Why does he wear headphones? He never wears headphones. Why exactly now? John could see the broad, black band as Sherlock leaned forward to pull something out of a cupboard. It glowed dull in the evening light and pushed his also black locks out of his oh so beautiful face. For the whole day has Sherlock been playing with his chemistry toys. It somehow involved the art of breaking a nut, John didn't know how or why, without actually breaking one open though. Without a single sign of exhaustion, concentration or desperation Sherlock's thin fingers darted over the tools and chemicals. Although John knew some things about chemistry (only limited of breaking nuts), Sherlock didn't ask for his help. Not even once. Then again, he never did. What did he think? It was Sherlock he was thinking about, very frequently in the past days.

John coughed and turned back to his newspaper with a rustle. He knew how the situation would turn out if he dared to ask. Sherlock would grin deviously as if John missed something Sherlock didn't want him to have, then – a few seconds later – he would finally give him a taciturn answer. With that, the conversation would have been finished. John sighed.

'What are you doing there?', John stared at the words in the newspaper without properly reading them.

Sherlock grinned. For precisely five seconds, Sherlock grinned, interrupting his work. Afterwards he carried on and murmured: 'It's for a case, John.'

And John was bad at deducting in Sherlock's eyes. He predicted this whole thing. 'May I ask why I don't know anything about it?', he turned the page.

'Now now, you don't have to know everything', Sherlock replied and ended the discussion.

Suddenly Sherlock threw away the nut cracker, which he had gripped tight until moments ago, on the table, pulled the headphones off his head, put on his scarf and coat and positioned himself in front of John. The smaller man lowered the pile of papers in his hands without lifting his gaze or his head and waited for further things to happen.

'You disappoint me', Sherlock said.

John smiled amusedly and nodded thoughtless. He closed his eyes for a second and when he opened them again he felt strange lips on his own and before he could react they were already gone and ran out of the shared flat.

'See you around, John, I'm at the Yard!'

John stared out of the window into the black sky, astonished, trying to comprehend what just happened. He started to laugh and when it died down, he smiled at his newspaper.

Scotland Yard was dumb, so incredibly dumb. As always Sherlock had received his loan after he solved the case and had already put it onto Jon's bank account. The doctor was still just above the poverty line and it didn't look like that would change any time soon. Sherlock stepped away from the bright light of the cash dispenser and waited for the next taxi to stop by. It wasn't like he had anything else to do anyway. Many cars made their way through his winter night, tired eyes half opened and headlights on. The Christmas decoration shone and blinked out of the closed stores nearby and jazz music played out of a still opened record store. The salesperson seemed to think that it somehow fit into December, which it didn't if you'd ask Sherlock. At least it wasn't too loud. Suddenly a cab stopped at the foot of the pavement, even though Sherlock hadn't made any signs for it to do so – just in that instant, fat snowflakes began to fall. Firstly only a few and then more and more and more until you couldn't tell whether the streets were grey or white. Sherlock's hands were freezing and his face turned to a light shade of red. A familiar face walked his way as he wanted to enter the taxi. John waved the taxi away and took one of Sherlock's cold hands in his, gave it a kiss and walked, hand in hand, with his very close colleague back to their flat and the only thing both of them could think of was…

Finally.