"Hmm?"

"Quit staring at my arse."

Sherlock turned pink. "I wa-no I'm not...shut up, I wasn't," he stammered out the pathetic lie.

John turned to look at him once they made it out to the sidewalk. "I could practically hear your eyes moving along with my hips," he teased.

Sherlock turned crimson and looked away from the man's face. "Do you want to take a cab or walk home?"

"You just want to walk so you can watch me again," John teased.

"Cab it is," Sherlock said, raising his hand.

John laughed and took his arm, pushing it down a bit to lower the man's hand. "No, I'm just taking the mickey, Sherlock, come on."

"Taking the mickey?"

John raised a brow. "Never heard that before?"

"No."

"Oh...it's like when someone teases or something. They take the mickey."

"Interesting."

"Erm...right. Guess I need to teach you a few slang words," he said as he began walking.

"I'm perfectly fine with not understanding the meaning of those absurd colloquialisms people choose to use instead of actual vocabulary. Those who do so are not people I want to associate with anyway."

John smirked. "Awh, you're all mouth and no trousers."

"That sounded very sexual. Was it intended?"

John blushed. "No..."

"Ah."

"Don't act so tosh, Sherlock."

"John, you're embarrassing yourself."

"Are you getting miffed? Going to throw a paddy?"

"I'm about to throw my short-arse boyfriend under a bloody bus if he doesn't stop sounding like chav."

John stopped and looked at him, his mouth parted a bit. "What did you call me?" he asked in a quiet voice.

"See? I know some slang. Chav means ignorant, trashy, lowerclass per-"

"Boyfriend."

Sherlock stopped, furrowing his brows a bit. "I'm sorry?"

"You called me your boyfriend."

Sherlock blinked a couple of times, his own mouth dropping a bit. "O-oh. I um...Sorry, I got...caught up in the...and I..."

John reached up with both hands, grabbing Sherlock's face and pulling him down in a deep kiss.

Sherlock let out a muffled sound of surprise, unsure what to do in that instance until John pulled away.

John looked at Sherlock with a wide grin. "So. Am I your boyfriend? Or am I still just your live-in?"

Sherlock stammered, unable to come up with a response.

John smirked. "Taking it that the answer is the former." He pat the man's chest lightly. "Careful, Sherlock. Stand around like that much longer and you'll catch flies." He turned on his heels and headed down the sidewalk, swaying his hips a bit as he left.