Thirty-Six Minutes and Then Some (Sherlock/John, PG-13)

[holyfant]

I'M SORRY THIS IS 10,000 WORDS

Title: Thirty-Six Minutes and Then Some
Pairing: Sherlock/John
Rating: PG-13
Word count: 10,134
Notes: thank you to cyntosis for the unbelievably speedy one-over! And, er, for the praise, lol. This takes place between The Hounds of Baskerville and The Reichenbach Fall, so obviously: spoilers up to and including Baskerville.
Summary: In the thirty-six minutes it will take John to come home, Sherlock tries to think about what he will say.

When he bursts through the door of 221B Baker Street to find it completely normal, silent, and utterly deserted, Sherlock realises that there are things he needs to carve out a space for in his mind.

Of course, he doesn't realise this, per se. There are moments when he realises things; when he sees how a corpse's legs are bent in a way that could never be the result of the cause of death Anderson, the moron, had seen in it. When he sees a suspect's eyes wavering, consciousness stumbling towards a confession uncontrollably without them even knowing it yet. When he finds that something is missing, and that that something is exactly the right shape and size to finish the puzzle - the negative that makes everything complete. No, this isn't really like that, because this is about him and Sherlock has lived with himself for long enough to know what is happening to him, all the time, every time. The body the captive of the mind - and even the mind the captive of the mind.

So, he doesn't experience the rush in his belly that comes from three things: seeing things fall into place before his eyes, feeling the nicotine patch equivalent of a chain-smoked packet of cigarettes hitting his veins, and both of these together. Things aren't falling into place; they have been in place for quite a while, and, uncharacteristically (as he knows), he has been letting them stay there.

He simply skids to a stop in front of the couch and listens to the silence. There is the faint disturbance of Mrs. Hudson's presence downstairs; he can smell a cake baking, on the verge of burning, he can faintly hear her radio with its inane chatter, he can almost feel her moving about, dusting her hands, having lost her ring for the umpteenth time during her attempts at baking. From the smell he can expect a horrid piece of pastry in twenty-four minutes, considering Mrs. Hudson's tendency to under-rest her cakes so they are still warm and heavy inside and completely indigestible. But apart from that there is nothing. The smiley, bullet-marked face on the wall grins down at him. Nothing is different. There is nothing new to read - he himself put those human thigh bones there on the table, the crunch of biscuit crumbs underfoot is days old, even the angle of his violin is as he propped it up against the side of the armchair (a perfect 33 degrees, which is satisfying against the uneven stones of the wall behind it). It's like he never left.

He sits down on the sofa and stretches himself out, bringing his palms together under his chin.

He needs to clear a space.

A space.

His mind hurtles forward: dust is beginning to settle even on violin which John wiped four days ago discoloured patch on rug is getting proportionately worse so curtains have not been closed in - four - days skull sits as John last touched it before he went to bed five days ago new traces of flour and nail polish that hadn't dried but is dry now on door handle so Mrs. Hudson painted nails uncharacteristic also singing right now also uncharacteristic behaviour closely associated with heightened emotional state so she made up with Chatterjee came up to see and touched handle but never came in probability of cake high makes one roughly every 3.1 days was looking for John to offer cake to who wasn't here

He closes his eyes. For the first time in years, he tries to slow down the ricocheting data in his brain. A space. He needs space.

John who wasn't here because hasn't been here in four days

But what he doesn't understand is: why? Why hasn't John been here for four days? There simply isn't enough to go on; John's coat with the leather patches and his shoes are gone, but then those are things that John usually takes with him when he goes out - he has never, like Sherlock has, run out into the streets barefoot, having grabbed hold of the tendrils of a trail threatening to slip away. John's laptop is gone, but John always takes his laptop when he's going out for more than just a pint with Stamford or a shag with whatever woman it is he's rubbing boots with.

no sign of struggle he went willingly no text no message no blog post nothing

He opens his eyes and looks around, but he already knows that everything is still the same. The evidence is conclusive: ever since Sherlock left Baker Street four days ago to solve the case of the dead prostitute literally up to her eyeballs in heroin John hadn't been there. The evidence is conclusive, yet Sherlock had known this since day one of his absence; why, he can't articulate, and it bothers him that he can't. Gut feelings aren't scientific. It also bothers him that John is really gone.

For once, he wouldn't have minded being wrong. This, on top of all else, bothers him.

His mind casts around for more clues, but there are none. Yet, his head is thrumming; the whore, the brothers, one of whom loved her, the other who hated her, shams, a network, one network the shadow of the other, pimps, deaths, dogs eating human remains, heroin, trying to resist its pull, its song, trying to resist the needles, being able to do it after all, unexpected, then: the light, another solved case, people happy, people unhappy, Lestrade jovial even after days of being undercover as a druggie, Donovan idiotic as always, then; the flat, Mrs. Hudson, avoiding her, sounds, silence, nothing, John's negative in the flat, the outline that makes everything more empty.

He squeezes his eyes shut again. The mind the captive of the mind. There's no room to think about what he needs to think about.

He needs a cigarette but no one will sell him any.

*

Mrs. Hudson brings up the cake a minute later than Sherlock was expecting her to. He declines, as usual, and she makes him tea, as usual, which he doesn't drink, as usual. She fusses over him for a bit, and he lets her, not even contradicting her when she pronounces it uncouth to have human bones on the kitchen table. He registers that she's feeling him out carefully, in her own way. His lack of response brings a line between her eyes, a crease she gets often when she looks at him and which he at times wishes he could simply wipe away; but then he's him again, knowing himself to care for her in his way but in the same way incapable of that sort of kindness, as he bounds off to danger again and doesn't eat her cakes or drink her teas.

“Where's John?” he asks her after a moment of her pulling concerned faces.

