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The first time it happens, Sherlock brushes it off as unimportant; an anomaly, an aberration, something strange but unlikely to be repeated.
Lestrade is standing fractionally closer to John than is normal. They're on the other side of the room, talking quietly, and Sherlock is busy examining the woman lying dead under the window, but you don't become the world's only consulting detective without being able to multitask. One track of his mind is busy taking in all the relevant information (expensive coat but worn shoes, dark brown hair with slight grey roots, no handbag or phone), while another is wondering why, exactly, it is necessary for Lestrade to touch John's arm quite so frequently. He stands up, deductions complete, and rattles them off to Lestrade slightly faster than normal.
"... so you probably want to find the daughter-in-law," he concludes. "Come along, John."
John pushes himself off the wall, and follows Sherlock out of the room. Sherlock glances behind him as he exits, and can see Lestrade's eyes lingering on John ever so slightly. He fr8owns. Then John catches his hand, and Sherlock forgets what he was thinking about.
*
The second time is not so subtle.
"So what are your plans for the holiday, John?"
Donovan is touching John's shoulder, leaning into him slightly, and has pitched her voice lower, much pleasanter than usual. Sherlock is not pleased. He is even less pleased when John smiles at her in return, and replies cordially,
"Oh, you know, the usual sort of thing. Family stuff mostly, nothing terribly exciting."
Sherlock grits his teeth and turns his attention to the two corpses, determined to conclude his observations quickly and get John the hell away from Sergeant Donovan. Honestly, does John have to be so friendly to everyone? John doesn't even like Donovan, for heaven's sake. Sherlock recalls him mentioning how repulsed the idea of anyone being attracted to Anderson makes him, and Sherlock privately agrees.
Sally is now standing even closer to John, and is actually, surely not, she's actually stroking his arm, and John is starting to look uncomfortable.
Brushing the dirt from his knees, he stands and crosses over to John, carefully inserting himself between him and Donovan.
"I've seen all I need to see here," he announces. John looks at him and smiles, and Sherlock has to remind himself of John's rules. No kissing in public, no kissing in public, he repeats to himself.
"Ready to go then?" John asks.
"Excuse us," Sherlock says sweetly to Donovan, even though he's appalled by the frankly lustful looks she's currently directing at John, and he takes John's arm and steers him out of the room. That night he's more affectionate than usual, and clings to John a little more tightly as they fall asleep.
*
After this, Sherlock begins to watch the people around John more carefully. The results are not to his liking. It would seem that no one (himself included, Sherlock privately concedes) can keep their hands off John. Mrs Hudson is constantly brushing his hand affectionately when she brings them tea, and has even stopped protesting that she's not their housekeeper. The next time they visit a crime scene, both Anderson and Donovan all but proposition John (and Sherlock sincerely hopes they didn't do it by mutual consent, because there is a picture he's not sure he'll ever be able to delete from his hard drive). So, naturally, when they get home, Sherlock pushes him up against the wall the minute they're inside and does his level best to make John forget there is anyone else in the world. He'd like it if John forgot his own name, frankly.
It's no different at Bart's. Molly no longer offers Sherlock coffee and blushes and stammers when he speaks to her; instead she chats gaily with John, offers him tea and sympathises with him over the body parts in the fridge (as if she has any right to be squeamish about such things, she works in a morgue for god's sake). She laughs at all his stories, and always seems to be brushing something or other out of his hair. The most frustrating part is that Molly's boyfriend, gay Jim from IT, has no problem with this, and directs appraising, appreciative glances in John's direction whenever he sees him. It's getting out of hand, and Sherlock is getting irritated. Sherlock knows it's probably not an appropriate way to deal with things, but he pulls John into a cupboard just outside the lab and drops to his knees anyway.
*
It takes a while, but John finally notices something is wrong.
