Conversations in the Loo with Sherlock Holmes and John Watson

John was fairly sure that it had been an accident to start out with.

The third morning he had been living with Sherlock, the detective had walked into the bathroom when John was just stepping into the shower.

Let it first be said that the bathroom door didn't have a lock. Well, it did, but it didn't catch, so it might as well not have had a lock at all.

Secondly, John was not a prude. He had spent too much time in far worse circumstances in Afghanistan to be self-conscious, but there was something exceedingly awkward about your new, potentially sociopathic, and absolutely, completely bonkers flatmate striding into the bathroom and then proceeding to ogle you like who are you and why are you in my toilet?

John stared back at him for approximately enough time to blink twice.

"Uh, sorry," he started, reaching for his dressing gown. "I can-"

"No," Sherlock said immediately, taking a step back. "No, that won't be necessary." He reached for the doorknob, and missed, his hand falling away into the empty space around it. "I, uh..." He cleared his throat. "Sorry. Used to living alone." He waved his hand as though to gesture to the flat, and then gripped the doorknob. "... Sorry."

And then he pulled the door closed and was gone.

Sherlock had looked honest to goodness flustered. It was a memory that John could still smile over, a bedheaded Sherlock Holmes, clad in t-shirt and pyjama pants, eyes fogged by sleep, looking flustered.

The second time, however, John had begun to catch on that Sherlock was blurring the line on personal boundaries.

It was about three months after John had moved in that Sherlock did it again, although with an excuse and no qualms this time.

Three months was a long time with Sherlock Holmes, especially after the events of what he and Sherlock had dubbed The Great Game, but some things had to have boundaries.

John poked his head outside the shower curtain.

He had heard Sherlock open the bathroom door and stride in without so much as a word, and he was rummaging for something still without a word. Not only was it irritating because he was in the loo while John was in the shower - hence, boundaries - but Sherlock wasn't bloody explaining himself.

"Sherlock?" he prompted, pushing water out of his eyes.

Sherlock didn't look up. "Mmm-hmm?"

"What are you doing?"

"I left a leaflet of- oh! There it is." Sherlock whisked a piece of paper from the pile on the countertop.

"Did you perhaps notice that I'm in here?" John asked as patiently as possible. He had found that he had a striking amount of patience for his barmy flatmate, even moreso than he had thought himself capable.

"Yes." Sherlock looked around, tilting his head slightly. "You're got some shampoo. Just here." He touched a spot behind his ear, and then turned and strode out.

John sighed and felt for the missed shampoo, exactly where Sherlock had pointed out. He shook his head and went back to his shower.

And then, just like that, there were no personal boundaries.

Sherlock waltzed in like he owned the place, when John was in the shower, on the loo, shaving. He either needed to use the loo or was looking for an experiment, or evidence, or asking John's opinion on five different types of plants growing outside a victim's window.

John decided to pay back in kind, giving Sherlock no benefit of privacy if he felt so inclined to traverse into the bathroom when Sherlock was occupying it. Once, Sherlock had gone in for a bath that had stretched on two hours; John had gone in to find him asleep, still in the bath.

"Seriously?"

Sherlock opened his eyes slowly, looking up towards him tiredly.

"Get out of the tub and go to bed!" John demanded.

"I'm not tired," Sherlock mumbled.

"That's because you've just slept away your bath. And I bet-" John stooped down, dipping his fingers into the water. "Yeah, your water is cold. Get out, now."

"Go away."

"Sherlock," he started warningly.

Sherlock huffed and, nostrils flaring, suddenly stood up amidst a wave of slopping, sloshing water. Water rolled down his bare skin as he half-glared - with about as much ferocity as a kitten - at John, as though daring him to say anything about it.

John rolled his eyes, grabbed the towel, and shoved it into his chest. Sherlock wrapped his arms around it sleepily. "Seriously," John muttered, and turned to leave the room.

Then there was the particularly memorable case where John had come home from a day of temp work to find that Sherlock had filled the bath with water and actual live ducklings.

"Are you kidding me?"

Sherlock's footsteps echoed throughout the flat. It sounded like he was wearing socks, not shoes, which probably meant he hadn't met a client, so these ducklings were... for an experiment. For fun.

"Don't hurt them!" Sherlock burst into the bathroom, in pyjamas and socks, hair flyaway into his face. He looked between the squawking ducklings and John, eyes wide.