She doesn't look surprised. Mrs. Hudson is good at her own, personal kind of deduction, a science of emotion that Sherlock feels out of his depth to understand sometimes, before he remembers that sentiment is unscientific. “Oh dear, Sherlock, I thought you knew. He's gone to visit his sister.”

“He can't stand his sister.”

Mrs. Hudson tuts him, but says nothing, and leaves him with an extra slab of cement-like cake. He stares at it and the thigh bones sitting peacefully next to it.

John and Harry don't get on he said so himself he distanced himself from her now he's there he came to live here to avoid her now he went there willingly for four days why why why he must be

he must be

Angry?
SH

The response is swift. John must have been waiting for his text. The thought gives Sherlock more pleasure than it should. He can imagine John wanting to hold out on him, but then finding that he can't be bothered, and giving up, and just sending the text already. He can even imagine perfectly the small sound of exasperation John probably made when he hit 'send', a barely noticeable hitch of voice in the back of his throat.

NO

lack of punctuation use of caps lock not a sign of anger but of technical incompetence or flippancy in John straight-forward not usually sarcastic in texts despite proclivity to would-be witty irony in real life communication John thinks deduction is wrong but not wrong because I know he isn't somehow

He can't quite explain why he asks a question he knows the answer to; if John were angry he would have let him know in some way and the silence of the last four days is telling him something else, but what, what - he's not sure yet. He would never ask a question he knows the answer to. He stares at the NO. It doesn't answer anything but it is still speaking to him, he just can't hear what it is saying.

Okay. When can I expect you back?
Conversations with skull not as stimulating
as expected. Case was fascinating.
SH

The answer takes a bit longer this time. Sherlock stares at the skull, and it stares back, vacantly.

SKULL IS AS EFFECTIVE A SOUNDING
BOARD AS I AM I IMAGINE

Sherlock narrows his eyes at the text.

It's not. Come back. Sarcasm doesn't work in texts.
SH

He's barely pressed the send button when his phone hums again - John has written him a second text before receiving his last one. rapid impulsive decision-making pointing to emotional inconsistency maybe turmoil

WE NEED TO TALK

Sherlock finds himself nodding to himself as he punches out the

I know.
SH

and resists the urge to mock John for pointing out the utterly, mind-numbingly obvious, because he knows now is not the time, and even more strangely, he feels it somehow; he can feel, somehow, that John needs him to not say it right now, even if he can say it every other time, he can feel, somehow, that John is testing the waters (although he doesn't know which waters - he feels dangerously out of his depth, as if he's been thrown into the deep end by some unknown force) by saying something so mundane, even more mundane than he's used to from John Watson, something so cliché. So cliché, but somehow Sherlock feels its ominousness, and its urgency. WE NEED TO TALK

And it bothers him that he feels it and can't explain it; four little words, a phrase like any other, not even John's face to go on, just letters on a screen, not even John's voice, and yet - the tightening of his chest, his body betraying him, slight tremors, a minor mirroring of what he felt at Baskerville when for a moment he wasn't sure he could still trust himself and everything that depended on that - that is, everything, his entire world.

He needs a fucking cigarette.

*

He knows John will have left soon after his final text. John dislikes spending time with Harry, it makes him feel guilty for not wanting to spend time with her, so his goodbye would have been hurried; she would have resisted, why are you leaving so suddenly, didn't you say you needed a place to stay, has he really roped you into going back so easily, really John you need to think about why he can do these things to you and why you're letting him, she would have offered him another cup of tea or - more likely - something stronger, which would only have made John leave faster. Nine minutes after the text he will have tidied up the sofa he slept on. Harry will have offered him a place in her king-size bed, lonely for any kind of contact, wanting her brother closer to her, but John liked Clara and would find it uncomfortable to sleep in her lingering outline and anyway is uncomfortable sleeping close to anyone after Afghanistan, except Sherlock, although he doesn't know this, doesn't know that Sherlock sometimes sleeps in the armchair in his bedroom and leaves before John wakes up, because he likes it when John talks in his sleep and does that nervous cough even in his dreams, it's interesting, he tries to visualise the dreams of sand and blood along with him or tries to find the appeal of what it could be that's making John grunt and groan and sweat, John doesn't know that sometimes Sherlock talks to him the entire night and that often John responds as though he was awake, though Sherlock knows from his breathing that he isn't. Another six minutes later he will have found his shoes, tied them in that infuriatingly slow way of his, slipped his coat with the leather patches on, gave Harry a final goodbye, one laced with a sharp resignation that even she, half-drunk already, will have picked up and have spent an additional second or twelve lingering on her doorstep, most likely with a deeply furrowed brow. In another three minutes John will have hailed a cab; in that part of town statistically likely to be one who drives more carefully than the ones around Baker Street, so in another seventeen minutes John will be here. He will linger almost a full minute on their doorstep, then, brow even more furrowed, trying to think of what he will say.

So before John comes home, Sherlock goes on a carefully timed rampaging spree through the apartment and finds two unused nicotine patches under the armchair, both with hair sticking to them that isn't his or John's, and then he shuts off his mind before it tries to deduce whose it is (but oh, who is he kidding, really, he knows fooling himself works about as well as other people trying to fool him; he knows it's Jeanette's, long, luscious, dark, and of course now he knows her name, now that it doesn't matter anymore whatsoever; he has tried to erase her and all of John's other brief dalliances, but they stick now for some reason, and it bothers him that they do, why should they now, why can't he get rid of them like he can of every other insignificant detail? Why do they clutter up his hard drive?). Despite the dustiness of the patches their surfaces stick to his arm, and the nicotine hits his blood stream easily.

not enough not enough John coming home no clues to find to prepare for him we need to talk but how how think first think first And he presses his hands to his eyes, pushes, pushes, as if to push out everything else. retrace the steps refind the clues break up the puzzle and put it back together

Taking a breath, he allows his brain to step into gear, to fly over the details, to leaf through his memories as though through a library, handle his thoughts, turn them over, leave them worse for wear. The world inside his skull that sometimes confounds even himself in its swiftness, sometimes his head reels with it, as his knowledge snaps back at him like a wound-up rubber - but then, he is extraordinary, he is abnormal in every sense, and his all-too-human body sometimes can't keep up with what it is in him that makes him so different, so unique, so much more than all of those other poor saps out there. The nicotine strengthens the hold he has on himself. The infuriating sensation of details slipping through his fingers like water disappears and things are more solid inside him, more tangible, and he's in his element again. There are explanations and he will find them.

