The rhythmic motion of the subway lulled John to sleep. The carriage was stuffy, crowded with commuters, some bearing stony faces, some talking animatedly on their phones making weekend plans. A heavy smell of mothballs, sweat and rancid milk pervaded the interior thick like a suffocating blanket. For a change John had secured a seat, as he travelled back from his locum job at the clinic to 221B Baker Street, his home.

John tilted his head back and miserably struggled to keep his eyelids open as he surveyed the ceiling of the carriage and as he had become prone to doing of late, he reminisced on the past. There was precious little else to do these days.

As always his reminiscing started at the brightest point in his life, a time when a ticking bomb called Sherlock had exploded into his life and changed him forever. The memories quickly and typically degenerated from that point on.

Meeting Sherlock, moving in, solving crimes- the exciting days. Sherlock falling to his death and the devastating psychological aftermath-the depressing days. Sherlock returning back from the dead and his marriage to Mary-the happy days. Finding out about Mary's betrayal—first learning about her past, then finding out that she shot Sherlock and then learning that he was not the father of the child he had carried-the angry days. Moriarty's broadcast had been proven a fake and Sherlock had disappeared for parts unknown, a mission for his brother, though thankfully to Western not Eastern Europe. At the most critical point of his life, when John was unsure what his response should be to finding out that the child in Mary's womb was not his, at a time when John would have turned to Sherlock for help and advice, his friend was missing. And then Mary had left with her daughter to destinations unknown, leaving John once again without purpose, moving like a ghost from one room to another in their suburban house- the pointless days. Until he ran into Sherlock one day while meeting up with Lestrade. And he was invited back into 221B and decided to take up the offer-the hopeful days. And for the past six months, he was back, back where it seemed like he belonged…. Only something had changed.

The lurch of the train as it halted jerked John out of his reverie. Sighing he joined the horde of commuters that ejected themselves and wrapped his overcoat more securely around himself, aware that the biting cold would be a bitch at this time of the evening. He was not looking forward to the long walk home. In any case, he had to stop off at Tesco's first—they had run out of milk and produce again. Sherlock, damn the man seemed to live on air, but John was an ordinary human and needed the basic necessities of life.

He put his head down and moved forward dodging other pedestrians with the ease of a seasoned dancer, an ease that takes years of daily commuting to perfect. He continued to wander through the highways and by-lanes of his memory, the only thing he seemed to do with any gusto these days. Like picking on a scab, you know it is bad for you, but you can't seem to help it. Because it was there.

He still remembered with crystal clarity the day he moved back in to Baker Street six months ago. As he paid the cabbie off and eyed his boxes that needed to be carried upstairs, he had allowed a moment's joy to bubble through him as he looked up at the window where Sherlock stood so often and then at the door with its hallmark alphanumeric sign. Hope and a sense of renewed purpose had mingled to push away the hurt, the anger, the betrayal and the disappointment of the past four years. Mrs Hudson opening the door and welcoming him home made the return all that sweeter. What was not usual, was that Sherlock was out. John had been unable to clamp down on his disappointment at entering an empty flat. Mrs Hudson prattled on about Molly calling and Sherlock having gone to Bart's. John called Lestrade and confirmed that there was no case on, which meant Sherlock had taken off to Bart's while he could have been home to welcome John back.

Thus began the most confusing and frustrating six months of John's life because the pattern had continued.

John ducked into Tesco's and wandered through the aisles grabbing milk, tea bags, bacon and other sundries, in the purposeful army way of his. His thoughts continued to be directed inwards and to the past.

It had been different somehow. Sherlock continued to be himself, snarky, bored and vicious at times, brilliant and blinding like the sun at times. He made allowances for John's bereavement period and had stayed out of his hair. But John did not get invited for the cases as often. He had become used to coming back either to an empty flat or to Sherlock conducting experiments or working on his laptop. He did not initiate conversations, he did not relay his deductions to John so that John could be his conductor of light, he did not talk to John in his absence. And John couldn't badger his way into Sherlock's life, couldn't probe the possibility of any meaningful relationship with him, because well….. it was Sherlock. Being at the receiving end of one of his cutting remarks would have surely ended John like nothing else ever could.

And then there were the different responses to things John had always done for him. Once after having pushed tea or food towards Sherlock for the third time that day, Sherlock had finally raised one eyebrow and said with utter disdain in his poshest public school voice, "John, I really must ask you to desist. I am not a child and you are not my mother," before he flapped the newspaper and disappeared behind it. And once upon catching the smell of cigarette smoke when John had tried to lecture him, he had waved him away, "Well, I'm afraid you're going to have to make peace with this, John. I do pay half the rent. And there is no clause which prohibits me from doing what I want to do." Both the days had been bad. John had stalked off in his usual manner and gone to the pub. But when he returned there had been no contrite Sherlock, trying to make peace in that uniquely Sherlockian way of his. Instead he had completely and utterly ignored John.

John slowly moved towards the check-out counter, dreading as always another encounter with the chip-and-pin machine, the bane of his life.

These days his life consisted of trudging up to attend to erratic locum jobs when available to make ends meet, fisting his cock at least once a day while watching porn videos, the occasional pub visit and trying to lure women to put out for him and thinking about the past and where had it all gone so spectacularly wrong.

He had considered moving out, getting an apartment of his own. But it came down to the same situation as five years earlier. He could not afford to be an independent renter and who would want him for a flat-mate? And he could not bear to live out of London, it would be inviting premature death.

