A/N: A big thanks to sherlockian-of-the-shire on tumblr for convincing me to write this and for editing it!

"That's it, Sherlock! I refuse to be one of your bloody experiments!"

"Wait, John-"

"Oh, sod off!"

A door slams.

Heavy footsteps clatter down the stairs.

Another door slams and Ms. Hudson jumps.

Sherlock stands at the top of the stairs, alone.

Four years earlier

Baskerville. Sherlock still hated that name. He'd been a fool to forget that intentionally scaring the wits out of a former soldier with PTSD would go well, and an even bigger fool to believe John would be okay with Sherlock's little sugar experiment. They had fought for two weeks over it, with John refusing to sleep at the flat and staying over at Sarah's instead, until Sherlock had apologized and solemnly sworn to never experiment on John or leave him out of the loop again. (Metaphorically, of course.)

Three years earlier

Then came Reichenbach, and the only way to keep John alive was to break the promise he had made a year ago. So he did, and John had been furious and broken when Sherlock had come back but they had worked through it and life was as it was before.

Until now.

Present day

Today, Sherlock reasoned, eclipsed the other two the way the moon eclipses the sun during a full lunar eclipse (or was it a solar eclipse? He had deleted that information.)- completely. The current situation far outweighed those prior occasions. The current problem was this: Sherlock had kissed John. John, true to form, believed that Sherlock had done so as part of an experiment (even though even the blindest of idiots knew that Sherlock abhors touching others, so why it would be a viable experiment for Sherlock to be performing absolutely staggered him), and, refusing to be convinced otherwise, stormed out of the flat while promising all manner of anatomically impossible things. Sherlock was of the opinion that it was very close to a literal storm.

Needless to say, Sherlock was not happy by this turn of events. However, he did think that John would come back; John always came back. It only began to be a problem when John didn't come back after a full day had gone by.

Two days after The Incident

A door slides closed.

"...Sherlock?"

"John?"

"Hey, look, Sherlock...I'm sorry I ran out on you like that. I was just so mad that you'd experiment on me again after Baskerville and well everybody knows there's no way you actually kissed me because you wanted to and you were playing with my emotions, Sherlock, and that hurt."

John was babbling now, standing awkwardly in the middle of the kitchen while Sherlock just stared.

"I'll do a lot for you, but I refuse to stand here and be toyed with!"

Suddenly Sherlock sprang forward and stopped mere inches from John, to where they were almost breathing the same air.

"John, I wasn't experimenting with you. I don't know what I have to do or say to make you believe me, but that wasn't an experiment."

He swallowed. This next bit was going to be difficult, but it had to be said.

"It wasn't an experiment, John. I did it because I wanted to. Because you're the only person that has ever put up with me for this long and you tell me I'm brilliant and I don't know why you stay but you do, even though every other case almost gets one of us killed and you complain about body parts in the microwave and I can't seem to ever read you correctly. I did it because I realized that if you ever leave, I'd be useless without you."

"Aren't you married to your work?"

"You're part of my work, now."

"Sherlock, I..."

"I know you don't feel the same way, John. All I want is for you to stay. We can forget this ever happened but don't leave, John. Please."

"I...okay, Sherlock. I won't leave."

Three days after The Incident

"Sherlock, you know what you were saying yesterday? About the...kiss not being an experiment?"

"Of course I know; I said it."

"Okay, I'll take that as a yes. I think we both had a bit of a misunderstanding."

"I doubt I misunderstood anything."

"Yes, you did. You assumed I didn't feel the same way."

"You didn't contradict me."

"I didn't know you wanted me to."

"I was simply making a deduction based on the information I had on you."

"You were wrong."

"I'm never wrong."

John moved to stand in front of Sherlock, who was slouched on the sofa, hauled him up by his shirt, and kissed him soundly.

"Now do you believe me?"

"I think that hypothesis requires more experimentation."

"You're a bloody git, you know."

"So I have been informed."