Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“You’ve got to be kidding?” John exclaimed, throwing his hands in the air and then laughing humourlessly with a shake of his head. “Please tell me this is some sort of bloody joke, Sherlock, because I honestly can’t believe that you expect me to go along with this?”

Sherlock rolled his eyes and looked calmly up at him, “Does that mean you won’t do it?”

“Do you know how…how…how clichéd, this is?” John said folding his arms and lifting his eyebrows so far that he felt the skin of his brow stretch in discomfort. “How…ironic, even?”

“Still not giving me an answer, John.”

John exhaled deeply and pinched the bridge of his nose, sitting down heavily in his chair, “Sherlock, you’re asking me to pretend to be your gay lover for four weeks, perhaps longer, depending on what happens.”

Sherlock sighed in annoyance, “Yes, for a case. People are being murdered, John. Homosexual couples are being brutally killed, and the only, logical, way to get to the bottom of it is for us to pose as a couple. We won’t have to do much of anything; perhaps hold hands, smile at each other more, walk a bit more closely together, gaze nauseatingly into each others eyes like those under the love persuasion do— but you’re acting as if we’d be having sex.”

“Sherlock…” John started, pulling a face and trying to stifle the bubble of laughter at the use of the word “bottom”.

“We’d not look like ourselves, either, so it’s not like anyone would know it was us or what we will have to do. I’d like you to dye your hair, perhaps a few shades darker than you are now, and wear some glasses,” Sherlock carried on as John fought to get a handle on his childish reactions. “I’ll dye and cut my own hair and possibly wear glasses too; glasses do wonders to conceal identity.”

John eyed him silently for a few moments as he reigned in his composure, “What colour hair are you going for?”

Sherlock shrugged, “Ginger,” he replied, frowning when John spluttered and dissolved into uncontrollable giggles. “And why, may I ask, is that so amusing?”

“Ginger?” John repeated through his laughter, “Oh God! Yes. Fine. I’ll do it, if only to see you with ginger hair!”

Sherlock huffed and stood up, looking at himself in the mirror, “You think it won’t suit me or something?”

John laughed hard in reply and wiped tears from his eyes as Sherlock stomped into his room in a strop, his black curls bouncing with his movements and making John laugh even harder than before, prompting him to slip off his chair in a giggling heap.

❀ ❀ ❀

Strangely, Sherlock suited ginger hair very well, so well in fact, that John could only stare and frown in shock, wondering if he had tried to be ginger beforehand or if he had been ginger all along and had only washed the dark brunette dye out instead. John himself looked much the same, just with darker hair and glasses, and he sighed when he moved to stand next to Sherlock in front of the mirror, watching as Sherlock arranged his shorter curly hair and black-rimmed glasses.

“I just look like what I imagined a brother of mine would look like,” John muttered. “You, however, look like a really fancy nerd. Nerd chic, is what they call what you have going on I think, or Nerdy chic, one of the two.”

Sherlock turned to stare at him in confusion, “You’re just talking gibberish.”

“It’s not gibberish, it’s honestly a fashion…thing,” John muttered, waving a hand and then flicking Sherlock’s glasses with a half-hearted glare. “Stop looking at me like that.”

“Nerd chic?” Sherlock repeated as he righted his frames and looked back at his reflection, tugging at his bowtie. “Sounds like a disease or something. “I’m terribly sorry Mrs. Doyle but your son has caught the Nerd chic. He’ll never speak again.””

John snorted with a smirk and shrugged, “Well, I might be wrong about the name, but you definitely have a style to your disguise—Which reminds me, I assume we have different names and IDs to go with them?”

Sherlock whipped out said IDs with a grin and a flourish, “Yes. Here you are. I have a story about how we met and where and all that other romantic, relationship nonsense, as well by the way. You’ll have to memorise it on the way there.”

“Hang on,” John frowned as he looked at his ID. “I’m still John.”

“No,” Sherlock said, leaning over to tap at it with his fingertip. “It says John Hardwicke.”

John shot Sherlock an exasperated look, “Yes, but I’m still John. Whereas your name is completely different!”

Sherlock rolled his eyes, “Your name is generic, and so you can get away with keeping your name, whereas I, cannot. Sherlock is not so common. So I’m now Jeremy Rathbone.”

“It’s going to be so weird and extremely different to call you Jeremy,” John mumbled as he eyed the IDs in closer detail. “You’ve kept most of my personal information the same—that’s not fair, Sherlock! How come you get to be several years younger than you actually are but I have to remain the same age? What are you, my toy boy?”

“…I don’t know what that is?” Sherlock laughed shortly, the quirk and twist of his mouth saying he knew exactly what it was and that it was his plan all along.

John threw the ID at his head hard, catching Sherlock in the temple skilfully, “You’re a right arse, Sherlock.”

“Jeremy,” Sherlock corrected with a scowl, fingering the red mark at his head with a slight pout. “Why don’t you go and start memorising what I wrote out last night? It’s on my bed.”

“Fine,” John huffed, yanking on the bowtie to unravel it with a smirk. “Why are you wearing that? It looks silly.”

“Bowties are cool,” Sherlock replied with a deep frown, swatting John away and then glowering at him when John gaped with a curling smile. “What?”

“Nothing, Doctor,” John sniggered, strolling into Sherlock’s bedroom and picking up the ten page document with a look of pure displeasure. “Jesus, Sherlock, could you have made it any longer?”

“Jeremy!” Sherlock exclaimed. “And you’re still the doctor, John, thought it made sense, plus is makes it easier for you, I know you’re not good at thinking on your feet. Also yes, I could have indeed made it longer, but I cut out a lot because, well, you can hardly recall the shopping list, let alone remember a twenty page—ow!” Sherlock turned around to face a grinning John as he adjusted the rolled up document in his hands like a cricket bat. “Immature.”

“Tons of fun, though,” John retorted, swatting Sherlock once more for good measure as he passed. “Where are we heading again?”

“La France,” Sherlock replied in perfect French. “Nice; du Sud-Est de la France, préfecture du département des Alpes-Maritimes et deuxième ville de la région Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur derrière Marseille.” *

John let out a long breath through his nose in frustration, “Okay, Wikipedia. Good thing I still remember some French from High School.”

"Tu sais parler français?" *

“Oui,” John replied with a wry smile.

Sherlock smirked over at him and then strolled arrogantly into his bedroom for his suitcase, "Ne t'inquiète pas John. Je te le dirai si tu fais des erreurs." *

“Expert on the French language, are you?” John scoffed, moving to his own room to finish his own packing. “Of course we’re going to France, where else would a seemingly gay couple go? If he gives me a rose or sings me a sonnet I will punch him in the face.”

Chapter Text

As soon as they were out of the cab at the airport Sherlock entwined their fingers and all but dragged John through the building, sidestepping a child with a charming smile at the mother; obviously already slipping into his Jeremy persona the further they went. John watched in silent amazement as Sherlock’s entire posture changed, his shoulders rounding, and his walk shifting and altering to have shorter strides, his hips rolling a little more than normal; something that made John very aware of how tight Sherlock’s trousers were. He eyed them with a frown and then glanced around, noting that he wasn’t the only one to have noticed.

“Sher—”

“Jeremy,” Sherlock corrected quickly in a low mutter, not looking at him as he rummaged in his pocket with the most adorable fumbling that John had ever seen a human being do. “And I know.”

“Do you?” John whispered as he leaned in close with an unfurling grin, reaching to help him automatically. “What are you trying to do here?”

Sherlock looked at him with a sheepish smile, pushing up his glasses and John laughed heartily, turning away when Sherlock’s smile fell, “What? What’s funny, John?”

“God, even your voice has changed,” John admired as he rubbed the wide smirk from his face and shook their hands free. “If we’re going to do this, you need to tell me what other changes there are going to be…because I don’t know how I’m going to react. This…cute…whatever, that you’ve got going on, is that Jeremy?”

Sherlock’s mouth tightened in disapproval and he glanced around, nodding, “Yes,” he mumbled. “And I am not “cute”.”

John sniggered, “God, yes you are. See that group of girls off to your right? Yeah, they aren’t giggling and cooing at you for no reason, mate.”

Sherlock looked over at them and they all hid behind their hands or their phones, turning around in a chattering and squealing group, “And you said what we’re going to do is clichéd,” he sighed, taking John’s hand again and walking passed them purposely with a coy smile that made them all squeak.

John rolled his eyes, “Arrogant prick,” he said quietly, watching Sherlock grin as he squeezed John’s hand and pulled him into a slow moving queue of people, all of whom looked fidgety and fed up. “It’s so obvious you’re gay…”

“That’s rather the point,” Sherlock huffed, glancing at John from the corners of his green eyes.

