Apparently I ship this now? I don't know. Really. My fandoms pull me in so many directions it hurts.
I hope you enjoy! No, really, I hope you do, because this is my first f/f fic and I'm terrified.
/
one shot: i won't give up
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"Y'know," Harry says, running a fingertip lazily along the rim of her wine glass, "your life would be so much easier if you just admitted it."
Jo cringes. She knows what's coming – Harry seems completely incapable of not bringing this up every time they meet – but it still hurts nonetheless. Doesn't she understand? Doesn't she see how much of a soft spot this is for her? "Admitted what?" she demands, a little unnecessarily.
Harry snorts. "You know what." She rolls her eyes. "How sickeningly in love you are with Sherlock bloody Holmes."
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The first time Jo means Sherlock, it's a Tuesday.
She always remembers this, God only knows why. If she's asked in twenty years what she remembers about Sherlock, it will be 'beautiful eyes' and 'genius' and 'Tuesday'. It's just the way things are. Tuesday is no longer a day of the week; it's the Day That Jo Met Sherlock Holmes.
That, in itself, is a beautiful and tragic thing.
"Afghanistan or Iraq?" Sherlock demands. Her eyelashes brush her cheek when her eyes narrow, and contrasted against the pale, almost luminescent, skin, she looks like an old painting of a fallen angel that Jo once saw at one of her mother's art exhibitions.
"How –"
But then Molly comes in, Sherlock's pretty not-quite-secretary, and Jo is left standing there, feeling a bit – okay, a lot – like an idiot.
"Name's Sherlock Holmes," Sherlock will throw over her shoulder later, a mischievous glint in her eye. "Address is 221B Baker Street." And then she winks at Jo and disappears, Jo standing there and staring blankly after her, blinking at the pale white wall like it might finally spit out some answers.
/
Jo doesn't know if Sherlock is straight. She doesn't know if Sherlock even likes people, in general. There's been whispers (exchanged secrets behind yellow police tape that Sherlock most definitely hears and yet never speaks out about) of 'asexual' and 'sociopath' and 'freak', but Jo thinks that's impossible.
Sherlock is full of so much love that it overwhelms Jo sometimes. She just doesn't let anybody see it. Not purposely, anyway.
But - sometimes, when she's with Jo, it shines through. Just a little bit.
"Are you alright?"
"Yes, of course I'm alright."
"Well, you have just killed a man."
"Yes, that's true. But - he wasn't a very nice man."
"No...no, he wasn't, really, was he?"
"And frankly, a bloody awful cabbie."
When Sherlock laughs, her cheeks dimple and her eyes shine. She looks human. She looks beautiful. Her hair falls out of its band and splays across her neck. She stops laughing. So does Jo. There's a moment where the two girls just stare at each other, and Jo would give anything to be able to just learn forward and kiss the surprise off Sherlock's face.
Jo is the first to turn away. If Sherlock notices the pink tinge to her friend's cheeks, she doesn't say anything.
/
It's a cold afternoon, Sherlock has no work, it looks like it's about to snow, and the heating's not working. Jo knows better than to think this could possibly end well.
"I'm bored."
"I know, Sherlock."
"And tired."
"Then sleep, Sherlock."
"But I'm cold."
Jo lets out an exasperated sigh, slamming shut her laptop (okay, so, maybe she carefully closes it because she's paranoid, but she wishes she'd slammed the damn thing). "Sherlock," she says patiently, "what do you want me to do about it?"
"Fix the heating," says Sherlock petulantly.
Jo rolls her eyes. "You'll just have to –"
"Wait for Ms Hudson to get home, I know." Sherlock sighs dramatically, and then she gains a suddenly enlightened look.
Uh oh.
"Joanna," Sherlock says commandingly, "come here."
Jo cocks an eyebrow at her mad roommate. "Why?"
"Because you look warm," whines Sherlock, running a perfectly manicured hand over her face, "and I want to be warm, too."