John
objectively not that special at all
damaged war-hero who secretly still loves taking orders as evidenced by him continuing to accept them from me - theory tried and tested when he refused to do things I asked for nicely
intelligence slightly above average
copes with death in a subdued way
doesn't want to talk about Afghanistan much
John
otherwise mundane; troubled relationship with parents and sister, neuroses, tea-lover, irony, physically though not unappealing not conventionally attractive, moderate success with women more attractive than himself, emotionally available, warm
values sex and emotion and friendship and other unscientific things of life
yet accepts incredibility of extent of my intellect
because views what we have as a genuine friendship
John
balances my admittedly considerable narcissism by affirming my brilliance yet reflecting my emotional short-sightedness back to me
not that it is short-sightedness to me but he does it anyway
states the obvious
misses the clues
doesn't often care about that very much
and doesn't doesn't doesn't irritate me when doing any of these things
this is new
John
this is new
in fact he interests me when he says things I already know
how is this possible how
he interests me when he's writing his ridiculous inane blog
because he seems to forget I'm there
no one ever forgets I'm there
not when I'm watching them
John
though he must know I read every word
turn it over until I think I know what he means
I hoard his words
I still do even though I know everything that happened already
how he sees things isn't novel
but I still read it like it is
absence of John in apartment just now threw me
despite fully evidentially supported expectations of absence of John
absence of John affects me disproportionately

But it isn't new information, none of this is. He knew so much about John from his first glance and then even more from his first minutes with him and almost all he knows now from the first two days - most of that still holds, although it puzzles him that it continues to interest him. The way that John responds exactly in the way that Sherlock expects him to should be absolutely boring, and it isn't, and even sometimes Sherlock gets quite excited imagining precisely what John will say - miffed, disappointed, frustrated, trying to point him in the direction that will make Sherlock more socially acceptable for some reason Sherlock still doesn't understand (really, if people think he's a murdering psychopath or at the very least an arrogant fuck why should that be John's problem? It's not logical) - and then when John says it, sometimes verbatim, it makes him happy, of all things. It should be boring and it isn't. He loves imagining down to the smallest detail how John will react, which is why he likes to leave his experiments with eyeballs and bull semen out - John doesn't seem to realise that the real experiment is getting a grip on his reactions, but then, Sherlock doesn't expect him to, because John is an idiot, after all. Sherlock has gotten quite adept at predicting what John will say and at what point John will huff and give up and start a blog post to complain about him or go out for a pint with Stamford. He hasn't mastered the pitch of his voice, though (there is always more there than what he imagines, more of a tremor, deeper, the depth of question, of his inflection, so Sherlock can literally see his sentence curving upward and plunging down again as John realises it's no use and lets his words stop in his throat). And the array of emotions John Watson's face can display in mere seconds continues to confound Sherlock Holmes: there ought to be a law against it, against such a nakedness, such an honesty, the naturalness of John's brows, his exasperation, how Sherlock can trace the shift from surprise to a thousand other nuances of frustration, resignation, and secret mirth. There ought to be a law against it just so John could break it.

And then there are the facts that take place after this, because he does know all of this already. He has been down this track before, and the evidence was conclusive as it is now: when Moriarty said I will burn the heart out of you, he understood everything already - he knew more than John, which is natural, because Jim Moriarty taps into Sherlock Holmes' consciousness with an effective violence and John Watson doesn't quite do so in the same way. For Sherlock, everything was already pointing that way, but the unexpected sensation of his stomach dropping out of him, of being suspended over an abyss that opened under him as soon as John showed him what he had under his coat, the reflection of the water playing over him, over his calmness, over his voice that was infected with Moriarty, pushed him towards a conclusion he hadn't been willing to make prematurely. I will burn the heart out of you, Moriarty said, and Sherlock doesn't understand how John can possibly have not picked that up, when he was effectively padded with bomb, a swipe of human embellished with a string of fire, a light poised to be switched on, a mad man's thumb quiver away from burning. John is a perfect idiot, of course, but this was text-book, it was almost vulgar, it was crude for Moriarty, so crude Sherlock suspects the message was really meant for John, not him.

The evidence was conclusive: Sherlock feels things for John.

Many things.

And then there was the Baskerville case, which he loved for lots of different reasons and this was strange in itself because he doesn't usually love his cases, he loves himself in them. But this one tickled him in a different way because in all honesty he hadn't been brilliant that time. If he retraces everything he uncomfortably has to accept that things had spiralled out of his control, and that Henry had very nearly been dead, and while death doesn't usually affect him much he still hates the uselessness, the illogic of avoidable death, and he also had to accept that his doubt in himself had been justified in the end, not because he had seen something that wasn't there, but because he had misread himself. He had thought that he wasn't capable of anything but reason.

He had thought emotion was beneath him.

But he had found that it was really above him; it had been like a wave, it had been intangible, he couldn't get a hold of it, it rose above him and doused him. The fear had been a taste in his mouth. The terrified thumping of his mind resonating in the all-too-human thrumming of his skull. He was a body. This once, the mind the captive of the body.

