Pairings: Sherlock/OMC, Sherlock/John bromance only (for now).
Timeline: January - August 2012, spanning the entire second season, using the dates from the show as canon and not the ones from the blog because they don't quite match up.
Warnings: 100% gay Sherlock. If this bothers you, please stop reading here.

Hooray for my first foray into Sherlock fanfiction! I hope you all will enjoy this story as much as I'm going to enjoy writing it. It was inspired by a scene in A Scandal in Belgravia when John says to Mrs Hudson, "Has [Sherlock] had any kind of girlfriend, boyfriend…a relationship, ever? How can we not know?" and from the times I was sitting in lectures and daydreaming (as you do) about how Sherlock would react if he was in a relationship, and what would happen if that relationship ended badly.

John's blog entries are formatted /like this/.

The title is taken from a song by The Temper Trap, which is absolutely perfect for the events of this story.

I think that's all I have to say, except that while Phillip is mine, everyone else belongs to who they belong to. Also I'm sorry if huge blocks of italicised text hurt your eyes. It had to be done. This chapter is quite short but they will probably get longer from here on in.

The Personal Blog of Dr John Watson

Date: August 26, 2012

Title: An Unexpected Turn of Events

Body: /During the first case that I ever helped Sherlock solve, Anderson accused him of being a psychopath. Sherlock snapped in reply that he wasn't a psychopath, he was a high-functioning sociopath. At the time I didn't really understand the distinction, and didn't think to look up the definitions until now. Psychopaths and Sociopaths are very similar, except for one important difference. Psychopaths can't love.

Sherlock might not be "normal", and sometimes I seriously doubt that he's actually human. But I do know one thing: he's not a psychopath. I don't even really believe that he's a sociopath. But I'm getting ahead of myself. At the start of this year, and especially after the Irene Adler debacle, everyone who knows Sherlock would have said that having a proper relationship would do him a world of good. But we were wrong.

We were so wrong.

And so now I'm writing this from Sherlock's bedroom - his bed actually. There's nothing funny going on here though: tonight is what Mycroft calls a 'danger night'. Danger nights are when Sherlock is in serious danger of falling headfirst back into one of his many previous bad habits. It turns out that having a proper relationship didn't do him a world of good; it very nearly threw him unceremoniously off the rails that Mycroft, Mrs Hudson and I have worked so hard to keep him on over the course of the last eighteen months. I'm getting ahead of myself again. I'll start from the beginning.

It was two weeks after Irene Adler sent Sherlock her phone for Christmas. We didn't have any cases on that week and Sherlock was, as usual, bored to the point of destruction. It was lucky that he put on real clothes that morning as opposed to lazing around in his pyjamas like he usually does between cases, because at half-past two we were visited by a potential client.

He was a Frenchman by the name of Phillip Lefevre. He came to us because he was a huge fan of the blog and needed help with a case concerning his brother and some lost first edition books. The case is written up on the blog after the 'The Woman' entry, you can find out about it there. In this instance, the case isn't the important part. I could tell as soon as he walked in the room that this was no ordinary client. I haven't seen Sherlock that affected by someone since he met Irene Adler for the first time, and Phillip wasn't even naked.

He was tall, almost as tall as Sherlock, but where Sherlock is slim in a way that only recovered junkies are, Phillip quite clearly worked out. His tight purple shirt showed off every curve of every muscle in his upper arms and left none of his six-pack to the imagination. His brown hair was, at that point, chin length, framing the sharp angles of his face and bringing out the brown specks in his hazel eyes.

This is going to make it sound like I was in love with him but I'm only trying to make the rest of you understand what was so special about him. He was, apart from Sherlock, the most beautiful man I have ever seen. He was the kind of beautiful that only existed in ads for Calvin Klein underwear. Plus Sherlock has always had a weird penchant for French things, although he would rather die than admit it.

The case Phillip presented us with wasn't anything really special, and I'm sure that if anyone else had come to us with it, Sherlock would have turned them away and told them that it was "excruciatingly simple".