“Are…are you wearing contacts?” John suddenly asked, tugging him down to see better, gazing at the emerald coloured irises with disbelief. “You are! Why? Your eyes went perfectly with the ginger hair.”

Sherlock smirked slightly, “Flattering, but I thought it best to change everything about myself. I’m the one that’ll mostly be recognised, after all.”

John glared, “Oh yeah?”

“Your face is as generic as your name,” Sherlock told him, frowning when John’s glare increased. “It’s a compliment. You don’t need to go through this…farce to keep from being noticed, you can be yourself, look like yourself, and hide in plain sight. I cannot.”

“Nice save,” John grumbled, adjusting Sherlock’s bowtie a little too roughly and then smiling. “Jeremy.”

Sherlock beamed at him and John almost rolled his eyes at the deliberate shift of persona, “Thank you, John.”

John huffed and pressed his lips to stop from laughing, choosing to look away when Sherlock played the confused and shy Jeremy. John wasn’t sure how well he was going to cope once they were in France, he could hardly cope as it was, and they hadn’t even gotten on the plane. John also wondered how they were going to talk about what they were going to be doing for the case if Sherlock insisted in starting the charade so quickly; John still had lots of questions on where they were staying, what they were technically going to do once they got there, and who they were after, if Sherlock had any idea at all.

“Nous pourrions parler en français?” Sherlock asked breaking John from his thoughts, speaking so close to John’s ear that he shivered and jerked. “Tu ne peux toujours pas utiliser mon vrai nom.” *

“No. No, French talk,” John told him, pushing him away subtly.

Sherlock moped and his mouth downturned at the same time, “Pourquoi?” *

“Because I said I knew some French; some, not all. If you were speaking Dari Persian or Pashto, then sure, speak away!” John replied in a low voice, trying not to react when he caught the eye of a very attractive blonde in the queue besides him.

“…I didn’t know you knew—Ah, your time in Afghanistan. Of course. Stupid of me,” Sherlock murmured, looking positively delighted at the new piece of information about John that he hadn’t known until that moment, and then glancing away with a smile of mischief.

“Yeah, well, glad I can still surprise you,” John replied, discreetly letting go of Sherlock’s hand as the blonde smiled at him and her line moved to bring her closer. “And anyway, a fat lot of good speaking in French will do once we are actually in France—whoever we are after have got to be French, right? So they’d know what we were saying.”

“What? I was suggesting we do it to practice,” Sherlock told him as he scanned the people in front of them and scowled in frustration at the slow pace, looking like any other normal person waiting in a queue. “You might not need to speak fluent French, but we are going to France, you need to know quite the hefty amount of it, just in case we are separated at any time. Yes, we are going there as “tourists” or “holiday goers” but I’d still very much like you to get used to speaking the native tongue. Also, will you please stay in character! It would be best if we started now so it becomes almost second nature by the time we arrive. Stick to the plan—the plan in which I spent a lot of time writing up a ten page document about silly, romantic, drivel, that you haven’t even properly glanced at yet...”

John nodded as if he was paying proper attention to what Sherlock was saying but instead smiled back at the blonde flirtatiously and shuffled closer to her as their lines moved. She had sun-kissed skin littered with tiny freckles, and her eyes were the same blue-green as the ocean. She eyed him up and down and her smile got wider as she bowed her head coyly, hiding behind a silky stripe of her hair.

“Are you even listening to me?” Sherlock asked, and John quickly tried to look convincing, turning to look at him with a look of concentration just in time for Sherlock’s eyes to narrow and skim over to the woman he’d been ogling. Sherlock’s face flickered briefly and then he gave John a look of pure unimpressed displeasure.

“What?” John whispered, peering back over at her. “Can you really blame me? She’s gorgeous.”

Sherlock sighed and then leaned down slightly, “Don’t make me play the jealous boyfriend card, John.”

“We don’t have to pretend to be gay from the get-go, surely?” John complained. “We can get into character when the plane touches down. For now, can’t you let me indulge in some harmless flirting before I’m dragged into a phoney homosexual relationship? It’s not like we’ll see her again anyway.”

“No?” Sherlock asked with an arched brow before he caught her eye and smiled, gesturing shyly to her suitcase. “Venez-vous de la France?” *

She beamed at him suddenly and nodded, “Oui!” she replied, and John felt his stomach tip. “Vous?” *

Sherlock smiled in an embarrassed and timid way and shook his head, “Ah, no. Thank you though, that means my French classes are finally paying off,” he laughed, his mouth and posture exuding cautious assurance. “Je ne parle qu'un peu le français.” *

“Votre français est très bon!” She exclaimed politely. “Are you heading to France for a holiday?” *

“Yes,” Sherlock replied, slipping an arm around John’s shoulders slowly, tentatively, but purposely. “Our first holiday together, actually. A celebration of sorts. Three years today, isn’t it, John?”

John felt his face heat almost immediately and forced a smile as she glanced between them with sudden realisation, her smile dulling but only very slightly. She locked eyes with John for a few moments and then ducked her head and stepped along with her line as it moved.

“John?”

John clenched his jaw and glanced up at Sherlock who smiled at him, a hint of arrogance lingering in the corner of his mouth, “Yeah. Three years today,” he intoned, ignoring Sherlock’s growing amusement.

“That’s lovely,” she replied with a nod. “I hope you have a wonderful time!”

“I’m sure we will, merci,” Sherlock responded friendlily with his arm still around John as the line they were standing in moved further forwards.

Sherlock kept his arm around John in someway or another until they boarded the plane, then he let John go and sat down in his window seat with a look of excitement that made John roll his eyes as he sat beside him with a deep sigh. The blonde moved passed them with a soft smile and John mourned the loss of her soft lips and gentle curves.

“For goodness sake—She’s married,” Sherlock mumbled when John arranged himself in his seat. “Now, have you got the document on hand? Read it. Memorise it.”

“She wasn’t married,” John groused as he rummaged through his coat pocket and pulled out the document with a glare, flipping through the creased pages and then stiffening when Sherlock dropped his hand on John’s thigh. “Must you?”

“You have to get used to me touching you,” Sherlock retorted without looking at him as he slumped reservedly in his seat. “Lovers touch, John. So I’m touching you.”

John frowned at him and moved Sherlock’s hand to his knee instead, “Not all lovers go in for public shows of affection, you know—and if you, Jeremy, are so coquettish then that’s even more of a reason not to feel me up so blatantly,” he said quietly, unable to stop noticing the tightness of Sherlock’s trousers with a sympathetic wince. “How on earth did you even fit into those things?”

Sherlock peeked at him with a soft laugh, “Very carefully,” he replied. “And with a lot of wriggling.”

“I’ll say,” John mumbled, swishing the document and scanning through it. “No wonder you took so long in the bathroom before we left. Must have been one hell of a task getting yourself back in there without incident—Okay, this…this is just our life but without the… murders.”

“Yes,” Sherlock said with a soft incline of his head, leaning sideways a little to rest on John’s headrest close beside him. “I thought it would be easier this way than having to remember a whole different life. There are still things I need you to memorise though. The first time we dated, for example.”

“You’ve put here it was the night after we met, and we have a candlelit dinner at Angelo’s,” John said, turning to look at Sherlock. “Really? You want me to be that kind of person? I’ve just met you and already I want to get my leg over?”

Sherlock smirked, “Says the man who essentially asked my brother’s assistant out the first time he met her?”

John pursed his mouth in aggravation and rustled the document, “Right,” he muttered, scanning more of the text and wrinkling his nose, slamming it down on his lap after a tense minute of reading. “Jesus Christ—did you really have to be so graphic about the first time we’re met to have slept together? How do you even know most of this stuff? If you’ve downloaded homosexual porn to my laptop I will strangle you!”

“Oops?” Sherlock murmured with a look of roguish satisfaction, slouching with a deep and vibrating chuckle when John swatted him with the papers.

❀ ❀ ❀

“Here we are,” Sherlock crooned with a smile as the taxi pulled up to the curb and he got out, reaching for John’s hand blindly. “Hyatt Regency Nice Palais de la Méditerranée.”

John looked around and then up at the hotel with a soft squint, “Lovely,” he commented, finally taking Sherlock’s hand after Sherlock incessantly wiggled his fingers at him. “I hope you got us a room with a view? And how exactly are we paying for this by the way?”

Sherlock slipped him an impish expression, “My brother was good enough to pay our way, John,” he said with a wink, taking their bags in one long-fingered hand and leading John to the reception desk with a charmingly timorous smile and a nervous adjust of his glasses.