And John hadn't understood either, had let him to it because it was so new, so unfamiliar, it must have been so strange for John to see him this way, but then of course John is an idiot so him not understanding was okay; still, John's presence had made it worse. Because John makes him feel, too, and it is bewildering. John's physicality, too close at times like that, had pushed home the fact that his hold on this part of himself was far more tentative than he had ever realised.

So. Back at 221B, Sherlock had passed through all of the steps he has just re-taken. He let his self-observation pass through his fingers, his John-observation, the curious observations of feeling and the paradoxical yet wholly scientific observation that it was possible to understand what something meant without understanding what it really meant.

Sherlock feels things for John.

Many things.

This was the obvious conclusion to all of his data but he didn't understand what it meant, what it would mean, what he had to do with it, what it could mean, what it should mean. It was still only a hypothesis because it didn't solve anything.

He decided to test it right after Baskerville and focused all of his probing attention on John, to see what it was, exactly, that could prompt this kind of feeling - his observation became so blatant John often stormed off in frustration at Sherlock's staring. It was a lot of fun to wind him up, and to count down the seconds until he would call out to Mrs. Hudson that he was going out because Sherlock was being a right arse again, but then it wasn't fun at all to count down the seconds until he came back, the count occupying the upper track of his mind, the other tracks as busy as ever, pulling at puzzles, putting them together, but always that slow, slow ticking foremost in his mind nonetheless. Picking off the moments on his fingers as he sat, the wall bearing down on him, the skull silent as ever, his fingers on his violin forming swift arpeggios, his mind simmering under that surface of by now he's slightly tipsy and complaining about me with more fervour, but also telling Stamford how brilliant I am, and depending on Stamford's interest he will be back here somewhere between three thousand seven hundred and twenty and five thousand hundred and sixty seconds from now

And that, most of all, had made it clear: it couldn't go on like this. Hypothesis: doing something about it might help.

Something would have to be somewhere in the realm of: touching John. Gauging his response. Touching him again. Ignoring his response if it was scientifically unsound. Taking John's pulse. Keeping track of his own pulse. Keeping track of... well, of his feelings. Of all things.

So, one evening when John had returned, at least seven hundred seconds later than Sherlock had been expecting, he set his violin against the sofa, got up, took John's leather-patched coat from his hands, let it drop onto the floor, ignored John's sound of protest, and walked into him, his chin bumping gently into John's forehead, one of John's hands flying to his shoulder as he stumbled backwards under Sherlock's slight pressure, and against the wall next to the open door Sherlock fit their chests together, John's shoulders lower than his, one of John's hands still trapped between them, grappling at his shirt. He lifted his hand and closed it over John's wrist, the one that wasn't attached to Sherlock's chest, because he couldn't have felt that pulse if he tried, his own was racing against it confusingly, and that would be scientifically unsound. The fluttering under his fingers was rapid, even when taking into account the stairs John just climbed and the likely speed he used to climb them. Ah.

Sherlock remembers John's heartbeat under his fingers with a strange kind of physicality, as though John's hand is under his again. He's good at filing away things he wants to remember with more than a narrative clarity - he is a genius, after all. He has a separate way of storing visuals, and smells, and sounds, and touches; and truth be told most of these memories are about John anyway, and the way John's breath was sticky and heavy with beer on his throat and how Sherlock could smell that John had started a fifth pint without finishing it (why maybe he just wanted to get home all of a sudden maybe Stamford was too pissed to make even a fraction of the modicum of sense he makes when sober) and the way John's hand had been twisted into his shirt - all of these present themselves to him with the same kind of breathless clarity the final moments of his thoughts in a case always present themselves. Stumbling together, and then working, overtaking everything else, and he knows that it's the right thing.

John had asked him what he was doing, obviously, because John is an idiot who needs things explained to him even as they're happening. The whole scene is sharp in Sherlock's memory. He remembers how he ignored John's hand pushing against his chest as if trying to make him step back (there was no logical reason to do that, so: scientifically unsound), and how John's pulse spiked as he pushed himself forward further. How keeping track of his feelings had proved trickier than he had imagined, and how for a moment he understood how John's face could go through so much emotion in so little time because that was what his was doing right now. John had been calm and even witty. Sherlock knows John is used to many things by now, and if even Sherlock himself can imagine that this wouldn't be okay with most people, he knows it must be quite out there, and he remembers clearly being appreciative of John being who he is, being John, being an idiot but being his own special kind of idiot. Despite himself and his clinical intent Sherlock can't figure out how long they stood there before John's pulse started slowing to its normal rate, and Sherlock's brain went: no, because his was still too fast for the objective tediousness of their conversation and it wouldn't do that John was sharing little of his agitation. So he had touched John, had trailed his hand over his neck, following the line of his jaw, moving his long fingers over John's ear. The once more increased heart ratio had been particularly satisfying, as was the scratchiness of John's cheek under his fingers. hasn't shaved since Thursday hasn't shaved since last nightmare about Afghanistan in fact has had trouble sleeping since last nightmare maybe tiredness affecting ability to care about facial hair I like it

The kiss, the kiss he had known he would have to start for this to even count as an experiment, was... peculiar. John had squeaked into his mouth, and hadn't kissed back, at all, not even after persistence on Sherlock's part. His pulse had been racing, yes, and his hand in Sherlock's shirt had been tightly curled into a fist, and he had made sounds - wonder, questions, objections - and there was no denying the physical indications of attraction being present, so Sherlock didn't understand why he didn't just kiss back already then, it was the logical thing to do but John didn't do it, and when he pulled back he felt a twinge of fear - which would have been interesting if the feeling hadn't been so real.