Which is how Jo finds herself, ten minutes later, sitting on the sofa watching Corrie with an unconscious Sherlock on her lap, arms wrapped tightly around Jo's midriff, warm breath drifting over her leg.
Oh, the cruelty of it all.
/
"Death by asphyxiation."
"Anderson, do stop talking."
"What? The marks around the woman's neck clearly suggest –"
"Suggest! Of course, suggest! Don't you ever use your brain, Anderson? Oh, that's right. You don't have one." Sherlock sneers in contempt.
"She was poisoned," Jo says quietly. Everybody turns to stare at her. Sherlock hides a smile behind her hand.
"What?" Anderson demands. "That's impossible. The marks –"
"Were administered after death," Sherlock says flatly. "She was poisoned. Take a blood sample. You'll find that Jo is perfectly correct in her deduction."
Jo blushes. Sherlock throws her an odd look, like she wants to say something but doesn't. Finally, she looks away to order some 'mindless idiot' to 'get his incompetent arse to the laboratory'.
/
When Jo wakes up at 1AM in the morning to Sherlock slipping beneath the covers of her bed, she's sure that she's still dreaming.
"Sherlock," she mumbles, "what are you doing?"
"Cold," Sherlock says, and that's when Jo knows this is definitely not a dream, because her dream Sherlock would say something way more romantic. And unrealistic. "Heating's turned off again."
"Sherlock," Jo says tiredly, "it does that. It's on something called a timer."
Sherlock is still inching closer to Jo, wriggling. "I know what a timer is," she snaps, but her heart isn't really in it. Then she appears to find a comfortable spot – right next to Jo. Everything seems to be touching – their thighs, arms, foreheads, chests.
"Okay. Fine," Jo concedes. "Now go back to sleep."
Sherlock looks at Jo for a few long moments, and then she leans forwards, placing a clumsy feather-light kiss on Jo's mouth.
"Sherlock–" Jo starts when she's recovered a reasonable heart rate.
She looks to the space beside her. Sherlock's already asleep.
/
They don't talk about it. Jo comes to the conclusion that Sherlock was so tired that she was delusional, and therefore cannot be taken accountable for her actions. Nor, you know, does she remember it.
Jo's life seems to be just one headache after another.
Over the next few weeks, Jo won't even notice it until it's too late, but she'll slowly, and very, very tragically, fall in love with Sherlock Holmes.
/
Sherlock thinks that her brother Mycroft kidnaps Jo for serious talks about Sherlock's safety. This is true.
Well, sort of.
"Who's that Greg Lestrade man I met the other day?" demands Mycroft, looking for all the world like he could not care less if he tried. "He's…interesting."
Jo hides a smile behind her coffee cup. "He's a detective," she explains. "He 'hires' Sherlock, and you know damn well who he is, so if you haven't any questions, don't pussyfoot, Mycroft. It's not becoming." Jo smirks.
He sighs. "He's…"
"Handsome? Fit? A total hottie?" Jo's grin widens. Mycroft blushes. He blushes. Jo didn't know the British Government could blush. "Oh, Mycroft," she giggles.
Giggles.
Like a fourteen year old girl.
Gah.
"I could give you his number, if you like," Jo says, hiding another giggle by taking a swig of coffee.
"No," Mycroft says, a very determined look on his face. "I'll ask him."
Jo can't stop herself then, and she laughs so hard she falls off her chair and receives an indignant huff from the waiter who she accidentally – really – falls in the path of.
/
Sherlock is dangerous and awful and sometimes Jo wonders if she's even human. But then she'll do something wonderful, or she'll smile at one of Jo's compliments, and it's like staring right at the truth, at the humanity that's itching to get out.
Sherlock is dangerous and awful and sometimes Jo wonders why she loves her. But then Sherlock will do something wonderful, and Jo remembers exactly why.
/
I'll burn you. I'll burn the heart out of you.
I've been reliably informed that I don't have one.
Oh, we both know that's not quite true.
Leave her alone.
Oh, touchy, aren't we?
Don't you see, Ms Holmes? She is your heart. And I won't need to burn the heart out of you – you're going to do it yourself.