The room they were shown to was clean and neat and massively spacious, and John gawked at it and moved to look at the view as Sherlock murmured in French at the young porter who’d carried their cases up for them. There was a balcony attached to their room and John stepped out onto it with a wide smile, looking out at the sea and then down at the road, leaning on the railings.

“Only the best for my John,” Sherlock said as he joined him with a grin, sweeping an arm back at the room. “Suite Sous les Cieux les Plus Doux!”

“Your brother is going to be mighty angry when he finds out,” John giggled, looking back out at the sea. “I wish I’d brought my camera now…such a stunning view.”

Sherlock hummed in agreement, “This is probably the view the last couple saw—not from this room, obviously, but it was this hotel that they stayed at,” he told him, leaning on the railings next to John with a more serious expression. “They weren’t murdered here, before you ask, they were killed out on the beach. Right over there, actually, stabbed to death. In fact, another three couples all came to this hotel, and were all found stabbed on the beach.”

“Right,” John sighed, taking off the fake glasses he wore and rubbing his nose. “Almost forgot why we were here for a second there…”

“I want to go down and take a look around,” Sherlock told him, pointing out the area he was most interested in with his finger. “I doubt they’d be any sort of evidence left, as the tide comes in almost exactly where the most recent bodies were found, but I’d like to take a look all the same. The killers must frequent the beach often.”

John checked the time on his mobile and then strolled back into the hotel room with Sherlock, “How long do you want to be out there for?” John asked as he opened his suitcase and tugged out some sun cream with a grin. “Because you’ll probably need to be plastered with this before we go anywhere, you Vampire.”

Sherlock rolled his eyes and then hissed theatrically in response, catching the bottle with one hand when John threw it to him, “Factor 50?” he read aloud with raised brows. “How much did this cost you at the airport? A fair bit I reckon.”

“Please tell me you’re not going to continue to wear those trousers?” John asked as he searched through his case. “I have no idea if I packed any beachwear, you know…”

Sherlock muttered under his breath and then clutched the sun cream bottle between his teeth as he unbuckled and unzipped his trousers, fighting them down his thighs with a grunt and tripping over when they got stuck at his shins. John laughed and rushed forwards to catch him, dragging him to a nearby chair, taking off his boots for him and then yanking the trousers the rest of the way off, holding them up with a sigh as Sherlock groaned in relief and rubbed his hands fiercely over his freed legs.

“They cut off circulation,” Sherlock mumbled around the sun cream before he spat it down onto his lap and snatched the trousers back, scrutinising them with a narrowed gaze. “I swear they shrunk halfway into our flight.”

“Probably because you were sweating up a storm,” John sniggered, slapping Sherlock’s calf and meandering back to his suitcase. “Go take a quick shower and cool off before we go.”

Sherlock curled down around his legs on the chair and pressed his forehead to his knees, “I don’t think I can walk with this amount of pins and needles…” he whinged. “Why is it called “pins and needles” anyway? This is not what it feels like to be stabbed with pins and needles, this is much, much, worse!”

“The medical term is paraesthesia,” John informed him idly as he pulled out some shorts with a soft frown. “With the plural being paraesthesiae or paraesthesias—and how would you know what it’s like to be stabbed with pins and needles?”

“You’re talking to an ex drug addict, John, or have you forgotten?” Sherlock murmured, roughly rubbing his legs again and groaning in aggravation. “Dear God this is torture!”

John stormed over with a loud, long-suffering, sigh and grabbed him by the arms, “Up! Come on, get up, Sherlock—”

“Jeremy!” Sherlock growled through his teeth as he swayed up onto his feet, dropping the sun scream to the floor with a soft thud. “Oh lord…it’s worse…it’s so much worse standing up!”

“Stop complaining, you big baby,” John grumbled as he dragged Sherlock through the room aimlessly until Sherlock flung an arm out and directed him to the bathroom with annoyance; John propped him up against the bathroom wall and fiddled with the shower until it burst on and wet half his arm in the process with cool but hard spurts of clear water. “I hope you don’t need help getting in?”

Sherlock pulled a face and leaned against the sink, unbuttoning his shirt and yanking off his bowtie, “Could you get me my contact lens…case…thing…”

“Contact lens case thing, coming right up,” John grinned as he walked back to Sherlock’s luggage, unzipping the small pockets at the front and finding a camera with a surprised breath. He looked at it, turned it on, and then grinned wider before taking both it and the contact lens case back to Sherlock; giving the case over only to lift the camera and snap a photo of Sherlock leaning against the sink in just his boxers looking confused.

Sherlock glared and swiped for the camera unsuccessfully, “That’s not for you to—Stop taking photos of me, John!”

John stepped back, dodging Sherlock’s next arm swipe, and looked at the photos with a giggle, “Ooh, these are getting emailed straight to, Lestrade,” John said playfully, moving to take another photo of Sherlock as he scowled deeply, and then walking back to the balcony to get one of the view with a smile, as well as several of the hotel and the room.

Once he was done taking advantage of the discovered camera Sherlock appeared in a towel and seized it back with a glower, glancing through the photos with a huff and a roll of his eyes. He didn’t delete any though, and instead moved passed to put the camera back and pull out some burgundy swimming trunks and a thin shirt.

“I suggest you get changed too,” Sherlock told him.

“Have you just left your sweaty clothes in the bathroom?” John asked in irritation. “I honestly can’t take you anywhere; are you going to be a complete and utter arse the whole time we’re here?”

Sherlock looked over his bare shoulder at him, “You didn’t take me, John. I took you, it was my idea to come,” he corrected.

John pointed at him, trying to stop his sudden rising laughter, “You’re doing that deliberately, aren’t you? You’re purposely saying all these innuendos just to annoy me?”

“What innuendos?”

“Don’t act dumb,” John scoffed, folding his arms.

Sherlock shrugged and turned away slowly, “I think it’s just you and your sex crazed mind, John.”

“I saw that smile, Sherlock Holmes—!”

“It’s Jeremy! How many more times!” Sherlock cut over him loudly as he rubbed the rest of his skin dry and stepped into his trunks quickly, motioning for John to change with an impatient hand.

John moved to pick up his shorts and then pulled out a t-shirt, “…Did you buy these for me and sneak them into my suitcase?”

Sherlock nodded and then popped back in his contacts carefully, blinking rapidly with a wrinkle of his nose, “Yes.”

“…Thanks,” John muttered as he pulled out a pair of sandals with a glance over at Sherlock whom waved his own pair and slipped them on. “Are we taking the camera? It would make sense…given that we’re here on “holiday” and all.”

“You’re going to be taking photos of me again, aren’t you?” Sherlock mumbled even as he lobbed the camera to John without looking, not even surprised when John caught it automatically. “I need you to take photos of more than that when we get there—John, stop!”

Beaming, John put down the camera after peeking at the recent shot of Sherlock in trunks and sandals, and then got dressed swiftly before he walked over to pick up the sun cream and grab Sherlock’s arm, gesturing for him to turn his back.

“I can put my own sun cream on, John, for heaven's sake,” Sherlock protested, turning on the spot. “I’ll be wearing a shirt anyway.”

“Don’t care,” John replied, squeezing some cream across Sherlock’s shoulders and up his nape, and rubbing it into his skin with methodical strokes, smearing some next down his spine and across his hips, then down his arms. “You won’t put enough on and you’ll get yourself sunburnt.”

“Why would I do that?”

“Because you’re an idiot,” John replied instantly, turning him around to dot his face with a curving grin, daubing cream along his nose and cheeks in a pattern, spotting his chin. “This is what my mum used to do to me as a kid.”

Sherlock smiled at him faintly, “Mine too,” he chuckled, scrunching up his nose when John sprinkled cream between his brows and across his forehead.

John squirted a huge blob down his chest good-humouredly and then waved him away, “You can rub the rest in yourself—unless I see that you’re not doing it properly, then I’ll do it for you. Don’t forget your weedy, pale, legs.”

Sherlock scoffed his face still comically painted with sun cream as he rubbed at his chest and stomach petulantly. “My legs are not weedy!”

Chapter Text

John and Sherlock walked up and down the beach hand in hand leisurely for over thirty minutes before Sherlock decided to linger near where the murder had taken place as nonchalantly as possible, sitting down with John and leaning against him. John watched him as Sherlock peered around, every so often slipping into his Jeremy persona to coyly smile at John and rest his head on John’s shoulder or arm.

“What exactly are we looking for?” John murmured to him, still finding it somewhat amusing that Sherlock had ginger hair and that said ginger hair was presently pushed into his chin. “Or, more to the point, what exactly are you looking for?”