Sherlock tents his fingers in front of his mouth as he tries to feel that feeling again. He can't. He can't quite conjure it again, which is the tricky thing about emotions, he's concluded - they are so situational they're completely unsuitable as indicators of anything at all, but he knows that in this particular case, well... He knows John will want to talk about feelings. And, confusingly, he wants to please John. So feelings it is.

For maybe the first time in his life, he hadn't been sure what to say. It was disconcerting. He couldn't read John's expression, which was worrying in itself; it only told him that John wanted him to say something really wants me to say something desperately wants me to say something but it has to be the right thing and - he didn't know what that was. Couldn't think of a single thing. So he'd stepped back, and simply sat back down on the couch, and started reading the new e-mails on The Science of Deduction (dull, all of them). He could hear John unsticking himself from the wall after a long moment and wandering into the kitchen. John making tea, John Watson and his tea. He'd put Sherlock's cup on the table and hadn't responded to his thanks (a rare occurrence in itself, but then usually Sherlock is so focused on other things he only really notices the tea when John has moved onto something else already, and then it seems pointless to still say thanks; now the messages on the site swam a bit before his eyes and he was very aware of John putting the cup next to his laptop, so he remembered to say thanks). After John had gone to bed, as soon as his tea cup had been empty, Sherlock felt as though he had really missed something here; the knot in his chest told him so, he had missed clues, he had missed ways to find a better outcome to this.

There is so much about this whole business that defies analysis and it frustrates him to no end.

Sentiment is a defect found in the losing side, he hears himself telling The Woman. Not that he had been completely devoid of sentiment for her - no. There had been sentiment. She was alluring, and keen, and genuinely challenging. But it was all so easily squashed down to a footnote, especially as he felt the invisible line that gave structure to his world drawing itself between them. The losing side. The thing with John is that he is on Sherlock's side. Unconditionally, it seems, even though that surprises Sherlock sometimes. There is no invisible line between them. And Sherlock is certain that if he turned out to be on the losing side for once, John would gladly be on the losing side with him. That makes it all... different.

He glances at his watch. Another seven minutes before John will be here.

John the next day had been glorious to watch in his awkwardness - knocking over the tea pot, buttering the newspaper instead of his toast. He looked as though he had had ten nightmares in one night (though Sherlock suspected he simply hadn't slept - he would have gone in and sat in John's armchair otherwise, trying to gather information from John's subconscious and how the sheet was draped across him). Sherlock had eyed him from over his phone, pausing in his telling off of one of Mycroft's lackeys who was now apparently being paid to text Sherlock - and at that look, something else had been in John's demeanor, something simmering beneath his jerky movements. Anger, maybe, but John didn't spare Sherlock his anger if it was really there. Something else. Sherlock had tried to see it, but although John was an open book there was nothing there to read for Sherlock, there was so much data but it was all puzzling, he didn't get it.

Lestrade's text, when it came mere minutes later, had been genuinely fascinating, and Sherlock felt even more insane than usual considering for a split second to not go to the Yard, but instead sit at the breakfast table for a bit longer and try to figure John Watson out. But there was nothing to it, it called to him like it always had. He needed to go. He shared the details of the case with John, but John's face had been blank, not thoughtful. Sherlock, feeling his adrenalin picking up, swung into his coat and was thundering down the stairs, brain already in overdrive (two brothers one likely a pimp the same girl one doesn't know she's a prostitute they come to blows over her it has to do with love but there's also drugs involved heavy drugs and trafficking people maybe definitely heroin drugs love same thing really), calling a goodbye to Mrs. Hudson - and John hadn't followed.

John hadn't followed. And he hadn't noticed until he was through the door, because John always follows, always; it's like John is him, they never really go anywhere without each other, well, anywhere important, anyway, the pub with Stamford or one of John's dates don't count because they're inconsequential and John is an idiot who sometimes likes to do inconsequential things and Sherlock isn't.

He had entertained the notion of going back up to talk to John. He didn't. The case was calling and John was pushing him away with his incomprehensibility. Idiot.

But then he'd spent four days going undercover in one of the most complex, beautiful fake webs of prostitution that was a cover for the most complex, beautiful drugs trafficking organisation he's ever laid eyes on with Lestrade, who is an idiot in a decidedly not John-like way, even if Sherlock's rather fond of Lestrade, too, in a way, just not in a John-like way, and well. In those four days, shamming at being a disgustingly wealthy closeted gay heir of something-or-other looking for fresh meat quite convincingly, because of course he is a genius (Sherlock knows John would be bothered by the seamlessness of his transition to a new identity), Sherlock found himself thinking of things like John's elbows at times when there was genuine, fascinating crime going on, genuine, fascinating thinking. John's elbows, he did like them so, their angle in relaxation was a perfect 135 degrees and... Sherlock counted the things that he would like to do with John and, increasingly, to John and stored them away - I want to press my fingers into the lines on his forehead and smooth them out then let them spring back I want to stoop over him and fit my head into his shoulder I want him to talk to me in bed while not asleep I want to know how deep exactly the bullet scar still runs and what the pattern of the shrapnel is and I want to put my tongue in it I want to wrap my legs around his waist in such a way that there is no space between us I want to drink beer from his mouth I want to know what he does in the shower I want to wake him up at night to see everything that passes over his face I want to know his dreams like I'm in them I want to be in his dreams all the time and, darker, darker I want to measure him against me and mark his height with a knife on my body I want his scar tattooed on me I want to wrap my legs around his bad leg and squeeze until there is no more blood in it to see whether that will make the limp return I want to watch his face as I strangle him I want his nightmares I want them to be about me I want to punch him in the face and then drink the blood from his lips I want his spit I want to share needles with him - and, fuck, it was insane, too insane, this deluge of emotions and wants that he never knew he had, it kept on coming, it wasn't okay, and he knew there was danger down that road, even more than there already had been for John. But John was on his side, this was clear, even with the silence of those four days he still knew John was on his side, and his side was John now, there was no side without John.

