I've already got too many Sherlock stories half-finished, but I read CharlieFoxtrot's fantastic "J.B. Rhine Was Kind of a Dick" (archiveofourown dot org slash works slash 390248) and it reminded me how much I still absolutely LOVE Anne McCaffrey's "Pegasus" series, in which most of the main characters have some form or another of ESP. I don't think I can commit to another long fic, but I've got so many ideas and I don't want to lose them :-P

The solution is this series. I've drawn inspiration from both Ms. McCaffrey's work and CharlieFoxtrot's reinterpretation, although obviously I've put my own spin on everything. I expect this will end up being several interrelated one-shots - some will be drabbles, some multiple chapters, some purely fluff, some flat-out slashy smut :-D (Johnlock and Mystrade being my two big weaknesses . . .) Everything fits within the same setting, but obviously each story will focus on some characters more than others and not every story will include the full world-building. I'll try to make everything bite-sized, but no promises!

(Unfortunately, ff dot net doesn't have the "series" setup option AO3 does, so I can't truly do an interrelated collection of one-shots. I'll try to make it very clear on here which chapters are a continuity and which are stand-alones, though!)

Sherlock could tell the moment John figured out he was a telepath. Normally this would be unsurprising - part and parcel of being telepathic was picking up on stray thoughts - but this was John and it made the entire situation weird and strange. John had always been the one person Sherlock couldn't read. He assumed it was just a tight natural shield - some people had them and some didn't, although nobody else had ever been quite as impenetrable as John was - but the look he was giving him was nothing short of epiphanic.

"You knew she killed her husband."

Sherlock shrugged. "The evidence was all right there."

"No, I mean . . ." John's eyes narrowed. "You knew it. Before you even started looking around her flat. It wasn't because of the evidence - that came afterward."

Sherlock held himself perfectly poised, not allowing his body to betray him by even a hair's breadth of movement. John couldn't be entirely sure yet, couldn't have convinced himself of the impossible-

"You knew it by looking at her." John had drawn up to within an arm's length of Sherlock now, peering up into his face as if the answer would be written there for him to read. "I know some of the Yarders tease you and say you must be telepathic - you really are, aren't you?"

Would it look more suspicious if he held John's gaze, or looked away? It was a moot point - Sherlock couldn't keep from trembling if he tried to look John in the eye any longer. "I don't know what you're talking about," he lied, the defense falling a bit flat when his voice quavered at the end.

"You do. You can literally read minds. Christ. And here I thought you were just bloody brilliant at deducing things."

"Parapsychology, John? Really? I never pegged you for one to believe in magic powers. I am brilliant at deducing things, and I don't particularly care who thinks otherwise."

John cocked his head to one side, frowning slightly.

"Sorry, should I have pretended to be more humble?" Sherlock raised his eyebrows and tightened his voice into a blatant parody of its normal sonorous tone. "I'm just lucky, is all! I merely happened to guess about your time in Afghanistan, your sister's drinking habits, and your psychosomatic limp when I first met you." He dropped his voice back to its usual register. "Honestly, John, you weren't thinking any of those things at the time, so how would I have read your mind about them?"

"How would you know I wasn't thinking any of those things if you couldn't read my mind?"

"You're impossible to read." The admission slipped out before Sherlock could stop it.

And a hint of a smirk appeared at the corner of John's mouth. "I know - I run a rather tight ship up there, not that you'd believe me with all your declarations about my idiocy. But I noticed you didn't deny reading anyone else's mind."

Sherlock shook his head. "ESP is an old wives' tale - it was thoroughly debunked in the '70s. After several American scientists made fools of themselves insisting it must exist, which was rather unfortunate for them. Occam's razor dictates-"

"-That the simplest solution is probably the correct one, yes, I know." John's smirk grew bigger. "And since I happen to know that ESP or parapsychic talents or whatever-you-want-to-call-it exist, the simplest explanation is that you're telepathic." He shrugged calmly. "You're brilliant and your deductions are amazing, too, as I'm sure you're aware, it's just a nice surprise to find that I've discovered your secret."

That was . . . interesting. Sherlock knew he was arguing more out of habit than anything else now, but he still wasn't ready to actually admit anything - too many years of Mycroft drilling the need for secrecy into him. "You just know it exists? What, saw it on the telly?"

John's confident posture collapsed as a sharp whoosh of air left his lungs. He looked down and rubbed the back of his neck nervously. "You're not just going to take my word for it, are you."

Sherlock shook his head.

"Fine. I . . . yeah, shit, this is harder than I thought. Can I just show you?"

"Not terribly difficult to read my mind right now - even a child could tell what I'm thinking."

John looked back up. "Not thinking - feeling. Focus on that."

Sherlock did. He was annoyed and a bit worried and - oh. Damn. The feeling of relief burst through him in a sudden wave, rocking him back on his heels. It took several seconds for him to realize that it quite literally had physically knocked him backwards - his knees had given out and John was guiding him to his armchair.

"Shit, sorry," John muttered from somewhere just to his left, arm tucked around Sherlock's back to hold him up. "Didn't mean to hit you that strongly."

It was all Sherlock could do to just blink and stay upright. "You . . ." The rest of the words deserted him.

"Broadcasting empath," John admitted with a note of embarrassment. "Kind of out of practice - I haven't let that out since I got back to London. Here, you've got your balance now?"