“Hand me the camera for a moment,” Sherlock mumbled instead of answering, holding out a hand and slipping to sit between John’s spread legs. “Quickly!”

“All right, all right! Hold your horses,” John muttered as he pulled the camera from his shorts and dropped it into Sherlock’s palm. “What do you see?”

Sherlock used the zoom on the camera to look at whatever he had seen and leaned back into John’s chest at the same moment, pushing his short curls into John’s face. John sighed deeply and chinned him out of the way, pushing Sherlock’s head aside in the next moment with his fingers with an annoyed clearing of his throat.

“God I love pebbled beaches,” Sherlock mumbled, shuffling forward and taking a photo, then looking at it on the camera screen with a curling grin. “I want us to shimmy over—”

“Shimmy?” John snorted, quickly hiding his amusement by rubbing his face and glancing down the stretch of beach; suddenly defensive when he caught a few people shooting them disgusted looks.

“Shuffle then,” Sherlock said, peering back and then following John’s gaze, lifting a hand to touch John’s cheek to redirect his attention. “Ignore them. You get that everywhere—now, I want us to shuffle over about four feet to our right.”

“Were all three couples killed in this exact spot?” John asked as he moved with Sherlock, trying not to giggle at how ridiculous he felt. “And if so many people have been murdered, why isn’t there a proper investigation into it? How long ago did this even happen?”

Sherlock adjusted his glasses with a wiggle of his nose and waved a dismissive hand, “The most recent was several weeks ago, and the rest were months apart, stretching three to four months apart, to be a little more exact,” he told him, pretending to be taking a photo of the sea with a smile as he spoke. “And no, they weren’t killed in this precise spot.”

John bent his legs up either side of Sherlock and nodded, “Right—look, could you please just fill me in? I hardly know anything about this case.”

Sherlock leaned on John’s right knee and turned to glance over his shoulder, “I practically made this a case, as it wasn’t one before I stumbled across it,” he told him. “I was bored a fortnight ago, as I’m sure you’ll remember—”

“Yeah, I bloody do! Seeing as I was the one to get rid of the bloated body of the disease infested pigeon that you’d oh-so-lovingly left for me on the kitchen table like some sort of human cat!”

“It wasn’t disease infested it was—we’re going off the issue!” Sherlock huffed, flicking his eyes around and lowering his voice, cupping his hand over John’s knee warmly. “I searched around, after the pigeon fiasco, for something interesting, anything to work my mind on; and I found this. Now a couple whom was stabbed to death on a beach in France might not sound fascinating to many, but what made it so, was on the same stretch of beach, another couple had been killed…and another, and another, and another. No one saw the link between them, given the space between each murder, given the location and state of the bodies; but I saw it. All the couples were tourists, all the couples were homosexual, and all the couples were either staying in or around the hotel we’re currently booked into.”

John inclined his head and squinted up at the blue sky, “Okay.”

“However, I don’t think that it is in any way directly linked to the hotel, not completely,” Sherlock continued, pretending to show John images on the camera and leaning closer to him in the process, inadvertently shielding John from the sun, “I don’t want you to be extra cautious or paranoid. Yes, someone, somewhere, sees the couples arrive and informs, whomever, so they can later plan some sort of attack, but I don’t think it’s anyone in the hotel—not anyone I’ve seen so far, anyway.”

“Right. Okay. Got it,” John replied, staring into Sherlock’s green eyes briefly. “Why do you think these…people…are doing this?”

Sherlock shifted his gaze pointedly and John glanced over at the people who’d given them a dirty look not moments ago, “It might be all fine for some, there might be a large part of the population that are open-minded, that are delighted with love whether its between a man and a woman, a woman and a woman, or a man and a man; but there are still others, and there will always be others, that do not… approve. Whoever these killers are, they obviously don’t take kindly to those who love their same gender and have decided that it warrants death. They are sick and twisted and most of all, completely and utterly deplorable.”

“Agreed,” John nodded. “Do you reckon they’re overly religious?”

“Possibly,” Sherlock conceded, “Although, they could be merely using religion as an excuse. So many do, after all.”

“Do you know what happened to the last couple before they died? Where they went, who they met, things like that?”

Sherlock smiled at him and shifted around flexibly, slipping his legs either side of John’s hips and facing him, “Yes—Well, I know what they apparently did up until the point of their deaths, because as I’ve said, it was several weeks ago and most of the evidence was either cleaned from their hotel room or washed away by the sea. Their friends and family only know so much, as does the hotel staff. Their social media accounts document a lot of their holiday, and so I’m using that as a plan of action, of what we can do to retrace their steps.”

“But you saw something? Here, on the beach, you took a photo of something?” John asked, motioning to the camera and trying not to lean back from their close proximity when Sherlock shifted on the stones digging into his backside.

“Hm? Oh, yes,” Sherlock beamed, bringing up the image and handing over the camera before leaning back and collecting a few pebbles. “Paint. Nothing too fancy, but it’s something—you see, I think the last couple put up a fight. This paint is weeks old and it could be from anything if it weren’t for the fact that it’s vibrant pink. The last couple were Cybergoths—”

John frowned, “Cyber what?” he asked, peering at the image to see a dotting of pink amongst the grey pebbles of the beach.

Sherlock rolled his eyes, “Cybergoths. Surely you’ve seen them around London, specifically Camden? The term has been around since 1988 for goodness sake,” he told him, sighing and showing him the pebble. “They wear a gothic sort of fashion with contrasting bright neon colours; this is fluorescent pink nail varnish, so I’m pretty certain it belonged to them. I’m also convinced that they splashed it on their attacker, or at least one of them—now this could have been on purpose or on accident, either way, they did it, and this tells me that it was probably a sudden attack, that the couple were taken by surprise and so used whatever they had on hand.”

“Were the couple two men?” John queried as he took the pebble.

“No, two women,” Sherlock replied, “The couple before were two men, as were the couple before them.”

“Right…so how does this help us? Is there a pink path leading to the killers? Find them pink-handed, will we?” John asked with a grin. “And what if the varnish just got smashed in the attack?”

“No—Dear God I hope you’re being deliberately obtuse,” Sherlock muttered, taking the pebble back. “If the varnish bottle had been smashed during the attack then I would have seen it in the crime scene photos and therefore not been at all bothered by finding this. The crime scene was only coated with blood, not pink varnish. This piece of evidence not only tells me that it was a sudden attack, conceivably an ambush, but that there was more than one person involved. If the person stabbing them had been hit with the varnish, then it would have dripped down on their bodies as the killer stood over them and thrust the knife in and out of them—”

“Yes, okay, I’d rather not have that mental image, thanks,” John muttered, shuffling his hips with a wince and swiping sweat from his brow. “Can we move from here now? It’s bloody hot.”

Sherlock nodded and fluidly got to his feet before something caught his eye and he grinned, nudging John’s arm once he too was on his feet, “There’s more pink over there—perhaps there really will be some sort of path…clever girls. I knew I liked them for a reason.”

John pocketed the camera as Sherlock did the pebble, and then followed him as Sherlock strolled off, “You liked them?”

“Yes,” Sherlock started, taking up John’s hand when he neared and glancing at him, “Putting aside their stylish, attention-grabbing clothing, and enigmatic smiles, they were very—”

“So you took the “case” because you liked them and wanted to find their killers, more than finding the way they had died interesting?” John questioned with a smirk.

“No,” Sherlock huffed, walking with John slowly and squinting against the sunlight. “Their deaths interested me first, but the fact that they’re also extremely clever people did indeed help matters. In fact, I think I knew one of them at one time. She seemed familiar, at any rate. I’m sure that we had a violin duel.”

John paused and waited for Sherlock to turn to him in confusion, “I’m sorry, I swear I heard you say “violin duel”? How on earth do you have a violin duel?”

Sherlock smiled in response, “Easily.”

“Well…did you win?” John laughed with raised eyebrows.

“Yes,” Sherlock answered proudly, starting them off walking again with a swing of their joined hands. “Of course I won.”

John sniggered, “What did you win at the end of it? Was there a prize of some sort?”

Sherlock gave him a cunning look, “Winning was enough of a prize. She stupidly thought she could outplay me. I proved how wrong she was.”

“If it was her, then she must have been wearing the same bright clothes, right?” John asked him offhandedly but peeking at him with a shrewd expression.

“Yes,” Sherlock murmured, bowing his head to try and stifle his smile.

“…Did you used to be a Cybergoth?”