And he knew then, and he knows now as he remembers, that John loves danger. There is no one who matches Sherlock's craving for danger like John does.

So. Three more minutes until John will get here. He puts his fingers on his forehead, splayed like a fan.

It's all quite clear, really. And he does know what he needs to tell John, if he's honest. The strange thing, the thing he still needs to get a grip on, is that he's afraid of what he has to say - him finding the truth has always really only impacted other people until now, so it was easy to hold truth as the ultimate virtue, a virtue of which the achieval allowed for all vices, a virtue which he knows can be dark and sordid and bloody but still the best possible thing in this cankerous world, the only thing that makes his life bearable, the only thing that makes his life worthwhile, but now it's him, and it's John, and it's not quite so easy.

He takes a breath. He picks at the strings of his violin; lone, off-key twangs. He shakes his phone out of his pocket. No Lestrade, no Mycroft, no insipid minion of Mycroft's, no The Woman, no Moriarty. As if they're all waiting for him to sort himself out before the attacks begin again - though he knows that's not how the world works, if it even works at all. He pockets it again.

Two minutes. A hundred and twenty seconds.

Fuck it if he still doesn't need a cigarette, despite the two nicotine patches on his arm; it's not quite the same as holding a fag and having smoke curl around him in satisfyingly whimsical patterns. He considers shouting to Mrs. Hudson to fetch him one, but he already knows she won't, and he also already knows where she's hidden them, and somehow he doesn't want them if she can't even think of a semi-decent puzzle for him to solve. Even if he does crave a smoke.

A hundred seconds.

And then, unexpectedly - maybe careless cabbie after all or maybe Harry too drunk to resist at length or maybe John didn't linger on doorstep maybe he knew everything he wanted to say - John's there. Sherlock can hear it in the way he turns his key in the lock.

He's silent as John says hello to Mrs. Hudson downstairs - he can't catch her reply, but knows it's “Sherlock is waiting for you”. John's gait on the stairs is slightly uneven. the limp it sometimes returns after days of nothing of no cases John has been bored has been restless has thought about the case every night has thought about being there every night just like I have thought about him being there every night

He doesn't spin around to meet the sight of John until John says his name, by way of greeting.

“You look terrible,” Sherlock responds, and uncharacteristically starts at himself - not the best way to begin even if it's the truth, John is rolling his eyes already, and that's not what he wants.

John shrugs off his coat, walks over the armchair and flops into it, a hand over the phantom pain in his leg. “So do you.” Sherlock can almost taste his weariness.

“Well, I have been undercover in a prostitution slash drug trafficking organisation for the past four days, so there's that.”

John looks at him. Sherlock feels a not-quite-unexpected desire to trace the most prominent line between his eyes with a finger, but refrains. Instead of asking about the case, as Sherlock can gather from the tension in his mouth is something he wants to do, John asks: “So what did you need me for?”

Sherlock narrows his eyes. “I don't need you for anything.”

“Oh, okay,” John says, nodding, his jawline becoming more pronounced as he grits his teeth. There is anger now, Sherlock can tell, and if he knows John which he does it will be coming out in steadily more passionate bursts.

Sherlock lets himself fall into the sofa opposite John and leans his chin on his fingertips.

“So you... summon me from my one attempt to reconciliate with Harry, for nothing?” John does his cough, the one he does when he's nervous, or, more likely in this instance, is trying to get a grip on his spiralling thoughts. Sherlock experiences, and then stores away I want to record his cough by putting my phone to his throat as he does it and then I want to kiss his throat in beat to his pulse. “You... You just enjoy it so much, don't you?”

“What?” Sherlock is acutely aware that he will need to know the right things to say now or it will go exactly as before.

“Making me feel like an utter wanker, like I did something wrong, like it wasn't you who...” John claps a hand in front of his eyes, shaking his head.

“I don't enjoy that,” Sherlock responds stiffly, and he knows that John knows it's only partly the truth; he does enjoy trumping John, he does enjoy bringing down a reasoning that John has built, but only if John is enjoying it too.

John is to his feet at that. By how he stands Sherlock can tell the imaginary pain in his leg is fading already. “Then tell me, Sherlock -” he jabs a finger at Sherlock, “- why you insist on pulling at my strings and taking all of it for granted?”

“I don't take everything for granted,” Sherlock denies, and well, it's true, he doesn't take everything for granted, but he can actually see John's point, which is interesting.

“You take for granted that I'm here right now,” John says, hands balled into fists.

“I -” Sherlock begins, then takes a moment to consider. “I do,” he says.

“And you take for granted everything that I do, all of it, and when for once I don't play your game you just... storm off all the same, and not even a text, nothing, I -”

“I thought you didn't want me to text you,” Sherlock cuts in.

“Wrong deduction!” John's voice is gaining strength. It's a good thing Mrs. Hudson will have been listening from the start or she'd have a heart attack in a couple of minutes from now. “Wrong, Sherlock! You're so good at reading dead people, but you haven't the faintest about living people, okay? Even the most stupid tosser on the streets knows that if people don't answer what you're saying, and you care about them even a little, you talk to them until they do! And you, genius, you just don't...” John trails off and lets his hands fall to his side. “You just haven't got a clue.”

Sherlock raises his hand to start making a point, but then squashes the instinct to start arguing, because obviously he does have a clue, he's the master of clues, he's a genius with clues, but he suspects John is talking about something else entirely.

John eyes him. “Did you even notice I wasn't there? At all?”

And this, Sherlock knows how to answer, even if he didn't notice until he was down the stairs, that doesn't count, because: “John, I noticed it every other second. Maybe even... every second.”