"What's going on Sherlock?" he asks him, after Sherlock has been more than usually cutting with one of the lab techs who had felt the need to flutter her eyelashes at John. "Seriously, what's the deal with you these days? You're tense and snappy, well," he corrects himself, "more snappy than usual, and you just... glower at everybody, almost indiscriminately. And you've been a lot more, well, " John is blushing, "tactile, shall we say, of late."
Sherlock stares at him incredulously. Is it possible, is it even remotely possible, that John hasn't noticed the incessant flirting? The fact that every single person who comes into contact with him can't help but hit on him? The fact that it is driving Sherlock completely, utterly mad? But John is staring up at him, his eyes clear and guileless, and Sherlock is flummoxed.
"Tell me," he begins tentatively. "Have you noticed anything... strange in people's behaviour lately?"
John's nose wrinkles.
"Apart from yours?" he asks, slightly sarcastic.
Sherlock makes an impatient noise, and John holds his arms up in concession. He thinks for a moment. He frowns.
"Donovan was being rather nice to me the other day. Which, okay, is a little weird, since she's usually too busy being rude to you." He continues to look thoughtful. Then he shrugs.
"Sorry, not really," he finally offers, a slightly apologetic look on his face, as if he's once again missed something that's incredibly obvious to Sherlock but completely opaque to all normal human beings.
Sherlock sighs.
"Never mind," he says. He'd rather not point out what's happening and sound like a jealous teenage girl. Hopefully, if John doesn't respond, the flirting will stop. Sherlock knows John won't respond, not when he's working so hard to make sure John is completely satisfied with their current arrangement. And if Sherlock simply has a few more fantasies than usual about killing Anderson (and Donovan and Lestrade and Jim and Molly and Mrs Hudson), well, there's no real harm in that.
*
The flirting doesn't stop.
*
The final straw comes two weeks later. It has been a fairly normal morning. Lazy wake up sex, slightly less lazy shower sex. Sherlock is perfectly ready to admit that sex with John makes his brain work better, and it is therefore to be had at every opportunity, but twice before breakfast is unusual. Or at least it had been before John became irresistible to the entire population of London. Tea, toast, a corpse found with all its fingers and toes chopped off and stuffed in a jar placed neatly next to the body.
It takes them twenty minutes to get to the crime scene, and forensics are already there by the time they arrive, Anderson kneeling next to the body collecting evidence. Collecting some of the evidence, Sherlock corrects himself, and certainly not any of the important things. Sherlock strides around the body and begins analysing the front garden, searching for anything telling, anything different, anything at all.
But John is wearing his stripy jumper today, and Sherlock is having trouble concentrating. The man is just too bloody attractive, he decides. The bigger problem is that he isn't the only one. Lestrade keeps shooting surreptitious looks at John as John fiddles with his mobile, sending a text for Sherlock. Donovan is talking quietly to the PC standing next to her, and Sherlock can hear them debating the best way to get John on his own, in the presence of as much alcohol as possible. Anderson, ostensibly on forensics, is, in fact using is position near the ground to get a good view of John's arse. Sherlock clenches his fists in his coat pockets, but doesn't say anything.
None of these are enough to tip Sherlock over the edge. The black car sliding to a stop in front of the victim's house, however, is. Sherlock stares, almost in disbelief, as Mycroft emerges. He is immediately suspicious of everything to do with Mycroft, this being no Mycroft beckons John over, and John, with his brow furrowed in confusion, glancing over his shoulder at Sherlock, obeys. The conversation begins normally enough. Mycroft seems to be giving John instructions, and John is nodding at intervals, occasionally typing something into his phone. Sherlock supposed they're actually instructions for himself, no doubt to be relayed by John since Mycroft knows Sherlock won't listen to him. So far, nothing unusual, Sherlock is relieved to note.
Then, ever so slowly, the conversation starts to change. Sherlock notes the slight shift in his brother's posture, the parting of his lips as he listens to John, the cocking of his head, the movement of his hips. And Sherlock snaps.