But there was something about Phillip that drew Sherlock in straight away. Something that made him decide to take the case despite the non-challenge it presented. A case like this would ordinarily take Sherlock less than six hours to solve, but he managed to drag it out for three days. And at the end of it, instead of our usual dinner de-brief at Angelo's, Sherlock swept into the flat, all breathless, and informed me that Phillip had invited him to go for dinner at a trendy restaurant in Soho.

It was like being hit with three tidal waves at once: John, I am continuing my association with an ex-client. Said ex-client just asked me on a date. I'm going to take him up on the offer. Not that it was any great surprise: even if no one actually says anything, ever, about Sherlock's sexuality, I always thought he was gay. Some of the things he said at Angelo's on the first night that I knew him made me wonder if he was, and the fact that there's always an issue or two of GT and Attitude floating around the flat is what clinched it. It wasn't a surprise that he was asked on a date, either - if I had a quid for every person who has tried to pick him up, I'd be able to pay Mrs Hudson the next six months' worth of rent in advance.

The surprise was that he said yes. Usually he uses his "I'm married to my work" excuse. But not this time. I originally thought that it was just a behavioural experiment, but not even Sherlock is that cruel. Then I thought he had decided to go as a way to prolong the inevitable between-case boredom; despite the fact that the blog was attracting quite a few people there was no guarantee that there would be any new cases straight away./

John paused his typing for a moment, and glanced down at the sleeping man next to him. He had been struck with the sudden concern that his typing would wake Sherlock up, but the detective was still well and truly out of it. John would even go so far as to describe Sherlock's sleep as 'peaceful', which was a nice change. He was curled up so close to John that the doctor could feel Sherlock's body heat against his right leg, although there was no contact.

John knew that as soon as he lay down Sherlock would gravitate towards him, and that by the morning the detective would practically be lying on top of him. The doctor didn't really mind, though. Such close proximity was strangely comforting. If John was asked why that was he would say that it was comforting because he could be sure that Sherlock was alive and breathing and not doing something stupid, but he wasn't entirely sure that that wasthe reason.

John shook his head and turned his attention back to the blog he was drafting. He wouldn't ever post it, obviously, but he needed to get the thoughts out of his head and drafting a blog post was a good way to do that.

/There was something in Sherlock's demeanour that made me change my mind about that. He seemed...'excited' is the wrong word but I can't think of one that fits better. He came into the flat, announced that he was going on a date, as if that was the most natural thing in the world, and went into his bedroom before I could even formulate a response. A few minutes later he came out in a clean suit, a silk shirt and his good Italian leather brogues with his hair brushed and looking artfully dishevelled. As he walked past to retrieve his coat and scarf I caught a whiff of the cologne that he had only ever worn a handful of times before./

Eight months earlier, January 2012...

"You smell nice," John said as Sherlock shrugged into his coat and wrapped his scarf around his neck.

"Thanks. I know," Sherlock replied, glancing at the doctor with one of his vague half-smiles. "I'll be back in a few hours. You don't need to wait up."

"Okay, enjoy yourself!" John called as the detective rushed back down the stairs with a little spring in his step. John heard him bid goodbye to Mrs Hudson, and moved over to the window to watch the street. A few seconds later Mrs Hudson came into the flat and joined him at the window.

"Am I dreaming, or is Sherlock going on a date?"

"You're not dreaming. Sherlock is going on a date. Apparently."

Mrs Hudson gave John an odd look, but said nothing. They watched in silence as Sherlock headed towards Phillip, who was leaning against the lamppost, waiting. The two men exchanged greetings and set off down the street. As they rounded the corner and passed out of John and Mrs Hudson's field of vision, the landlady raised her eyebrows at John. "Well. Miracles do happen."

"So it would seem," John replied with an amused smile. Mrs Hudson smiled back.

"Cup of tea and some telly down in my flat? Then we'll know as soon as he's home."

"That sounds lovely," the doctor replied, and followed his landlady down to 221a to await Sherlock's return.