Sherlock chuckled deeply, bending over and clutching his waist with his free arm, “No!” he gasped between his chuckles until he calmed and straightened his face and continued, “I’m more of a Punk… 'Cause I wanna be Anarchy. It's the only way to be…”

“I quite liked the Sex Pistols, you know,” John replied after a few moments of silence, grinning widely at Sherlock who laughed again and leaned into his side as they carried on walking.

❀ ❀ ❀

In the end the pink splattering path ended somewhat abruptly near the exit to the street and Sherlock looked around, still pretending to be Jeremy, still pretending to be taking holiday photos, and then sauntered back towards the hotel, clearly finished with the first overall scan of the area. John observed him and tried to see whatever Sherlock did whenever he would take another photo and squeeze John’s hand, as if to tell him to remember something, even though John had no idea what it was he was suppose to remember. In addition, Sherlock’s Jeremy walk was beginning to grate on John’s nerves a bit and he glared when Sherlock seemed to notice and accentuate it more, butting his hip into John’s side and pressing more reservedly to John’s arm until John had to push back to keep from toppling sideways.

“Behave,” John huffed.

“Peux-tu me parler en français s'il te plaît?” Sherlock responded with a soft smile that had just the hint of a grin. *

John shook his head and pointed a finger at him, “No, I will not speak in French. I don’t know that much French and I doubt you can teach me over the time we’re staying here either—and even if you could, I don’t trust you enough to teach me the right things. You’ll probably have me call someone a hairy goat or something stupid.”

“Pardon, qu'est-ce que tu as dit?” Sherlock asked, turning his ear to John with a flickering smirk, bumping his hip into John again as they turned to cross the road. *

“Mon français est mauvais!” John replied testily, glancing up at him and then noticing the redness of Sherlock’s ears with a concerned and displeased frown. “Stop trying to make me speak, French. I know you’re only doing it to wind me up and to take the mickey—and look, you’ve caught the sun on your ears. What did I tell you? It’s a good thing I also bought some after sun lotion from that blasted airport, isn’t it?” *

“Ton français est très bien!” Sherlock told him, his Jeremy mask barely slipping as he leaned close so John could better inspect his ears. “Qu'est-ce que je ferais sans toi?” *

“N’importe quoi,” John replied, unable to stop from smiling tightly when Sherlock laughed at his choice of words, and then glared half-heartedly when Sherlock looked at him. *

“Peu importe,” Sherlock corrected him patiently, touching John’s shoulder in a meek but very affectionate manner, still playing Jeremy off expertly whilst teasing John about his lack of French knowledge with a flicker of cocky condescension at the corners of his eyes. *

John pinched one of his ears in retaliation, “See, this is what I’m talking about! I know enough French phrases to get by but I can’t have proper conversations in French because I just don’t remember or know that much—now hold still and turn your head a little, let me see how bad this sunburn is,” he said, bringing Sherlock’s face closer and then turning him by the jaw. “A lot of people forget that the ears can get sunburned…and you are no exception it seems.”

Sherlock glanced at him sidelong as John pulled and tugged gently at his red ears, and slowly smiled, “T’as de beaux yeux, tu sais,” Sherlock rumbled impishly. *

John paused and gave Sherlock a bothered look, “Did you just say something about my eyes?” he asked.

“Oui,” Sherlock replied, leaning back a few inches when John let him go and looking purposely down at John’s frowning mouth, “J’adore ton sourire. Embrasse-moi.” *

John sighed aloud and took Sherlock’s hand again as they crossed the road, “No.”

“Ne m'aimes tu pas?” Sherlock asked with a saddened expression that was only slightly over the top. *

“Tu es mon meilleur ami,” John muttered, trying to ignore some of the glances they were getting by tourists and the French alike. “Will you stop being a massive arse! You’re only doing this because you’ve found all there is to find today and you’re annoyed, aren’t you?” *

Sherlock’s face shifted and the Jeremy mask flickered for just a moment, “No,” he muttered shortly.

“Right,” John snorted as they walked back into the hotel and took the lift to their floor. “It’s because you’re annoyed at the lack of evidence; you want to show off; you want to frustrate and embarrass me; and because you know that no matter what you say, whether you’re talking about my eyes or about the smell of a dog turd, it sounds like liquid sex in that bloody voice of yours.”

Sherlock’s eyebrows jumped to his hairline, “Liquid what?”

“You heard,” John mumbled, flushing deeply at his own words and walking out as soon as the lift doors pinged opened; strolling over to the door to their room with Sherlock close on his heels. “Now come on, I need to see to your ears.”

“Nom de Dieu de putain de bordel de merde de saloperies de connards d'enculé de ta mere,” Sherlock murmured in a deep baritone right in John’s ear as John fumbled for their room key and pushed it roughly into the lock. *

John clenched his jaw and glowered over his shoulder at a smirking Sherlock as he pushed the door open with a sharp jerk of his arm, “I knew I shouldn’t have made you watch Matrix Reloaded…get in.”

Sherlock laughed and moved straight for his suitcase as soon as he stepped foot inside the room, pulling out his laptop with one hand as he began to sing under his breath complacently, “La mer, Qu'on voit danser le long des golfes clairs, A des reflets d'argent. La mer. Des reflets changeants. Sous la pluie…” *

John shut the door behind him and stalked over to smack Sherlock’s ear roughly, grinning when Sherlock gasped and cupped it in discomfort, “If you still had your longer curls, this might not have happened, you know,” he said as he pulled out the after sun lotion from his own bag and coated it on the red tips of Sherlock’s ears a little rougher than he would have done normally. “You look more like a ginger now though…so that’s a plus.”

“Shut up,” Sherlock scowled, hissing when John pinched a little. “Ah! It’s your fault, anyway. You insisted on putting sun cream on my face and yet you completely ignored my ears—ow!”

John rubbed the lotion in a bit more and then checked the rest of Sherlock for any other patches of sunburn, finding a part of his left knee red and slapping lotion onto that with another broad grin at Sherlock high-pitched intake of breath. Sherlock later swatted him away with a sneer and a growl, moving to sit at a table with his laptop and removing his glasses.

John watched him and smiled, snapping another photo of Sherlock as he hunched over with a faintly furrowed brow, before he handed the camera over to a suddenly glaring Sherlock whom took out the SD card with skilful flicks of his fingers and thrust it into his laptop. Sherlock didn’t delete the photos John had taken, but merely took out the images he alone had taken, of the beach and the shops and buildings lining the coast, dragging them all into a folder on his desktop.

“Well…I’m going to have a look around, I think,” John told him after a bout of silence. “Get the layout of the hotel and…I don’t know, talk to a few tourists?”

“No,” Sherlock said bluntly.

John sighed, “Why not? You don’t need me and I don’t want to just sit around doing nothing while you fiddle on your laptop for however long—”

“I need you here.”

“No you don’t,” John retorted.

Sherlock conceded with a dip of his head, “Fine. No. I don’t, not right now—but I don’t want you to go anywhere.”

John crossed his arms, “You said for me to not get paranoid or extra cautious.”

“Yes—”

“By making me stay cooped up in this room is making me paranoid and cautious,” John pointed out. “Why can’t I go? I’ll only be at the bar…or possibly the swimming pool.”

“I have the money,” Sherlock mumbled.

John smirked, “Not anymore,” he told him; holding up the pouch that Sherlock had dumped most, if not all, of their euros in. “Don’t wait up!”

“John!” Sherlock exclaimed in frustration, half getting up to go after him before John slipped out the door with jaunty wink and a wave.

Chapter Text

John surveyed the swimming pool as he sat down with a drink from the bar and smiled friendlily at a woman floating on her back in the water, subtly enjoying her curves and the way her hair floated out around her like a dark, rich, halo. She returned his smile and after a moment sank underwater to swim to the edge and resurface slowly, leaning against the side as she deliberately looked him over and then pulled herself out to walk, wet and dripping, to fetch a drink she’d left near her towel. She looked young, possibly in her late twenties, and John tried not to feel his ego swell at the thought of such a young thing giving him that much attention.

Several more women were chatting in a group on the far right, lounging back with brightly coloured drinks and long legs and attractive swimwear, and John sighed inwardly at the sight, tearing his gaze away, choosing instead to take out his phone to aimlessly stare at its screen for a good two minutes before he put it away again and reclined back.

He had only seen half the hotel and had barely paid attention to the design of what he had seen once he had spotted the bar, but he didn’t think it mattered, surely Sherlock had the blueprints for the hotel packed away on the little folder on his desktop at any rate. Some part of John wished the reason he was there wasn’t because of a case and wished that he was there, in France, for a real holiday, a real break from the ludicrousness of his life with Sherlock, God knew he needed one. John loved his life with Sherlock, but there were times he just wanted to relax and enjoy the normalcy and unexciting day-to-day routine of existence; and so John admired the bodies of the women around him, drank from his glass happily, and appreciated the warm air and soft piano music in the background.