He strides over to John, pushing Mycroft out of the way. He grabs John by the arm, and pulls him slightly behind him
"I have had enough," he announces, and if the words are in a slightly louder tone than is suitable for a quiet street at midmorning, Sherlock feels he is entitled to it. "I have put up with weeks of this nonsense, and I have HAD ENOUGH. I am well aware that John is a very attractive man, and yes, alright, apparently unattached, but I can assure you that this is NOT THE CASE. You can all just stop with the touching," he glares at Lestrade, "the looking," at Anderson, "the plotting," Donovan, "and the general, unceasing, idiotic flirting." He gives a broad, sweeping look of displeasure at the group now staring at him, their faces a mixture of confusion, anger, and (aha! he thinks gleefully) shame. "I don't know what's going on in your sorry, boring little lives, and I'm glad to say that I don't much care. But you can all piss off and leave John alone, thank you very much, because he is mine, and I do not share." It feels good to work this anger out like this, if he'd known it would be this good, he would have done it ages ago.
He opens his mouth, ready to go on and tell them to go find their own John bloody Watson, when it occurs to him to wonder how John will have taken this little outburst. He turns to face him.
John is staring at him, a shocked expression on his face, and Sherlock suddenly remembers why this was a bad idea.
"Er," he begins, slightly awkwardly. "Sorry?"
The look John is giving him isn't so much shocked anymore, as it is... apprehensive? Appraising? A little of both, Sherlock decides. Then John licks his lips, as he does habitually, and Sherlock realises that a) John isn't actually all that angry at him, and b) even if he was, since Sherlock'd already broken the first of John's rules (We don't tell people we work with about us; it's none of their business, and I like to keep my private life private), he might as well have a crack at the other ones. Sherlock leans down and kisses him.
He intends it to be a simple, chaste kiss, a little practical demonstration of what he'd been yelling a few moments ago, but he feels John respond, leaning into the kiss, and he can't help but part his lips slightly to suck on John's bottom lip. John opens his in response, and after a moment, Sherlock feels John's tongue brushing against his lips. Sherlock leans in closer, grasping John by the waist with one hand and tilting his head back with the other, searching for a better angle. He slips his tongue into John's mouth, momentarily forgetting where they are, who is watching, although if he did, it probably wouldn't make much of a difference. He strokes his hand through John's hair, loving the familiarity, the warmth of this, and feels John's hand slide up around his neck and start stroking the skin just below his ear. He moans a little, and pushes up against John harder, hip to hip, calculating how far John is from the nearest hard surface and wondering if he can move them both there without opening his eyes or breaking his contact with John's mouth. A slight cough from behind him brings him abruptly back to himself, and he pulls back with a start. He sees John open his eyes, looking slightly dazed, but mostly aroused and, Sherlock is pleased to note, not at all angry.
He turns his eyes to the small crowd watching them.
Lestrade coughs, and shifts his feet a little, refusing to look Sherlock in the eye.
"I, um," he begins inauspiciously. "I, um, had no idea..." he trails off, standing awkwardly for a moment before turning and positively fleeing into the house. A moment later he calls for Anderson and Donovan to follow him, and Sherlock can hear him mutter something about "finally getting some bloody work done around here."
The PC Donovan had been chatting to, however, is still around, and is looking at John with exactly the same expression as she had been before (outright lust) and, slightly to Sherlock's chargrain, has now included him in that equation. His eyes drop back to John, and from the way John is looking at him, Sherlock has the genius idea of getting him back to Baker Street right fucking now, because if John keeps it up Sherlock is going to jump him right here, propriety and Mycroft be damned.
"Right, we're leaving," John announces, tugging insistently at Sherlock's hand and determinedly not meeting anyone else's eyes, his thoughts clearly heading in the same direction as Sherlock's. Sherlock gives the assembled crowd a smug smile, with an extra serving of glee for Mycroft, and turns to follow John. His John. Sherlock nods. Sounds about right.