John frowned. "What, did you think I was going to?"

Sherlock let out a breath, shoulders slumping.

"Should I even ask?"

Sherlock gave a tiny shrug, going to sit on the edge of the tub. "They are for an experiment, but I swear I'm not performing anything on them. Merely studying their habits." He held out his hand towards the ducklings, stroking one of them with the back of his knuckle.

John smiled faintly to himself. (There was something to behold regarding Sherlock and animals, any animals, although the smaller or younger the animal, the better. Give him a cat and he was pleased, but give him a kitten and he was more or less putty.)

"So, why the ducks?"

"Tsk, I thought you had better manners than that," Mrs Hudson's voice floated down the hall. "John Watson, I thought your mother taught you- oh! Sorry," she said, upon seeing them both in the bathroom. "I wasn't thinking."

"Mrs Hudson...!" John sighed and started after her. "I said ducks, Sherlock has ducks, and we weren't doing anything."

Or the conversations that ensued over the course of cases and experiments and, most plain and simply, life.

"What are you doing in here?" John muttered, pushing the bathroom door open.

Sherlock was sprawled out in the bath tub, which was devoid of water, still in his cotton shirt and black slacks. He had folded his arms behind his head and was staring up at the ceiling with an emotionless expression.

"Sherlock?"

Sherlock shook his head slightly, tossing it from left to right. His hair bounced a little, but that was the only other movement. "Need to think."

"Okay..." John trailed off, frowning. Something about this felt off. Sherlock, when he was in a sulk or had a trigger, could easily fall into the blackest of moods. It felt like that. It felt like one of those days, and John didn't have a clue why. "Okay," he repeated.

He turned and left the bathroom. He brewed two cups of tea, picked up the tin of biscuits, and went back to the bathroom.

Without a word, he set the mug of tea on the tub. He popped open the tin and set three of the biscuits next to the mug, and then he sat down on the floor with his own mug of tea.

"... Are we having tea-time in the bathroom now," Sherlock intoned, although he reached over with long, pale fingers to pick up a biscuit.

John nibbled on one of the biscuits. "Yes."

Sherlock just raised an eyebrow, his silent way of sarcastically saying well, that's interesting. He held his biscuit in his tea for a moment before taking a bite of it. He didn't say anything else; and so, neither did John.

Sometimes, in the best of friendships, conversation bypassed words.

So, sometimes John complained when Sherlock flounced into the bathroom in the middle of his shower complaining that he'd had too much tea and John was taking too long and sometimes John stalked in on Sherlock to demand what the hell he was thinking, tackling that suspect like that, and sometimes Sherlock would flop down outside the shower, cross his legs and lean back against the cabinets to discuss the case of the day, and sometimes John would follow Sherlock into the bathroom if he was in a strange mood and John didn't want to leave him alone. Sometimes they talked and sometimes they didn't. Sometimes John shouted and sometimes Sherlock shouted. On one memorable occasion, they'd ended up having a water fight (don't ask).

One time, Greg had come upstairs to find both John and Sherlock in the bathroom, Sherlock half sprawled over the counter (because he was lanky and also being dramatic as all get out: "John, it hurts, you're making it hurt worse, why do you have to do your doctor stuff? It's annoying."Shut up, Sherlock.") because Sherlock had managed to get into a knife fight and get a nice gash from his side to his back. Of course, Greg had given them a weird look and promptly walked out.

It probably wasn't a normal thing. Their bathroom was lived-in, anyway.

"John!"

John glanced up from the paper. "What?"

"Where are the towels?"

"Probably in the dryer if you didn't bring them up!" John called.

"... Get me a towel!" Sherlock yelled back.

John rolled his eyes.

"John?"

"Yeah, just hold onto your knickers!"

"I don't have knickers, I'm in the bath, which I'd like to get out of!"

"I should make you streak to get them," John yelled, but stood up to go retrieve the towels nonetheless.

This was inspired by a conversation with xlovelikewar (she actually wrote her own version of John and Sherlock hanging out in the bathroom, so do check it out if you get the chance!), which was inspired by my recent Christmas story. I don't know why, I have a little obsession with Sherlock and John not having boundaries and not bothering to knock for, like, anything. I meant to make this into a series, but I quite like it this way. Boundaryless!Sherlock&John is a guilty pleasure (which is probably why I end up writing them platonically cuddling all the time too).

I do not own Sherlock. Thanks for reading!