I know stalking is a terrible thing - I myself have been stalked before - but concerning Mycroft and poor Jawn, it's just bloody irrestible. xD Again, I'm not crazy. How else would they be able to stop Mycroft's obsession with Jawn without actually killing him? Ah, and one part was taken from a suggestion by Stephy-Lou Clark-Weasley. Enjoy!

Pretend With Me

Notice me, John. I'll be watching you.

It had been a week since Dr. John Watson had recieved the text from his flatmate Sherlock Holmes's obsessive brother, Mycroft Holmes. Although claiming to hold a minor position in the British Government, Sherlock often retorted that he was the British Government. And John was rightfully starting to agree with him. In the past week, he'd rarely gone anywhere without Sherlock. There'd been a few exceptions - the shower, his bedroom, and other places of the like - but otherwise, the dark haired consulting detective was practically glued to him.

If it were about any other thing, John would have complained that Sherlock followed him everywhere. However, in this case, John didn't mind. He actually, in fact, perfered it. The alternative was Mycroft finding him again, with those lovesick, stalker eyes. The eyes that John Watson dreamed about every night; Mycroft standing over him, reaching out and stroking his cheek gently. His fingertips lingered over the sensitive skin, and those lips whispered the words he'd said to John in the car that afternoon - the afternoon John and Sherlock had begun calling "the Revelation". The Revelation of the fact that Mycroft Holmes was obsessed with Dr. John Watson, the retired army doctor.

Each dream was nearly the same. John would be happily tucked in bed, sound asleep, and the door would creak open. In soundless footsteps, the stranger would shut the door in silence and creep over to the side of John's bed and reach down to brush his fingertips over his cheek, lingering on the sensitive flesh. Those lips would whisper the words he told John the night of the Revelation.

John, I want you to understand something. You belong to me, no one else. You're mine, John Watson. Mine.

John would always wake up screaming.

In fact, he screamed so loud, that not only did Sherlock come running into the ex-army doctor's room, but Mrs. Hudson from downstairs found herself running up the stairs and running into the room. They would linger over his bed, just as Mycroft's fingers lingered over his cheek, and he would tell him that was just another Mycroft dream, they could go back to sleep.

It was the week anniversary of "the Revelation" that John woke up screaming that Sherlock actually came into the room and shut the door behind him. He sat down on the bed next to John. Self concious, the ex-army doctor moved slightly to the right, in order to escape the foriegn object now sitting on his bed. In the darkness, Sherlock's hair looked like a black cloud upon his head, and his eyes shined eerily. "We've got to do something about this."

"I'm fine," John protested, blinking the sleep and the terror from his eyes.

"No, you're keeping me up at night. I need to sleep so that I can be ready for the next day. We need to solve this."

"And what exactly do you think we're going to do about this that we're not already doing?"

Sherlock took a moment to mull this over. "You could give into Mycroft?" he recieved the most dirtiest look from John he'd ever recieved. Even dirtier than when Sherlock had begun to deduce his current girlfriend, and called her a "he", revealing the fact that she'd had a transgender operation. "You know, for humor's sake."

"Who's humor?" John retorted. "Yours?"

Sherlock shook his head rapidly in denial. "No, no, for his. Make him believe you like him back. Perhaps he'll lose interest after a while and move on, and then you can do the same."

John rolled his eyes. "Damn it all, Sherlock. You're absolutely no help at all."

The aforementioned consulting detective sighed in exasperation. "I'm not sure what 'help' you require at this point, John. I offered my advice. What, do you want me to be all posessive and jealous?"

"Ye-NO! No. No, not at all. Definitely not."

After a moment's pause, Sherlock dared to say, "Actually, that's not a bad idea."

"What's not a bad idea?"

"Hold on, John," Sherlock tapped the blankets once before leaping to his feet. "I've got a plan, and it's going to get Mycroft off both of our tails. And then I can actually sleep at night. Good night, John!" And the goddamn bastard was gone.

Alone in the darkness, terrified of Sherlock's said "plan", John did the thing he did whenever he was in a predicament like this.

He wished for jam.

"You can't be serious."

The first words out of John Watson's mouth were these when his incredibly daft, mad consulting detective flatmate told him the plan he'd thought up the night before. It was an insane plan, a mad plan, a horrible plan. Yet somewhere, in the darkest, most unreasonable corners of John's mind, the ex-army doctor found himself believing that it just might work. There was a small chance, a miniscule chance, but it might work.

God, he'd gone off the edge.

"I am serious," Sherlock confirmed, smirking with his hands clasped together beneath his chin, sitting contentedly in what had been dubbed "his chair". "Come on, John, it won't be that hard. All you have to do is pretend you're in a relationship. With me. This way, Mycroft will see the competiton and, as we hope, move on to some other poor soul."