All too soon he knew he’d be dashing across France after the murderers with Sherlock, running at his friend’s side and sharing a breathless grin whilst they worked in sync with each other, hardly needing to talk aloud to understand what the other wanted and needed in the moment of adrenaline fuelled excitement. Of course, this wasn’t always the case, John was more often than not left dazed and amazed and awed by Sherlock, not to mention also being confused, frustrated and angered by him in equal measures; and at times John would puzzle and annoy Sherlock just as much.

Sluggishly, John closed his eyes and relaxed altogether with a long breath and a faint smile, listening in to the sound of the women talking across the room as well as the soft splash of the pool and the sudden pad of bare feet on tiles as someone, possibly the woman from before judging by the gentle, short strides, walked passed his chair and slipped back into the water. The woman’s perfume was sweet and feminine and enthralling, and John savoured it, thinking of soft curves and tanned skin.

It had been a while since John had been with a woman, over several months and counting, and so he reminisced and thought back to his last girlfriend’s full hips, trim waist, and beautiful bosom. She had been adventurous and thrilling and had put up with Sherlock longer than any of his other girlfriends had until he had ultimately broken her resolve and driven her away. John remembered sitting with her in front of the fireplace in 221B kissing slowly and passionately, enjoying each other’s warmth and company with a faint pang; remembered the way her fingers felt as they trailed down his arm and slotted between his fingers.

Someone touched his hand and he jerked, thinking it to be his girlfriend for a crazy second before he then thought that it was perhaps the young woman from the pool, and came back to reality to find Sherlock gazing down at him with a small, infuriated smile. He was still in his trunks from the beach and had left the light shirt he had worn in their room, so was currently topless, the muscles of his abdomen flexing as he straightened up slightly and his ears still red.

“What?” John muttered, looking for his drink and finding Sherlock holding it instead of it being spilt like it should have been. “Finished with your brainstorming, have you?”

“Finished your look around?” Sherlock retorted, lifting his eyebrows and purposely motioning to the women around the pool. “Know the layout of the hotel now, do you? Brilliant, I can’t wait to hear all that you’ve gathered, it must have been a lot, seeing as you’ve been down here for well over an hour. You must have been so detailed and invested in your documentations.”

“Shut up,” John grumbled, reaching for his drink and glaring when Sherlock lifted it out of his reach. “Give me my drink. I need it to deal with you.”

“You are meant to be my boyfriend, John,” Sherlock whispered, leaning down to him. “The whole idea of this ruse is to trick people into thinking we are together, you do not do this by going off to the pool, on your own, to ogle women.”

“I could be bisexual,” John countered, snatching at his drink and spilling it over his fingers in the process. “And gay men still look at women—”

“Not the way, you do.”

John huffed, “And how exactly do I look at them?”

Sherlock’s face twitched and then he leaned back a little, relaxing his features and hooding his eyes with a charming and flirtatious smirk, tilting his head to one side faintly.

“Like this,” he purred, giving John a very captivated and keen glance up and down, his eyebrows lifting with obvious attention. “You do this face at home; you did it to the French girl at the airport; and so you no doubt did it to these women here. Especially the dark haired woman on your left, who is at this very moment, sneaking glances at you every few seconds with quite discernible interest.”

John blushed and clenched his jaw, forcing himself not to give in to the urge to look over at her, “I do not do that face. That face is ridiculous. You are ridiculous.”

“We don’t have to be so blatantly obvious with our charade, but we do have to exude some sort of believability, and you, my Dear John, are not doing this. In fact, you’ve failed to do so since we started. All you do is hold my hand and look at me and treat me like I’m merely a friend, a friend who just so happens to fancy you,” Sherlock said, leaning close once more and sitting down beside John, his Jeremy mask back in place. “You need to treat me like you would a girlfriend. You need to touch me at random. You need to gaze at me like I’m the only person in the world that matters to you. You need to love me, John—Pretend that this might very well be the last time you see me, and therefore you need to memorise every minute, every second, that we spend together, that we touch, that we speak...”

John shifted uncomfortably, “Yeah, well, we can’t all be masters of deceit like you, can we? I’m trying my best here…”

Sherlock looked briefly incensed and then curled his hand around John’s wrist, “I’m going to kiss you now.”

“What?” John exclaimed, sitting up with a fumble and then looking sheepishly around, trying and failing not to lock eyes with the brunette. “Sher—”

“Jeremy,” Sherlock corrected, reaching forwards with his free hand to touch John’s cheek. “Kiss me back. Kiss me back, and pretend to enjoy it, we need to sell this, John. We need to be seen as a couple.”

“No,” John hissed quietly. “You didn’t say I had to do this. You said we’d only have to hold hands and look the part—”

“Something you aren’t doing properly,” Sherlock interjected angrily with his face still Jeremy and his touch soft and timid as it stroked along the line of John’s jaw.

John slipped away from Sherlock as subtly as he could, “People already think we are a couple, back home, without any of this, so I don’t see—”

“We need people to know, not just to guess,” Sherlock told him, gripping John’s chin and pulling him over with stern determination. “Now, kiss me. You brought this on yourself—like I told you before, there is someone, somewhere, around this area, that notices gay couples and targets them, we need to be targeted, John. So you need to stop checking out women and kiss me. Le seul vrai langage au monde est un baiser.” *

“You said that you didn’t think it was directly linked to the hotel as far as you knew?” John muttered as he resisted momentarily and then clenched his eyes shut when Sherlock tilted his head and pushed their mouths together.

The kiss was chaste and gentle and John tried to relax his face and return it when Sherlock squeezed his jaw in reprimand. Sherlock’s lips were plump and soft and warm, and John mimicked their faint tightening purse before he pulled back and gazed at Sherlock with a smile that he hoped didn’t look as forced as it felt. Sherlock eyed him and exhaled deeply in frustration, but smiled back and ducked shyly to lounge beside him as Jeremy, pulling his fingers from John’s wrist at the last moment. John noticed that the brunette was no longer looking at him; in fact, she was no longer sitting at the pool at all from what John could see.

“You could have just kissed my cheek, you know,” John mumbled under his breath, touching his mouth quickly. “Or I could’ve kissed yours.”

“Fine,” Sherlock sighed, propping his feet up and licking what John hoped to be his spilt drink from his fingertips. “Do that next time then.”

John frowned at him, “Next time? There’ll be no—”

“There will be if you keep on,” Sherlock murmured, pointedly staring at John’s frown until he smoothed it, and then sitting forwards to be close to John again. “We’re meant to be on some romantic getaway, John. Would you frown and glare and mutter and run off and flirt with other women whilst on holiday with a girlfriend?”

John looked around the pool and then shook his head faintly, “No…” he sighed, returning Sherlock’s steady gaze and conceding with a brief grin. “Fine. Do you…want a drink? The bar is pretty satisfactory, there’s a vast multitude of drinks here. All of which I’ll be in need of if I’m to continue this pretence with you, I bet…”

Sherlock nodded, “Yes. Thank you.” He said, adding in a sarcastic whisper “…I hope this hasn’t tarnished your heterosexual-ness too badly. Will you never look at me the same way again? Will we drift apart? Oh John, if you go, where shall I go? What shall I do?”

John snorted with a chuckle as he got to his feet and then flushed, motioning with his glass, “It’s…fine. Just a good thing that no one back home saw, otherwise we’d not hear the end of it,” he laughed, petting Sherlock’s hair fondly but awkwardly, and then walking off when Sherlock huffed and wrinkled his nose at the action, clearly not a fan of the self-conscious gesture.

As John moved passed near the group of women, they all tittered and smiled at him like he was some sort of adorable specimen for them to gawk at, and John tensed with displeasure, staring down at his sandaled feet and then leaning against the bar counter to order another two drinks for himself and one for Sherlock. He felt a mixture of annoyance, embarrassment and something else he couldn’t quite name, and glanced back over at Sherlock to find him stepping into the pool with a smile at a blonde haired woman who pointed at John and grinned. Sherlock seemed to laugh coyly at whatever she said with a wrinkle of his nose and pushed up his glasses, slipping further in to shake her hand and then shake the hand of another woman with dyed black hair that swam to his other side.

