John sits across from that chair and remembers when he was eight years old.
It starts with a dream on one of those hot summer nights where the sheets stick to your skin and you can't sleep quite right, but once he fell into the comforting arms of slumber he was greeted with something he would not understand for quite some time.
A tall, dark figure standing beside him. The face is blurry but something in John says he trusts the person. Blazing blue eyes, and then bam, John is awake and he feels weird inside, like there's a disconnect, like there's something missing and he can't place it.
He tries to forget about it, but that figure appears in every dream that he has for years to come. He begins to think it's normal.
When he turns fourteen, he sets foot in his school with a goal. He decides that it's time to fill that empty place, put a face and a name on the figure in his dreams. He makes friends, and lots of them. Each and every one confides things in John, talks to him like a special diary. Like a close friend.
John never has a close friend as a teenager. Just lots of average ones.
John tells Harry about the figure in his dreams and she laughs and tells him 'it's just a phase. You'll get over it.' But John doesn't get over it.
While training at Bart's, that empty twang gets only deeper, and even though he has many friends and acquaintances, he feels like the one in the back of the photograph that no one really knows. And no one does, and for a while John doesn't mind being in photographs as long as he looks removed. 'Oh that's John, right? Don't remember much about him. Nice bloke, though.'
Looking back on those photos makes him feel sad, though. Almost like regret that he couldn't find anyone to confide in, anyone that could be his friend.
He names the figure in his dreams 'Nobody,' and he holds his hand for the first time. At least Nobody has been there from near the start.
In Afghanistan, Nobody is a quick flash between bloodshed and death. Friends die away but Nobody holds John's hand as he puts his medical training to a good use.
When John wakes up in a hospital bed, he swears he sees Nobody sitting at his bedside, but then he realizes that, quite literally, nobody is there. He laughs bitterly to himself.
He hears his name, bullets, his name, and then darkness and Nobody is surrounding him as he wakes up in that shoddy little apartment. Tears well up and he sobs, not caring about how loud or unmanly it is because Nobody hears him and Nobody is there to hold him and to comfort him.
And then those blazing blue eyes and that dark curly mop of hair show up at Bart's, and John can barely understand what the man in front of him is saying because he is too distracted by the fact that this man has always been there. It's a shocking revelation and it takes months to get it out in coherent words.
And it's before those words come, and he's moved in with Sherlock, and his dreams no longer feature the mysterious shadow of a person who stands by so quietly- now it's the detective himself. Sherlock Holmes replaces the void, takes away the empty feeling, completes the puzzle so beautifully that John's limp disappears and the nightmares aren't quite so bad.
There are feelings there, but they don't say anything about them. It's a touchy subject.
Until one night in autumn, one quiet night when there isn't a case, and Sherlock is curled up in his chair with his long fingers curled around his shins, knees brought close to his face, and John sits across from him and just watches because he knows it won't bother his flatmate in the least bit, and the lamps provide a warm, dim light to contrast the darkness of the city outside their windows. John decides that it's time to share his secret.
"Sherlock." He says it quietly, even though he means to say it louder. Like a rabbit trying to project the image of a lion.
"Mm?" Is the only response he gets.
"You know... I've just had a dream."
"Cut to the chase."
"I've had this dream since I was eight."
"Yes, and? What of it?" Sherlock's voice is growing steadily more impatient.
"I've dreamed about you, Sherlock, for twenty-nine years... Twenty-nine years before I ever saw you." John says this quickly, rushed, quite unlike how he intended the conversation to have happened. But this sentence evicts a response anyways, as Sherlock's eyes widen like a child's and he tightens his grip on his legs. If John hadn't been looking for it, he wouldn't have noticed the response at all, as it disappears very quickly and is readily replaced with the norm; an icy, neutral expression- a barrier to keep out all emotions.
"John, that's impossible." Impossible? No, no, it happened, it had to be possible.
"Well, it wasn't you before, but when I saw you it was, and then it was clear that it always was. Like whatever it was... was waiting for you? I don't know, it's hard to explain. Forget it."
After this exchange, the room is once again coated with the soft blanket of silence. Sherlock drifts out of the chair and into his bedroom so slowly and quietly that John barely notices it happening.
John becomes aware of the figure watching from the door-frame of his bedroom for the entirety of the next week. He can feel the eyes of his flatmate observing him in a way that almost feels like he intends to protect him.
One night, he feels the weight of another body slipping into his bed, and long, gentle arms wrapping around his torso. He doesn't question it and falls soundly asleep in the warmth. This only happens once, and Sherlock makes no trips to John's room after this night.
Winter is long and cold, and John hates the way that Sherlock plays his violin, hates the sadness that escapes the strings, the way he is barely motivated enough to even leave the couch. During these sulking months, John brings his flatmate tea, sits next to him on the couch, tries to distract him with cases and the holidays and anything he possible can, but it's difficult.
He feels a little more confident in his abilities when Sherlock lays his head on his lap one night in early January. He presses his face into John's lower stomach, curling into him as they're sitting on the couch. It makes John feel more powerful, like he has more of a purpose. Maybe Sherlock needs me more than he thinks he does. The thoughts echo in John's head.
In his dreams that night, John squeezes Nobody's hand-no, Sherlock's hand-and finds a place for his lips against his cheek.
On Valentine's day, John finds a heart on his pillow. Not a construction paper, cut-out kind of Valentine's heart, but a real one in a jar. A real heart that came from a real person. He would have preferred chocolates, but something about this is so very Sherlock that it makes him laugh so hard he shakes.
He gives Sherlock a box of chocolates and some tea. He looks a little disappointed, but doesn't seem to mind, as he thanks John quietly. A bouquet of flowers appears in a vase on the kitchen table the next day. Mrs. Hudson's doing?
The Woman disappears, and Sherlock's attitude changes just a bit. Not a lot, but enough for John to notice.
The two of them share a bed on the Hound case a couple days later. John hopes that Mycroft isn't watching.
In late May, John finds lips on his own. It's small, chaste, one-sided, and over quickly. Sherlock stares into his eyes and then stalks off into the kitchen.
"What was that?" John asks after he's regained his ability to speak.
"A test."
"...Did I pass?" John's question is ignored. They never kiss again.
Outside of dreams, that is.
And while the two of them are hiding out in Bart's, while they're waiting, waiting for some kind of sign, some kind of idea, a hand slips into John's, fingers lacing together with his softly. Sherlock is avoiding looking at his eyes. He squeezes the hand gently before letting it fall.
John sits across from that empty, barren chair and remembers when he was eight years old, and how awful it felt to be alone. He takes a deep breath. The emptiness returns alongside his limp, but Sherlock's curly, dark hair and his blazing blue eyes stay in his dreams forever.