It had been hard to take in Sherlock's apathy, only because he had been so conditioned to his affection and regard. It was the one constant of his life. Sherlock loved John, needed John, wanted John. It would take a blind man to not see the longing in his eyes after his return from the dead. Oh sure, he had worked hard at organising John's wedding. But everything was for John. He almost died when Mary shot him, but still fought to keep John's marriage alive, he killed Magnessun for John and his safety. There had been times after the wedding when John visited Sherlock at Baker Street when the longing in his eyes betrayed him. John winced as he remembered how he had inwardly preened at the knowledge that he was so vitally important to this brilliant man. That if he were so inclined, he could have him, have the most intelligent and certainly the most beautiful man he had ever seen. But apart from a few drunken, adrenaline fuelled fumblings in the army and one very memorable fuck in the dark, he was not gay. He thought about that particular fuck wryly; in the dark a tight hole was a hole, and it had been months since he had gotten laid.

After the business with Mary shooting Sherlock and in the months leading up to Christmas, John had stayed at Baker Street. There were times he was tempted. Sherlock with his beautiful full lips, gorgeous hair, that incredible body—all within his reach just asking to be taken. But he had spent a long time proclaiming his not-gayness. And his anger at one thing or another in life, which was always simmering just under the surface for as long as he could remember, kept him from taking that final step forward to grab what he needed from Sherlock. As did the thought that Sherlock might be a virgin or asexual. Certainly apart from the longing looks at John when he thought John wasn't looking and the disproportionate grief at Irene Adler's supposed death, he had never seen him show any inclination towards sex or romance.

Grabbing the bags, he trudged out again, not looking forward to walking four blocks in the freezing cold to reach home.

John was not a person given to introspection. Instead like most ordinary people he preferred to just let life take him where it will, never bothering to look deeper into the whys and the wherefores. But he had a lot of time these days. During his commute, during the quiet hours in a Sherlock-less flat. And like most ordinary people he was prone to rationalizing all his behaviours and judging himself innocent of any and all wrong-doings.

But was he innocent? What would an objective on-looker make of the past five years of his life? What did Sherlock make of him? Sherlock who was just about the most objective man on the planet, Sherlock who was not in the business of lying or embellishing the truth to suit himself or anyone else. Sherlock who had accepted John into his life, cane and all, and then accepted him back, wife and all. What did Sherlock think of him then? What did he think of him now? What had changed?

John redistributed the bags to even out the weight as he gritted his teeth against the pull on his shoulders caused by the heavy bags and plodded on.

No, he had decided after weeks of thought. He was not innocent. Sherlock had been right all along. He was ordinary and an idiot.

When he had been allowed to be a part of the life of the man who made everything in him come alive, who had cured his limp and his depression within twenty four hours of meeting him, what had he done? Yes, he had become his blogger, friend and house-keeper. But the undercurrent of blistering frustration and derision, the tendency to correct every faux-pas Sherlock made when interacting with the world at large, the barely concealed "humouring" of Sherlock's boredom and manic behaviours.

Passive-aggressive, he had decided. That is what he had been. Instead of rolling in delight at having found the best friend anyone could ask for, a friend who subsequently had jumped off a fucking roof for him, he had walked around, oh so superior in his ordinariness and ability to navigate the treacherous and ultimately meaningless transactions with a society whom Sherlock rightly treated as dirt beneath his feet.

And then when he returned from the dead, when John had caught the hidden passion and need, he had preened in private, at being a focus of attention, being put on a pedestal as it were, doling out crumbs of his company and friendship, as if Sherlock was a dog barking at his feet. He had ignored him after the wedding, enough to drive Sherlock back to drugs, he had yelled and cursed him when Mary's past was unveiled, he had blithely said good-bye to him as he had taken off to do a job for Mycroft to destinations and danger unknown. Why should he have cared? Sherlock loved him, wanted him, well it was great to feel the object of unrequited love from such a man. John had luxuriated in it. And John had Mary. Life was going to be wonderful, everything he had thought he wanted. A wife and family, a house in suburbia, a career and a sexy detective who was emphatically his, anytime he chose to snap his fingers.

Until it all blew up on his face.

God, it was proving to be the most difficult thing he had ever had to do. Trying to accept the fact that he had gone from being Sherlock's best friend and muse to a flat-mate who existed around him and was desperate for any attention that Sherlock may bestow upon him.

A bit out of breath as he approached the front door of 221B, John stopped. He stood across the street and put the bags down. He stood just looking at it.

Waves upon waves of melancholia hit him all of a sudden.

Five years ago he had stood here with a limp and a cane, a hair's breadth from eating his gun in depression, no prospects, no family, no friends, just a washed out middle aged army doctor. Here he stood again and apart from the limp he was back to where he had started. It seemed like after years of being away from Baker Street, life had come a full circle and he was back where he had begun. As though life had chewed and spat him out as if he had a bad aftertaste.

Five years ago, Sherlock Holmes the most complete, private and untouchable man to ever grace the planet had taken him under his wing and given John a place in his life and his heart. He had given John purpose and meaning, a warm flat to share and a small group of friends with whom he could share a few laughs. He had given John dignity at his profession and the honour of being his friend. Now Sherlock too was back where he had been, complete, independent and just as untouchable as he had been the first few seconds at Bart's.

He had chosen to save John then. Would he consider doing it again, after everything he had been through?

John did not know the answer to this. Slowly he bent down to pick up the bags and take the last few steps home.