Sherlock bent his head and spoke with them, using his hands animatedly but shyly, his arm tensing when the dark haired woman floated closer and slapped his bicep with a giggle. John found the action vaguely flirtatious and scoffed with a roll of his eyes, watching as Sherlock subtly tried to distance himself from her, rubbing at the ginger curls at his nape when she shifted around him to be next to the blonde. Sherlock seemed to be answering more questions than he was asking, and John tried to read his lips, stubbornly ignoring how his own lips tingled with the ghost of Sherlock’s mouth pushed to his just moments ago. He hadn’t had tender human contact for so long that it had felt extremely pleasant and filled John’s body with warmth.

John pulled his gaze away when he realised he couldn’t concentrate on his task and scanned the rest of the pool area instead, seeing a few men mingling with the women, as well as a family of four gathered in the corner. He must have been dozing for longer than he had originally thought, as he hadn’t noticed that more people had turned up at the pool until that moment. John frowned, downed one of his drinks in one gulp once he received them, then wandered over with his other and Sherlock’s, smiling when Sherlock caught his eye and motioned to him with a wiggle of his fingers. John flicked his eyes to the two women, saw them holding hands under the water and couldn’t help the lift of his eyebrows.

“John,” Sherlock beamed, his voice the timid trill of Jeremy. “This is Gabrielle and Ava, they’re from New York; and they’ve been together three years as well, can you believe it?”

John handed Sherlock his drink and slipped off his sandals to sit on the edge of the pool, “What a coincidence!” he said with a playful smirk that he couldn’t stop. “Nice to meet you both. You here for a romantic getaway as well then?” Sherlock’s mouth quirked briefly at the mention of his earlier line and John hid his next smirk by taking a sip from his glass.

Gabrielle, the blonde, nodded happily and slipped an arm around Ava’s slender waist, “Well, it’s a kinda celebratory holiday now,” she said in a way that was meant to prompt John to question her further.

“Oh?” John said glancing between them both and then turning to Sherlock, knowing that he probably already knew what it was judging by the languid position of his hand curled around his drink; that or they’d already told him beforehand. “What’s the celebration?”

“Ava asked me to marry her,” Gabrielle squealed, wiggling the ring at them both with pleasure and even jumping with a burst of excitement, preening suddenly under the attention Sherlock gave her as he put down his drink and pushed through the water to admire it with a delighted and appreciative expression; obviously having not been told beforehand. “She did it on the beach the first night here! I had no idea, it was such a beautiful surprise; everything was so perfect! There was a sunset and wine and dessert and candles, and everything I could have ever asked for!”

John smiled broadly at her and lifted his drink when she looked at him, “Congratulations! That’s wonderful to hear! Or should I say, félicitations!—it’s French for congratulations…” John said, looking at their confused expressions with a surge of embarrassment and then peering at Sherlock. “Right? Um, Jeremy?” *

“Oui,” Sherlock replied, voice suddenly rumbling with laughter as he turned to them in question. “Vous ne parlez pas français?” *

They both blinked at him, utterly clueless and giggled, “I have no idea what you are saying—I know you said, yes, but that’s it,” Gabrielle told him, shrugging and leaning into Ava’s side. “We love the sound of the French language, but don’t understand a thing!”

“Magnifique,” Sherlock replied, sharing a smug glance with John fleetingly before smiling in delight at the two women. “Alors, je peux maintenant vous dire que votre bague est bon marché et qu'Ava a une relation avec trois autres femmes et un homme!" *

John blinked and frowned softly as he tried to work out what Sherlock had said, clearing his throat awkwardly when Sherlock darted his eyes at John with what looked to be mischief and expectation. He understood a few words but Sherlock had said the sentence quite quickly, and his voice had been rumbling with very faint amusement as he had done so, which only made John want to chuckle in automatic response. Gabrielle frowned at Sherlock and then laughed with a shrug, signalling to John and looking for him to help her out and paraphrase what Sherlock had said.

“He said that he…likes your ring and that he wishes you and Ava both well in your engagement,” John translated wrongly, trying hard not to laugh when he went over it again in his head and understood a little more, hiding behind another sip from his glass.

“En outre, vous êtes très laide. Vraiment très laide,” Sherlock added, patting Gabrielle on the shoulder gently with a friendly expression and then taking Ava’s hand in his courteously. “Vous êtes une pute.” *

John coughed suddenly, choking on his drink and Sherlock looked over with a show of impulsive worry, gliding over through the water to pat at his back with a wet and warm hand. John looked at him and watched through his teary eyes as Sherlock’s mouth arched slowly, knowingly, into a smirk and he winked. Sherlock’s hand then skimmed down his spine and pushed on his hips in a silent command, his fingers digging in until John scooted forwards and slid into the pool with him; John pulled his mobile free just in time and shot Sherlock a quick watery glare.

“Are you okay, John?” Ava asked in concern.

“Fine,” John croaked, waving them away and trying not to react when Sherlock lewdly impersonated Ava giving head with his tongue prodding his cheek comically, the entire impression hidden from them skilfully as he had his back still to them both. “It just went down the wrong… hole is all. I’m okay, it’s not the first time that’s happened I can tell you!”

Sherlock’s mouth pressed tightly in amusement, his eyes on John’s, and then his features softened into Jeremy just before he turned to face the women again, his hand dropping to curl around John’s hip. John glanced down at it, thought about what Sherlock had said before about acting like as if Sherlock was one of his girlfriends, and turned to press a dry, quick kiss to Sherlock’s cheek, pushing away the sudden bout of awkwardness and unease at the action, and grinning when Sherlock looked at him sharply with surprise.

“How long are you staying for?” Ava asked them conversationally, breaking them both from their staring.

Sherlock flitted his eyes over them and then over to the side of the pool, before he smiled his Jeremy smile, “Little over a week,” he lied without so much as a hesitation. “You?”

“Several days more,” Gabrielle answered, her head resting on Ava’s fairly sunburnt shoulder. “We got here two days ago—we should all hang out at some point, you know! You’re the only other gay couple we’ve seen around here, as well as the only couple nice enough to have a decent conversation with us! You won’t believe the types of people we’ve seen and met around here sometimes!”

Sherlock’s smile tightened very slightly around the edges as Gabrielle launched into a longwinded complaint about those they had met, or rather seen, around the hotel like a gossiping tyrant, and John tried not to laugh, glancing instead at Ava who rolled her eyes and flashed John an extremely frisky grin. Sherlock had apparently seen it as well as when John met his gaze fleetingly, Sherlock pushed his tongue into his cheek again slowly, pretending to be suddenly aware of something stuck in his teeth to the outside world but instead reminding John of what dear Ava had been up to. John clenched his jaw roughly to stop from laughing and cringing at once, and poked Sherlock in the waist with a sharp jab of his finger, something Sherlock responded to with a squeeze of John’s hip.

❀ ❀ ❀

“And now we have competition,” Sherlock said as soon as their hotel room door closed, throwing his glasses down on a chair in frustration and pacing with a hand in his hair and the other at his hip. “Brilliant, if this wasn’t annoying enough! This is going to complicate so much. Not only do we have to keep a close eye on those two, which means being all…friendly for longer, something I’m sure you can guess is not hugely favourable for me; but we also have to outdo whatever they do to try and catch the eye of the killers so the bloody women don’t get targeted in our place and then brutally murdered—I don’t know how much more of those women I can handle though, John. God, I swear, John, I was five seconds away from drowning myself in that pool, if only to elevate the boredom, the torturous tedium, that came with her talking about her pet poodle.”

“The killers could choose to kill us both?” John shrugged as he patted himself dry with a towel and then draped it over a nearby chair to sit down. “Or…we could break them up? If Ava really has done what you…imply, then we could figure out a way to let Gabrielle find out and put an end to their relationship?—Or is that too cruel?”

Sherlock turned to look at John and strolled over, “Hm. That could work…yes, that could definitely work! They’d surely cut their holiday short and bugger off back to New York after that little scene…” he murmured with a smirk, moving to sit down beside John until John grabbed him by the trunks to stop him. “What are you doing?”

“You’re wet! I’d rather you not ruin the expensive chairs, thank you very much,” John told him with frustration. “And look, if we are going with my suggestion, then just how exactly are we going to go about it? We don’t know much about them, even after the three hour conversation we just had; so it would seem odd if we just started coming up with personal information and alleged allegations.”

“They aren’t alleged—”

“Yes they are, or they’d seem that way coming from sweet, innocent, shy, Jeremy. Jeremy doesn’t pick up on everything Sherlock Holmes does,” John said with a condescending grin, “Gabrielle will automatically jump to defend her fiancé without any solid proof. She won’t listen, and she won’t believe us—we need to somehow get her to find out on her own.”

Sherlock huffed and threw an arm out, “I have proof. I don’t just pull things out of the air, John! I need data, I need clues, I need evidence—I have these, I saw these, so of course I can give her proof!”