John passes a hand over his face, and Sherlock wishes he wouldn't, because it's harder to read him that way. “And you actually do mean that, fuck Sherlock you are such a wanker, such a wanker -”

“I know.” Which is true. Sherlock knows that he's far from okay. He couldn't care less about being normal, or sociable, or popular, or loved, or whatever it is that other people rely on to give meaning to their small lives, but he knows that he's not exempt from being human, and that there are only so many rules he can flout at the same time. Most things that give meaning to his life are different from other people's, but some aren't; and John's friendship is, apart from the most normal one, also the strongest one. And John is an idiot, a delicious, wonderful idiot who is nothing like other people at times and then at others is, who still gets upset at Sherlock when he can't be bothered to be civil to Donovan, who still gets exasperated when Sherlock whips out his phone in the middle of a conversation, who still hates it when Sherlock cries on command. Who seems to know with an uncomfortable certainty that Sherlock genuinely loves looking at corpses, especially when they've died in ways that leave their bodies unmarred. Who tries to cope with heads in the fridge and human molars in the sink, but sometimes just can't. To have John here with him, Sherlock knows that he can't just do whatever it is he would do when alone. There is a trickery to human contact that he's never had to master before he met John, and he knows that he's terrible at it most of the time. He knows he's far from okay. Sometimes it doesn't make sense that John has stuck around as long as he has.

“And why... Why do I always come back?” John's anger seems to have abated; his eyes are large. His hands are plucking at himself.

“I've trained you well,” Sherlock says, aiming for levity, but John's face tells him it hits a little too close to home to be funny.

“I guess you have,” John says, and it sounds like he's just had a revelation, “If you can just up and use me as an experiment like that... Not even hiding it like you always have till now... If you can just do that and at the first blip from you I'm back here, leaving behind the only other person in my life to really give a fuck about me to come flying back to you - that's just - that's just -”

“Twisted,” Sherlock supplies. It is twisted, he can see it.

“Twisted as fuck,” John nods. To Sherlock's surprise, there seem to be tears in his eyes; not quite falling, not quite obvious to the casual observer, but then, Sherlock isn't a casual observer.

“Mrs. Hudson gives a fuck.”

Cough. “Sorry?”

“Mrs. Hudson. She gives a fuck about you. If she were ever inclined to use such a word. Stamford, I'd say, gives a fuck. Lestrade gives a fuck too. Even Donovan gives a fuck. Harry isn't the only one.”

John's laugh is like a bark. “Correcting me on my emotional statements. Really, Sherlock, that's just perfect.”

“I'm just trying -” Sherlock begins, then doesn't know what it is he's trying.

“Don't get me wrong,” John cuts in, waving his hands about in the way he has when he's agitated, “it's not that I had a sparkling social life before I met you. But at least I didn't feel like a butterfly pinned to a wall for most of the time. Or I didn't feel like the world is about to end for boredom when I make normal conversation, because everything that was fine before just seems meaningless now, and it's like - you've ruined me for normal human connection.” He presses his fingers against the line Sherlock wanted to touch earlier. “And the sickest part of it is, Sherlock, that I like it when you summon me, because at least it makes me feel something, I know at least things will happen to me, and all of the drudgery of everyday life will just be white noise. And then I -” he stop himself, as though remembering something.

“What?”

John's glare is fiery. “And then I can watch you do the magic you do and the sick thing is, Sherlock, it fascinates me to no end. Even though you just pick me up and discard me like any other piece of evidence, there's still nowhere else I can imagine being, nothing else I can imagine doing that could give me the same feeling.”

There's a silence. John's breathing is rather heavy.

“I don't mean to discard you,” Sherlock says, something twisting in his chest.

“That doesn't change a thing about the fact that you do it,” John bites.

“Look, this is about the kiss, right?” It must be, it has been the elephant in the room since John's first word.

“Yes, Sherlock, it is!” John all but shouts, the anger flaring again. “Of course it is, genius!” He takes an angry stride towards Sherlock. “Perfect deduction!”

“I don't -” Sherlock begins.

John steps over the coffee table - leg pain obviously gone - and steps into Sherlock's space. He jabs a finger into his shoulder, towering over Sherlock for once (Sherlock feels a desire to get up to gain the upper ground again, but won't, knows somehow that he shouldn't).

“I know kissing and shagging and all that means absolutely nothing to you, but what you did wasn't just bloody annoying, it was hurtful, and for fuck's sake, I just wish you wouldn't be an egotistical tosser for once and see that.”

“Wait,” Sherlock says.

“No,” John bristles, “I don't give a fuck about how you're above such mundane things as relationships and sex, Sherlock, in fact I think it would be brilliant if I could be too! But you know that I'm not, I'm not you, I'm sorry, I'm not above it, and when someone kisses me I actually make something of it -”

“Wait,” Sherlock says again.

“Shut up, please.” John's voice has deflated suddenly, and it's small, smaller than usual.

So Sherlock shuts up. For an impressive three seconds, he says nothing. And then he's getting up, confusion pooling in his gut. He grabs at John's collar in instinct; he wants to keep John there, stop him from being able to get away, and his mind registers that that's far from okay but he can't help it.

“How - how am I supposed to - if I can't - how can I test -” And it's the same feeling from before, the feeling of not knowing how to express what he wants to.

“You're not supposed to test things by kissing people without warning,” John says, not struggling against Sherlock's hand almost on his throat.

“But what if the testing is the kissing, how do I...” Sherlock feels a strange excess of emotion clouding his reason. “How can I know what I feel without... An experiment, John, how else could I - how else?”

John's face does that thing again where he shows an incredible range of feelings in a couple of moments. Confusion is dominant. “What are you on about?”

“I had to test my hypothesis,” Sherlock says, and it doesn't escape him that his voice is trembly.