An intake of breath. Jo nods to Sherlock's questioning glance. Sherlock's gun goes off. Bomb explodes. Sherlock's grieving eyes – the last thing she sees.
/
"Jo?"
Sherlock.
"Jo?"
"Joanna Watson! If you are dead, I swear to God –" Her voice cracks. Sherlock Holmes's voice actually breaks, shatters like glass, falling to tiny little pieces. What a weird, weird day this is.
"Here," Jo finally manages to rasp. She pushes herself up off the floor, trying to struggle out from beneath the bit of roof that has fallen on her legs. Sherlock swings to face her, does a sort of dive-sprint, and proceeds to violently push pieces of debris off Jo.
"God – Jo – I'm," Sherlock pants as she frantically works, "so sorry. This shouldn't have happened. Fuck. No. Oh, God. I'm sorry. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, fuck, fuck, fuck." She's staring down in horror at something on Jo's thigh, something wet and – ouch. Painful.
Jo forces herself to sit up and looks down at her leg. An especially sharp piece of roof has apparently cuts its way into her leg – nearly going clean through.
"Oh," she says faintly, and promptly proceeds to fall unconscious.
/
"She'll be fine."
"It doesn't matter that she'll be fine. It matters that she got hurt in the first place! Because of me. When I get my hands on Moriarty -"
"Yes, yes, you'll tear him limb from limb etcetera etcetera."
"I was actually going to suggest making him eat his ow- Hey, what's got you in such a good mood? Oh my god - "
"Sherlock, stop deducing me."
"You're sleeping with Lestrade? As in - Lestrade?"
"We're - not - he -"
"Oh, god. You're mumbling. This is bad. You like him. Oh, I feel nauseous."
"Says the girl who's in love with her loyal sidekick."
"Jo is not my side-kick."
"So you admit that you're in love with her?"
"Shut up."
Jo decides that she has very weird dreams. I mean, come on, Sherlock, in love with her? This could be nothing but a painkiller-induced dream. The likeliness of that happening was so minimal she wanted to laugh and cry at the same time.
/
"Guh," is the first thing Jo says when she wakes up.
"Why is there blood on the ceiling," is the second.
"Damnit, I'd kill for a coffee right now," is the third.
Sherlock is there. She stares at Jo for a moment, before embracing her roughly. She quickly pulls back and kisses Jo so fiercely she feels she might cry from how wonderful this is - and how it must be a dream, because things like this just don't bloody well happen in real life. When the other woman responds eagerly, she leans into the kiss, running long fingertips along Jo's arms, smoothing out the crinkles of the bland hospital gown. Unfortunately, Jo has to breathe eventually. When she pulls back, she rasps, "I'm glad you're alive."
Sherlock lets out a sharp laugh. "You nearly die and you say that you're glad I'm alive?" She throws her hands up in exasperation, and mutters, "And they say I'm mad."
"I'm not mad," Jo says matter-of-factly, clearly still high of the morphine they've dosed her up on. "I just love you."
Sherlock's eyes widen comically. She can deduce anything when it comes to people, but she doesn't have a clue when it comes to feelings, it seems. "Okay," she says. And then, again, "Okay."
Jo smiles. "You're an idiot."
"That makes two of us, then," deadpans Sherlock, before sighing and, unable to stop herself, kissing the woman long and kiss screams of You're alive and thought I'd lost you and I'm sorry, so sorry.
Minutes later, when Jo's eyes have slid shut, her body worn out from blood loss and fighting, Sherlock looks down at her roommate and smiles. "I love you, too, you know," she whispers, and then presses her lips to Jo's forehead, leans back in her chair, and finally - after twenty hours of sleepless worry for Jo - falls asleep.
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Jo smiles at her sister. "Why do I need to admit it?" she demands. "It's pretty much common knowledge anyway. People always talk. They do little else. Sometimes they get it right."
"You," Harry says decidedly, "are mad."
Jo's grin widens. "There are worse things to be."
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