Groaning, John sat down in his own chair and sipped gently at his cuppa. "Why can't I just find another nice female - a female, Sherlock, a woman! - that I can pretend to be in a relationship with? I'm not gay, if you haven't noticed."

With a nod, Sherlock leapt on his chair, putting his feet on the cushions in a rather strange sitting position. "I know that, John. I'm not saying that you are. I'm just saying that you have to pretend to be. And we can't put you in a relationship with anyone else but myself; there's no one else that Mycroft would see as a potencial competiton and take it up with me, instead of you."

A moment's silence passed between the two of them. Finally, John cleared his throat with a large amount of nervousness and clarified, "So all I have to do is pretend to be in love with you for a little while, so that we can throw Mycroft off the trail, and he'll take it up with you instead of me?"

"Precisely."

Rubbing his forehead, John laid his head back against the soft cushion of the chair and weighed the odds for a moment. If he did just this one thing - this one, small thing that could ruin his reputation as straight forever - than all his problems with the stalker Mycroft Holmes would be gone. However, if he didn't, then Mycroft would continue to mercilessly stalk him until things got completely and utterly out of hand; then, John would have to take up Sherlock's original problem solving explanation of him giving into Mycroft.

No. That was absolutely the last thing he would do.

John took another tentative sip from his cup of tea and finally sighed. "Fine. Fine! I'll do it. I'll pretend to be in a bloody relationship with you, Sherlock Holmes, because I want to stop being stalked, and I want it to be sometime soon, thank you very much."

Sherlock's grin lit up the room, his fingers ever moving on the wood of the chair. "Brilliant. We have to go to very public places, where Mycroft or his bodyguards can see us. Pretty soon Mycroft will get wind of it, and we'll deal with it from there."

"Pretty soon? How long is pretty soon?"

"Oh, I'd expect two to three days. Maybe even less. Oh, he'll know about it within a few hours; but he'll let it simmer before he takes any real action."

Wondering exactly what he had just agreed to, John inquired, "So what are we going to do in these 'very public places'? Are we going to hold hands, slow dance, talk..." Dare he say it? "...kiss?"

Afirming it with a nod, Sherlock sat back down on his bottom rather than his feet. "Yes, that's right," he paused when he saw John's rather, shall one say, multi-emotional expression. "Problem?"

"N-no," John cleared his throat. Think of jam, John. And tea. Nice warm tea. "Not at all."

Sherlock grinned. "Pretend with me, John."

The first instance where John and Sherlock went out in public as a fake couple to allow Mycroft to get wind of it was the worst. John figured, as soon as he left 221B Baker Street with Sherlock in front of him, the first time was always the worst. People would stare, ask questions, and he would see people he knew. God, this was going to be a nightmare.

However, when those eyes and those words flashed in John's mind, he became suddenly very glad that he'd agreed to Sherlock's proposition.

They began walking down the street, and John tossed a side glanced to his flatmate and pretend boyfriend. The bastard Sherlock Holmes. "So, what do you suppose we do now that we're out in public?" he inquired, his voice low.

Suddenly, he felt fingers slipping between his own, and John swallowed the yelp he knew was coming up his throat. He was holding hands with Sherlock. Sure, John had been through some pretty weird experiences. This, however, was by far one of the strangest.

The aforementioned consulting detective turned his head slightly to the side, his eyes lingering from the road ahead to John for a split second, then back. "You're doing surprisingly well, John. I would have thought you would have reacted more negatively to a situation like this."

"Piss off," John spat goodnaturedly.

Oh goodness, did people stare. Eyes dropped on them, as though they were walking down the said street without clothes. The main attraction of Baker Street, and the streets they walked on beyond. Think of jam, John told himself again, the sticky substance he often used as a calming method. "Cafe," Sherlock said out of the side of his mouth, giving John just enough time to register what Sherlock had said before the consulting detective yanked him in the opposite direction. John stumbled along in the direction Sherlock directed him in, and found himself inside a cafe he knew well.

Finally, their hands released contact as they sat down, on opposite sides of the table. "Shouldn't we have practiced first before coming out into public?" John asked Sherlock, panic rising in his throat as the waitress he'd been trying to hit on the past few weeks before the Revelation walking over towards their table. "You know, make sure everything is choreographed?"

"Relax, you'll do fine," Sherlock assured him, but it was the other man that John was worried might take things a little farther than the ex-army doctor was comfortable with. Sure, Sherlock might have not been a complete stranger, but he was still just his flatmate, and he was still a man at that. Smiling up at the waitress, he made sure to annunciate every word that spelled out John's social doom. "Hi, my boyfriend and I would like to share the Caesar's Salad, please," she nodded, looking over at John with a shocked expression, then walked away without even a "anything else?".