Sherlock nodded and closed his eyes to collect himself. The chemical aftermath of John's assault was like an EMP to his neural pathways - his hand still had a hint of a tremor, he noticed. "That was . . . amazing."

"Thanks." John crouched down on the floor at his feet, face coming back into view despite Sherlock still being curled into himself. "Not much call for it here - I just figured I'd have to keep it hidden forever. I'm not judging you - I get it, I really do." He snorted softly. "Let me guess - Holmes family trait?"

"From our father's side." Sherlock swallowed hard - it was difficult to admit this, even to John, even after that demonstration that yes they were in the same boat. "It does tend to be genetic, although parapsychic tendencies still are vanishingly rare. I've never met any others besides myself and Mycroft."

"Same," John said. "Well, me and Harry. And our mother, I suspect, although she never admitted it outright."

A thought shone through, silver-bright and sharp. "She committed suicide."

"Yeah." John cocked his head to the side again and narrowed his eyes. "Did you deduce that, or did you hear me thinking about her just now?"

"I - um." Sherlock was so rarely at a loss for words . . . "It's not hearing, exactly, more like discerning a pattern in something that seemed at first to be totally random. You're usually just a mess of mental static, but that one kind of stuck out."

John grinned. "My brain isn't actually static, not really, but I'm glad to know my shield is effective. I've always wondered - never got the chance to ask anyone who would know." His expression sobered. "But yeah, she did. I think she was an empath like Harry - at least, as far as I can tell, remembering back. I don't think she ever learned how to turn it all off. She drank all the time, hated to be around us. I think she wanted to love us, but . . . yeah."

"Hard when your son broadcasts his every slight and your brain is tuned to receive everything tenfold."

"Exactly." John's spine stiffened.

Shit. That obviously hadn't been the right thing to say - one of those elusive times where it would have been better to lie and hope to spare John's feelings. Sherlock knew he was bollocks at that kind of thing, at interpersonal emotion, but it was already out there between them. "Sorry," he said belatedly.

"It's okay." John propelled himself upward and backward into his own armchair, so they could sit and talk face-to-face like normal people instead of Sherlock looking about to pass out and John crouching on the floor in front of him. "Tell me about yours, then."

"Not much to tell." Sherlock had no idea what normal was when it came to this topic, but Mycroft and his bloody secrecy decree could go hang themselves. "Mycroft and I were tested for parapsychic abilities at a young age. We both showed some significant ability, Mycroft moreso than me. Father decreed we'd follow his footsteps into government service, he arranged for special tutors, and that was that."

"If that were that, you'd be working alongside Mycroft."

Sherlock rolled his eyes, certain John could pick up the message even without actual telepathy. "Please. I'd be wasted in government work."

"You'd be bloody brilliant at it, like you are with nearly everything else. But I have no doubt you're happier solving crimes."

Another thought, a bit looser this time, a hazy impression of an opinion rather than the sharp image of John's mother Sherlock had gotten previously. The primary gist of the opinion seemed to revolve around Sherlock, his previous drug habits, and the certainty that he had wasted his potential just the same. Sherlock frowned. "It's not what you think," he said quickly.

"Isn't it?"

"I . . . needed something to cut through the noise." God, the noise. "You have no idea what it's like, to be bombarded with the constant minutiae of idiots' day-to-day lives. Cocaine dulls it. Dulled it."

"So does alcohol, and you can see what that's done to Harry."

He didn't have an answer for that. Although . . . "Couldn't you just, oh, make her be happy? Drown out everyone else's signal with your own?"

"Yeah, probably." John sat up a bit straighter, staring at him intently a moment, and then Sherlock stopped caring because something wonderful was going on inside him. It wasn't suffocating, didn't dull his senses or his telepathy at all, just . . . blanketed him with a sense of contentment, well-being, pleasure, absolute fucking bliss. It was like being stuck at the pinnacle of the cocaine high, when his nerves were all singing a polyphonic muddle of atonal motifs and then suddenly coalesced into a single, clear chord. Sherlock knew he was groaning aloud, probably making some sort of obscenely sexual nose of satisfaction, but he couldn't be arsed to care about anything except the now-fading wave of something fucking amazing. They sat in silence for a full minute as he drifted back down to earth.

"That was . . . ngh." Sherlock let his head drop back against the leather of his armchair. "That was better than cocaine, John. Why didn't you tell me you could do that before?"

"You just said it." John's words were crisp, heavy, and Sherlock struggled back into some semblance of his normal self. "The last thing you need is another cocaine. Same with Harry."

Sherlock drew a breath, ready to argue, but had to admit John was right. If he had that on tap? He'd probably never eat or sleep again. He lowered his eyes in silent acknowledgement.

"So." John leaned forward and propped his elbows on his knees and his chin in one hand. "Are we good?"

Why wouldn't we be? ". . . Yes?"

"We're not going to get swarmed by a troop of stuffy men with guns now, are we? For admitting we each have a secret?"

Sherlock waved John's objection away. "Mycroft probably isn't listening at the moment, and he knows I'd kill him if he tried interfering. No one else would be in a position to do anything."

"Okay." John licked his lips, a nervous habit he had when he wanted to change the subject but wasn't sure how to do it. "Right. So."

"So we solved the case, it's getting late, and I'm hungry. Ten minutes so we can change out of our crime scene clothes and we can go see if the Chinese place on the corner still has duck?"

John grinned. "Sold."