“What hypothesis?” John's voice is cautious.

“Whether or not I had feelings for you.” There, it's finally out; Sherlock spends a moment fretting about whether he should have thrown an adjective in there, or maybe another word. They look at each other for several moments, and it's strange and unfamiliar despite the fact that they often look each other in the eye for long moments. John's mouth is slightly open. Sherlock is very aware of John's heart beating rapidly close to his hand on John's collar.

“That was your hypothesis?” he squeaks.

“It was the only possible solution to the data,” Sherlock murmurs.

“What data.” There's no question mark.

“The data of... my body and... my feelings.”

John closes his eyes. “For fuck's sake, Sherlock, you could have just talked to me.”

“Not quite as scientific,” Sherlock responds tensely.

“And springing a kiss on me out of the blue and then buggering off without a word to read your website is?”

“Yes.” At John's eyes opening again, he adds: “But probably not very... nice.”

“No. Not really, no.” John eyes him. He swallows almost imperceptibly; Sherlock can feel it against his hand. “So, that's it, then? You got a little excited and a little emotional and tried to test it out. And now you've moved on.” The slight shine of John's eyes is distracting.

“I... don't know what you mean,” Sherlock ventures hesitantly, feeling decidedly out of his depth. The desire to once more bugger off without a word to read his website is growing.

“Your response wasn't very enthusiastic, or was it? So my deduction is that you've disproved your hypothesis?” There's that thing simmering under John's demeanor again that looks like anger but isn't.

“You're an idiot,” he says almost automatically. John raises his eyebrows. “I mean, no. No.”

Silence. “No.”

“No. If I remember correctly, your response was unenthusiastic. So I -” he sighs, “- I had no idea what to say to you.”

Something is blooming across John's face and it takes Sherlock a second to realise it's hope. Of all things. There is a small mirroring of the sensation of falling into an abyss, but this time John isn't in mortal danger, or not openly so at least (because Sherlock has to consider that standing so close to him, saying these things to him, could very well be as potentially lethal to John as being padded with semtex by Moriarty, even if it might be more subtle). It's like his stomach is bottomless.

“My response was unenthusiastic because I didn't have a clue what was going on.” John's voice is controlled. “I was freaked out. And then you just up and went...” His eyes are even larger than before, Sherlock didn't think it was possible but it is. “And you never said a single thing about it, Sherlock. What the hell was I supposed to think?”

“I don't know.”

“Well, that's a first.”

“No, it isn't,” Sherlock says, and he takes the one course of action that he can think of: he pulls John's collar closer and kisses John again; he bends down and takes the plunge, though there is no evidence that an identical action will produce a different result - but oh - John is pushing himself up at him, kissing him back like Sherlock is giving him breath, like Sherlock is a drink of water and John is on a sand dune again. He tastes salty, and for a moment his brain tries to analyze this maybe Harry drunkenly put salt in tea instead of sugar maybe John was crying maybe, but then John's tongue is parting his lips, and it's surprisingly easy to slow down the upper track of his mind and just feel, although there is still so much happening in his mind; this science of emotions is a thing after all, and it's not scientific, it's insane, but it's systematic in its way, because Sherlock feels his body responding in all the ways he could have predicted, and yet it's nothing like what he could have predicted and that's the point. John makes a sound and tries to get his arms around Sherlock's shoulders - he fails, because obviously he's too short for that, but Sherlock can forgive him forgetting about that.

John pulls back first, and he's panting, and Sherlock experiences and stores away I want to breathe mouth to mouth until we pass out from lack of oxygen and his mind tells him that's far from okay, but it's there.

“Well,” John says. He's flushed.

Sherlock sits back down on the couch and John, after a second, sits down next to him.

“That was good,” John says.

“You're an idiot,” Sherlock responds, bringing his palms together under his face.

“What? Why now?”

“For stating the obvious.”

John's laugh is small but genuine. “Sherlock, when it comes to kissing and all that, people like it when you state the obvious.”

Sherlock looks sideways and finds John looking at him in a new way, a fantastic way, a wonderful way. “Oh,” he says, filing the information away for further use, “in that case: that was brilliant.”

John's forehead drops against his shoulder. His hand lands on Sherlock's leg. New, fantastic, wonderful.

“I'm very sorry I ruined you for normal human connection,” Sherlock tells the back of John's head.

“It's okay,” the muffled response comes, “because I suspect I was quite ruined already before I met you. You just made it... a whole lot worse.” John lifts his head. “But then, you also made it a whole lot better. And you... Well, you made a whole new kind of human connection possible. So, don't be sorry.”

“I give more than just a fuck about you, you know,” Sherlock says carefully.

“Two fucks, then?” John smiles.

“Hopefully many more.” John's splutter brings a smile to his face. A whole new idea is slowly taking shape in his head, and it's John, and all the things that he wants to do with John and to John, and they're possible now, or at least some of them, and time will have to tell which are for sharing and which for private safekeeping. They sit for a couple of minutes in companionable silence, Sherlock riveted by the small, almost hesitant movements of John's hand on his leg.

His phone buzzes. He flicks it open. Shows Lestrade's text to John. And in seconds they're on their feet; Sherlock is happy John has his shoes on, otherwise he'd have to endure that infuriatingly slow lace-tying, and he slips into his coat, puts the collar up, and feels his brain perking up with it.

“Ready?”

“Always,” John grins.

*

When they return home, Sherlock pressing his hand to John's head wound rather more forcefully than the smallness of the wound requires, and John is privately thrilled by Sherlock's fingers splayed against his temple, the small trickle of blood between them - it's intimate in a wholly new way - there's a small note from Mrs. Hudson.

Dears, I've ordered a double bed for you. Should arrive on Wednesday. Cake in the kitchen downstairs. Love.