"I'm doomed," John muttered, putting his head in his hands.

The salad came fast, and John indulged in it in order to keep himself distracted from the pointed stares he was getting. At one point, John glanced up to see what Sherlock, who almost never ate, was doing. He hadn't even taken any sort of salad; he was just sitting there.

Just sitting there.

"Sherlock, aren't you going to-" was a far as John got before his pretend boyfriend reached out and used his thumb to wipe a piece of salad dressing from the corner of John's mouth. Suddenly, the air was full of tension and highly uncomfortable, as the thumb brushed the bit of salad dressing off his face, circled his lips, and then dropped entirely. John shot him a look that screamed what the hell was that all about? and Sherlock merely smiled.

The rest of the lunch was uneventful, but short. After the bit with Sherlock being, well, an adorning boyfriend, John wanted nothing more to get back to the flat and away from the world, from Sherlock, and from Mycroft bloody Holmes.

As soon as John was done, he hastily paid the bill, ignored the stares he was recieving from other customers - customers that he knew, god damn it, that had been his patients before - and waited for Sherlock to take his hand again before walking out the door. His breath slowed gently when Sherlock walked towards the edge of the road; he was going to hail a cab. Thank God.

"You've done good," Sherlock said, as he narrowly avoiding being hit by a passing cab. "I'm more surprised with the results than I've been on any other experiment before."

"W-wait-" John sputtered. "This i-is just an experiment to you?"

"Of course, John. What else do you think it would be?"

"A bloody way to keep me safe!"

Rolling his eyes, however unable to keep the smirk off his face, Sherlock sighed. "That's what it means to you. You're just participating in my experiment in order to keep yourself safe. You see?"

John was unable to speak.

As promised, the second instance where John and Sherlock went out as a "couple" was a little easier. At least the pain of potencial humiliation was gone, and people didn't stare as much. The tension that had burned John's shoulders slowly dropped little by little, and by the time they reached the street corner about a block away, it was gone completely.

"You know what comes next, John," Sherlock had said before they had left the flat, his eyes grave and serious. "Mycroft has obviously noticed that we're closer than usual, holding hands. He's letting it simmer, but he won't let it simmer for long before he decides that it's actually really nothing. We have to take it to the next step."

"And the next step is...?"

Sherlock had rubbed the bridge of his nose in annoyance. "Kissing, John. Snogging, mouth-to-mouth, whatever you want to call it."

And now here they were, walking down the streets of London holding hands, while Sherlock planned in that brilliant mind of his the exact perfect moment to snog John and alert Mycroft that they were, indeed, together. "You know, Sherlock," John commented as they took another sharp turn. "People usually snog in their flats, not out in the open."

"We're not 'people', are we, John?" Sherlock countered to his flatmate and pretend boyfriend, who groaned in responce. "And we need Mycroft to notice us; not the fact that he doesn't look into our flat windows, which he does, but we need to be public. More of a competiton."

"And you know this, how?"

Chuckling, Sherlock slid to a cool stop and brought John in front of him, intertwining his fingers with John's other hand and giving him that heated stare that drove John absolutely nuts. "He's done this to one other person before. Marybelle Horus, when we were twelve. He was facinated by the fact that they had the same letter last name, and Marybelle wanted nothing to do with him. Naturally, aiming to thicken the fog between us, I helped her out."

"You became her fake boyfriend."

"No, I had someone else become her fake boyfriend."

"And did it work?"

"No. So I snogged her in public, and he backed off."

"And that's how you know it will work with me?" John began to feel a little more comfortable with the situation; at least it had worked before. Still, nonetheless, it was bloody Sherlock that he had to bloody snog in public. He could say good bye to his social reputation. Remember, John, it's for the greater good. At least after this, Mycroft will no longer be everywhere, and forcing you to almost die as you jump into traffic rather than stay in the car with- What?

The startingly warm lips pressed against his head sent John into panic. He felt Sherlock's hands run around his waist, and John began to imagine Sherlock not as Sherlock, but as Sarah, or any other sort of girl. Any sort of female. There was definitely not a man running his fingers around his waist and playing with his slightly bunched jumper; and it was most certainly not a man, not Sherlock for that matter, who was reaching with his free hand, tilting John's chin up and-

All sort of coherent thought vanished from John's mind as soon as Sherlock's lips hit his. He wanted to leap away from their embrace, run for his goddamn life and never look back, move to another state and say good bye to the Holmes brothers and their ridiculous childish feud that he somehow got caught up in forever. But something inside him, something John had never really accessed before, resisted. Slowly, it became more apparent that he was kissing bloody Sherlock Holmes, the consulting detective and John flinched back.

The look in Sherlock's eyes was unreadable, and John found himself stuttering for words. "You're a very good kisser, John," he said, and John wanted more than anything to kiss him again.