“I still think it would be better if she found out herself somehow,” John sighed, watching as Sherlock began pacing again in front of him sulkily. “You can’t do your smug deductive reasoning as Jeremy. It just wouldn’t… sit right. You get on at me about not staying in character and yet you want to break yours to spout a bunch of presumptions at her?”

Sherlock accepted the point sullenly and sat down, ignoring John’s exclamation when his trunks soggily squelched and splattered the seat with chlorine water. John glared at him and after a few minutes of tensed silence got up, deciding to change out of his damp clothes. Putting his mobile away, John grabbed his case and carried it into the bedroom with a sigh, leaving Sherlock to pout and mull things over on his own.

Strangely, John and Sherlock had not properly looked at the bedroom, or the other sections of the suite, as they had instead remained mostly in the living room area near the hotel room door, and then had left for the beach and the pool. The bedroom, when John stepped foot inside it, was immense, and John took a moment to take it all in with raised eyebrows and wide eyes, whistling to himself. He tested the bed with his hand and then wondered if he’d get to actually sleep in it at all during his time there, and if Sherlock would be sharing it with him or if they would take turns, or even if Sherlock would sleep at all.

Undressing, John wandered around the sides of the vast bed and checked inside the bedside drawers and then the wardrobes idly, finding the size of the wardrobes somewhat humorous, wondering if anyone, ever, had filled them with clothes from a suitcase.

“Sherlock,” John shouted as he pulled on another pair of shorts and a t-shirt, moving to peer out of the bedroom window. “Sherlock!”

“John, do I have to have it tattooed to my forehead?” Sherlock sneered as he marched into the bedroom with a scowl, his contacts removed and his arms corded and tensed at his sides in anger. “It’s Jeremy. Jeremy! Say it with me jer-uh-mee. Jeremy, Jeremy, Jeremy!”

John arched an eyebrow, “Finished?”

“No,” Sherlock said curtly, stepping into John’s personal space and lowering his voice, “You need to stop calling me by my real name, John. Seriously. Stop it. It’s getting ridiculous now. You hardly have to remember much; I made our fake relationship as close to our real relationship as I possibly could, and left you your first name to make it that much more easier for you, yet you fail to remember the simplest of things. I’m the only one, right now, doing any sort of work in this. You’ve barely talked to anyone at all, and when you have, you’ve not put on much of an act, or a character change; you are still you! Even when you try to act differently it comes off stiff and unbelievable. You’re lucky we’ve only spoken to complete and utter morons so far, because if we had been talking to anyone with more than one brain cell between them, they would have noticed your unease straight away and not brought our charade as easily. You have done nothing, contributed nothing, and so remembering a name should be a walk in the bloody park for you!”

“Well, I’m so terribly sorry that I’m not some fantastic actor like you; I’m trying my best, I really am, but this is going to be awkward and wrong and difficult for me to do, and you knew that before you took this case! Anyway, I’ve not said the wrong name aloud in public...much. Just here, and no one is around!” John exclaimed, sweeping an arm at the vast bedroom.

Sherlock stepped closer still with a dark glower, “John, you literally just shouted my name, twice, to get my attention. These walls, even in these expensive rooms, are not incredibly thick, someone will hear you, and we can’t have that!” He hissed. “It’s a good job that I made you keep your own first name, God knows what kind of problems would have arisen if I had submitted to you and given you a new one for this.”

John frowned deeply in shame and sighed, “I’m sorry, okay? I’m just so used to shouting your real name so often that I completely forget and…it won’t happen again. I promise.”

Sherlock nodded with a deep exhale, “Fine. Make sure it doesn’t,” he muttered. “Now, what did you want?”

“What?” John asked in confusion for a second, and then awkwardly shifted. “Oh, right…that. Yeah, it’s nothing important. Forget it.”

“Was it about the room? The bed?” Sherlock asked, eyes moving to the latter. “If you’re wondering which one of us will get it, you’ll be happy to know that it’ll be you. I won’t have time to sleep, and I doubt you want to share it with me, so—”

“You’ll need to sleep at some point, Sher—Jeremy,” John muttered, rubbing his face with a wince at his slip.

“There are sofas and chairs, and enormous carpeted floors, I have a huge assortment of things to choose from. I don’t have to sleep in a bed, you should know this—how many times have you found me asleep on the settee at home?” Sherlock said rhetorically, eyeing the room and then the bed again, stepping over to go and sit down on the edge.

John grabbed him before he made contact and yanked, grunting when Sherlock knocked into him bodily, “Don’t sit on it! You’re still wet from the pool! Get changed, for crying out loud,” he grumbled.

Sherlock rolled his eyes and walked from the room without a word, leaving the door open behind him and coming back with his suitcase, and the towel John had been sitting on wrapped around his waist. He threw the case down on the foot of the bed pointedly and then sighed, rummaging through it.

“I’ve been thinking, before you shouted for me, that it might actually be good for the case that we met Ava and Gabrielle,” Sherlock said as he tugged out some clothes, adjusting the towel.

“Oh, yeah?” John asked, eyeing him and then frowning. “Hang on—Did you just leave your wet trunks on the floor somewhere?”

“What?” Sherlock replied with a furrowed brow.

“Your trunks, where are they?”

Sherlock looked at the bedroom door and then waved a hand, “In the living room area, where I took them off. Anyway, as I was saying—”

“You’re such a slob sometimes,” John muttered, walking out and ignoring Sherlock’s shout of protest, finding the wet clothes dampening a large soaked mess into the carpet. John picked them up with a mutter and moved them into the bathroom, hanging them to dry near the towels.

“John, I was talking to you,” Sherlock complained as he appeared at the bathroom doorway, clad in some trousers with the towel over his shoulder. “I said, it would benefit us to be close to those…women, because it means I get use them, in a way, as bait!”

“What?” John exclaimed.

“Don’t give me that look, John,” Sherlock sighed. “I merely mean, that if we are out somewhere with them, I can concentrate more on scanning our surroundings and looking for anyone suspicious, whilst the women do their annoying talking thing—we’d have to reply, of course, or more importantly, you would have to. Plus, we’ll still need to pretend to be an item, but it would be less so, given that we’d be using—”

“So we’re not going to split them up?” John asked. “We’re going to use them as bait to lure out a potential murderer instead? Brilliant.”

“Potential murderers, plural,” Sherlock corrected, stepping aside when John moved to leave the bathroom, and then trailing after John when he walked back to the bedroom. “We can still split them up later, but in the meantime, we can use them. Tomorrow, we’ll meet with them, we’ll…go to the beach again, or go out to town for a bit, something, anything. The killers murdered a female couple before, so they might be itching to do it again.”

“Maybe they just killed them because they were the only blatantly gay couple around? Not everyone is up for public displays of affection, as I’ve said before,” John suggested. “Oh, and about the…the kiss today. If I make more of an effort to pretend to be with you romantically, can we not do that again?”

Sherlock rolled his eyes and then dropped the damp towel to pull on a top, “Come now, was it really that bad? You brought it on yourself, if you hadn’t have—”

“But if I do better, can we stop the kissing?” John asked, bending to pick the towel back up with a soft glare.

“Possibly,” Sherlock nodded with a loud sigh. “I think it’s a good idea to keep the cheek kissing though. It makes sense and fits with our relationship. Jeremy is shy and unassuming, and you are…you…so it fits that you’d kiss my cheek every so often. I recall you doing the same to girlfriends. Cheek, forehead, nose, neck, hand…we can leave the lips if you find it so utterly disgusting—”

“It’s not that,” John protested, fidgeting uneasily and lifting his hands to gesture with them self-consciously. “I told you, I’m fine with same sex couples and…all of that, people love who they love; but I’m heterosexual, so I don’t kiss blokes on the mouth…it’s just…odd and uncomfortable for me. I wouldn’t say it’s disgusting, I’m not disgusted, I don’t feel sick or anything like that, that’s not it, I just…it just feels wrong.”

“… You liked it,” Sherlock stated, his eyes narrowed and flitting.

“What? No! Aren’t you listening?” John said. “I wasn’t revolted or sickened, but I wasn’t all for it either. I don’t kiss blokes. It’s just… awkward.”

Sherlock regarded him for a moment with squinting, penetrative eyes, and then slowly smiled, shrugging, “Fine. I can’t completely grantee you won’t have to kiss me on the mouth again, but the cheek is almost a definite, if only for aesthetic purposes.”

John inclined his head with a sharp sigh, “Fine. Cheek kisses I can…do,” he muttered, eyeing Sherlock’s quirking smile with a blush. “If I have to.”