The painful glare of the white light pushes at his retinas. Sheer stubborn determination keeps his eyelids from closing, but they flicker as he twists the black knob in minute degrees. The dark sample slips into focus again but reveals no more of its secrets than before.
"No, no, no, you bastard," he mutters. "Where are you? I know you're there…"
Sherlock sets his jaw with an audible click. He has hovered over his microscope since darkness fell the previous night, yet he is still no closer to finding what he is looking for. Thus far, he'd only succeeded in eliminating fifty-seven fibers, eighteen soil samples, and three suspicious fluids from the pool of probable evidence that would seal the fate of a young woman's murderer. His head throbs and his muscles grip tense as grey steel. The kitchen stool drills into his thighs, but even as the drab fingers of dawn poke through the sitting room windows, he cannot bring himself to stop.
Dimly he hears the padding of bare feet in the hallway and the creak of the bathroom door. A few minutes later John ambles into the room. "Morning," he yawns.
Sherlock glances up in time to see John's pink tongue wiggle and swipe his lips clean of the vestiges of his minty green toothpaste. An involuntary grin tugs at the corner of Sherlock's mouth.
John plunks the kettle onto the stove and rips two soft honey-brown squares of bread from a crinkly amber bag. "You been here all night?"
A soft grunt is his reply.
John plates the bread and then wags it in the air. The green ivy pattern dances in Sherlock's peripheral vision. "Want some?" After a few seconds of silence, he adds, "Come on, you know you do…"
The impishness in his tone pulls Sherlock's gaze from the scope. John's eyebrows are wiggling and he's caressing the delicate golden edges of the plate like a peacock salesman in an infomercial. His azure eyes sparkle like agate stones and he laughs.
Sherlock purses his lips for an acerbic reply, but he stops short and blinks. "You're wearing my dressing gown."
John's cheeks redden every so slightly, and he shrugs, "Yeah. It's…I don't know, I like it." He shuffles around to Sherlock's side of the island to reveal that the garment's hem is barely an inch from the floor. "Guess it's better on you, though, eh?"
Somehow John's eyes seem a deeper ocean of blue against the gown's midnight hue, rendering them even more enchanting than usual, and this delicious realization quickly floods Sherlock's own face with warmth. He sits straighter on the stool, and his neck cracks in relief. John merely winks and returns to apply wide swaths of orange marmalade to his bread and pour a cup of steaming tea. He retreats to his arm chair to scan the morning newspaper.
Sherlock turns back to his microscope and submerges again into the black and white of his data analysis. Minutes later, he remarks quietly, "It suits you quite well."
The dull afternoon clouds cast an impenetrable pall across the flat. The colorless liquid that Sherlock now scrutinizes is his eleventh. The tuneless tick of the clock makes dark hash marks in his mind for the hours of aggravating failures he's had since this case began. Black scribbles of ink mar the white paper next to him, calculations that have led him to zero. Less than zero. His investigation was turning into an empty void where there are no answers and nothing makes any sense.
In a fit, he rips the slide from its plate and throws it against the wall. It shatters, its clear shards seeming to evaporate in the heavy air.
He slouches over the countertop and shoves the heels of his hands into his eye sockets. Darkness, blindness—that's all he's got. His mind blanks.
"No luck, I see."
John was standing behind him, and abruptly Sherlock's blankness is replaced by the refreshing green scent of John's cologne; in his fury, he'd not even heard him enter.
John doesn't wait for a reply. He digs his fingers into Sherlock's shoulders, kneading the muscles with a gentle but firm touch. Sherlock can see the pink moons of John's fingertips swirl across the eggplant fabric of his shirt. He opens his mouth to protest the interruption, but all that emerges is a gravelly sigh.
John huffs a laugh. "See, now, your brain may be temporarily fried, but your trapezii know what's up." He squeezes the knob of Sherlock's shoulder and points him to the sitting room. Sherlock obeys, sulking across the crimson run of carpet and dropping into his chair, noting the line of fluffy orange clouds on the horizon. Sunset? How could that be? How could the day have passed entirely when all he could vividly remember of it was—
"Your favorite."
Sherlock whips his head around and stutters, "What did you say?"
"I said I got your favorite." He points to the side table. "Figured you needed it."
Next to the chair is a peach cardboard container with a yellow sun dial on the lid, grinning at him, a magenta sleeve of chopsticks secured beneath the fragile spines of the handle. Sherlock stares at it, then turns his eyes to John's. "Dim sum?"
John's lips quirk. "Yeah." He holds Sherlock's gaze steadily. "Remember?"
Their first real meal together. How could he possibly forget?
John's hair suddenly blazes gold as it catches a ray of the fading daylight. He tugs on the copper zipper of his caramel canvas coat and peels it off, tossing it onto the couch. He scoops up a second fragrant box and sinks into his own chair, crossing his ankles and propping his forest-green toes on the right corner of Sherlock's cushion.
The two eat in a companionable silence. Gradually, Sherlock's feet find their way to the corner of John's chair, to the space specially reserved for them. Sherlock breathes deeply, watching John's throat dance as he swallows each bite and listening to the soft swish of traffic below on Baker Street. He tilts his head back, and his eyes settle closed.
A finger brushes against Sherlock's sole. "Sorry you had such a boring day." John's voice is scarcely more than a whisper.
Sherlock doesn't sit up. "Not boring, " he murmurs. "More…colorful—well, at least the important parts."
John relaxes further into the chair cushions, the ghost of his smile barely visible in the purple glow of the setting sun.
Notes: a. I did not know until after I had written this that the literal translation of dim sum is "to touch your heart." I can think of no more perfect a meal for these two! b. Your comments are EVERYTHING; please let me know what you think!