He wasn't exactly sure why.

The final third instance - John found it rather creepy that it took three tries for Mycroft to actually take action against he and Sherlock, just as it had taken three times for Mycroft to drive John home before he took action to reveal his feelings for the ex-army doctor - that the two flatmates went out as a however fake couple was the "final step", according to Sherlock.

Snogging.

In public.

Sherlock Holmes and Dr. John Watson.

The kissing had been strange enough, but snogging was a whole other ordeal. Kissing was gentle, something he and Sherlock had not praticed since the day before in the street, but snogging? With touching and tongues and something that he only did with women? John Watson was most definitely straight, but this - this was like nothing he'd ever done before.

It was Sherlock Holmes. What did he expect?

He actually kind of welcomed the extra attention a bit; he'd been feeling lonely.

Once again they intertwined fingers as they stepped out onto the street. It wasn't long this time before Sherlock pressed a rather protesting John into one of the many winding alleyways of London, pressing him against the cool brick of the wall. "Sherlock, what are you-?" John got out before the aforementioned consulting detective crashed his lips into the doctor's.

It was a moment before Sherlock released a rather squirming John, who froze once his flatmate and pretend boyfriend kissed him. "Relax, John. It's snogging, as promised."

"Promised. Yeah."

"Don't worry," Sherlock assured, toying with the slightly frayed edge of John's favorite jumper. "It'll all be over soon."

Before John could think as much as That's usually what the villains in the horror movies say before they chop the protagonist up into little pieces, Sherlock was kissing him again. This one was less sporadic - John was aware that Sherlock was going to kiss him this time, and he was ready. For the first time since their little agreeance, John was actually ready. He tilted his own head up and met Sherlock's lips head on; something he wasn't exactly used to by now, but it was less new that it originally was.

Gently and tentatively, two words that John never thought he would assosiate with his flatmate, Sherlock reached out with his tongue and ran it long the ex-army doctor's bottom lip. Nervously, John opened his mouth just a bit, allowing Sherlock to dip his own tongue in. Snogging, yes, perfect. Here he was, John Watson, snogging Sherlock Holmes in an alleyway as a way to keep away said consulting detective's stalker brother from him.

It was damn near insane.

Stratch that, it was insane.

Suddenly, the screeching sound of familiar brakes alerted them. Sherlock broke the kiss and snapped his head up at the sound, not at all surprised to see a black car with tinted windows pull up to the curb. Immediately, John's heartrate increased, and the words repeated in his head: You're mine, John Watson. Mine.

Feeling the increase in heartrate, Sherlock pressed his lips gently to the top of John's head and said, "I'll deal with this," and promptly left him alone, cowering in the alleyway away from his stalker.

Who was right on the curb.

In his black, government-issue car with tinted windows.

The door swung open, and the very official Mycroft Holmes stepped out, his eyes never leaving John, who refused to come out of the alleyway. He began to walk at a quick pace towards the ex-army doctor, but Sherlock stepped in his way.

"You better feel lucky that I don't feel as strongly about you as you me, or else I would crush you right now. Step out of the way, please."

"No, Mycroft," Sherlock said, his voice stronger than it usually was when talking to his brother. "This has gone far enough. You've almost gotten John killed; it has to stop now."

"Says the man that was just snogging him in the alleyway. Step out of the way, please."

Mycroft's voice was so low and grueling that it scared John to the very bone. "John and I are together now, Mycroft," Sherlock snarled, his voice particularly nasty when he said he brother's name. "Therefore, you'll have to go through me to get to him."

"Don't make this seventh grade again, Sherlock."

"I will, if you don't back off. John's mine."

The familiarity of the phrase prompted John to take a tentitve step backwards. Even though Sherlock didn't mean it wholeheartedly, it sounded like it.

"Step out of the way, please."

"Mycroft, don't-"

"Sherlock."

"Mycroft!"

John had never heard Sherlock raise his voice that loudly to nearly anything. When he was trying to get a suspect to talk, or when he was particularly enraged about something, sure, but never to someone he knew. Someone he was related to, for Christ's sake. Slowly, Mycroft took his eyes off of the frankly cowardly John and turned towards his brother with a laser-point glare.

Three words. "This isn't over."

And then Mycroft was gone, back into the car, away from Sherlock and away from John and away from the both of them. Cautiously coming out from the dark of the alleyway, John inquired, "Did that happen last time?"

"No," Sherlock said. "No, it didn't."

Would you be interested in reading ANOTHER follow-up to this one? I've started the Johnlock - which I don't necessarily SHIP avidly just yet, but it's getting there - and I'm not anxious to finish it. I might do a multi-chapter sequel. Please tell me what you think, and if I should do a sequel! Thank you! :D