A/N: Had a conversation about the meaning of addiction as displayed in the original serials; Sherlock Holmes, the addict that gives in to his needs, happily drowning himself in them even if it makes him defective, versus John Watson, the man that goes to AA every day but still can't kick it, no matter how much he hates being supplicant to his desire. So.
John leaned against the doorframe, fingers in his pocket tapping keys against his thigh. His palms were clammy, discomfort making him clear his throat. A sort of not-despair had been bubbling in his chest for the last few weeks and it had risen higher, now, closing his windpipes. Sherlock, perched sideways on their couch, did not seem to notice. He was absolutely still but for his eyes, moving rapidly over the bulletin board filled with clippings of cases the detective thought might have some connection to Moriarty. He'd been that way for three days now, a cup of stale orange pekoe at his elbow, just where John had left it yesterday. He drew his hand out of his pocket, whipping his hand against his woolen pant-leg.
"I'm moving out." He waited for a moment. No movement. Crossing his arms tightly across his chest, John leaned more heavily against the doorway, rolling a dropped pencil across the floor with his foot. "Sherlock," he said again, louder, more pronounced, "I'm moving out."
Sherlock made a slight, noncommittal noise around his laced fingers, which John answered with something akin to a growl. "Sherlock." Again, no response. "Sherlock! I'm. Moving. Out."
"Hmm." There was a dramatic pause, then- "that's unconscionable. Why would you do that?"
The doctor recognized Sherlock's vague tone; even if he hadn't know its meaning, he could've guessed at the lack of attention the distracted man afforded him from the narrowing of eyes at an old headline, the quick glance to a newly marked article. "I've proposed to Sarah. We're getting married."
"Hm."
"Sherlock, would you stop ignoring me," he demanded, straightening up and stepping forward as he threw his hands down, harried and hating the frazzled feelings the one-sided discussion arose within him.
The man waved his hand in dismissal and John almost broke something simply for the sake of it. "Sherlock, look at me this instant." He wanted to shake the man, but he didn't want to touch him, crossing his arms across his chest again defensively, standing with the open door just behind him, ready to flee to his room where he could pack it or trash it however he felt without worrying about knocking over any volatile chemicals lying about. Without worrying about bothering Sherlock, and wasn't that the cruelest of things.
His flatmate moved slowly, eyes lingering on the mess of clippings even as his body turned. He stayed that way, head craned awkwardly sideways for a moment- Sherlock circled something with a red felt pen before shifting his attention to John, slouching forward. "What?"
"I'm moving out!" He repeated, exhaustion already starting to settle on him. An ache grew out of his shoulder and spread down his side to his hip, to his knee. Damn the weather, he thought to himself savagely, along with all this.
"I'm sorry, what for?" There was nothing as frustrating as the honesty in Sherlock's simple question.
"Sarah and I are engaged."
"Ah. Well." He paused, cocking his head, eyes narrowing a fraction in thought. Sherlock thoughtlessly reached down for the mug at his side, grasping the tea without drinking any of it. "Really? Already?"
"Already?" John Watson mimicked, rearing back even as tension sprung between his shoulder blades. "What do you mean, 'already'? It's been a year, Sherlock. Sarah and I have been dating for a year. I've been living here for a year, Sherlock, us doing this-" He waved his hand towards the wall of paper, more roughly than he had intended. "You, me, your damned mysteries, you demanding all my attention as we run to and fro when you're hot on someone's trail and yet totally lacking the ability to notice if I've ever left or even come home at all the rest of the time- a year, Sherlock."
The taller man quirked an eyebrow, drumming his fingers against cold porcelain. Eight, he thought as his mind flitted back, filtering in the information he had heard but not listened to. John Watson had used his name eight times in this conversation- Sarah's had come up four. "So is this retribution, then?" He asked, cocking his head. John seemed to be turning burgundy. "…I see. Not good."
"I'm moving in with her, Sherlock, because we're engaged, not because my existence is so inconsistent in the mind of the great Sherlock Holmes. She's been there for me, with me. She happened while you were off doing something more interesting, that's all- she's real, Sherlock. I love her."
Three to none. Was John even aware that he was doing it? Ordinary people could be so unenigmatic, so dull sometimes. John could be so dull sometimes, it was exhausting. That he would hunt for the mundane when there were so many magnificent things to decode out in that world, where no one had yet looked. To think that he would chose marriage and children in the country on purpose, as some sort of promise to himself, needing normalcy. It fought against everything Sherlock had discovered about John Watson; he considered it an entirely ludicrous choice, especially considering their shared thirst for adventure. His eyebrow twitched briefly in consideration.
Sarah, a pretty girl, a nice girl if John thought so, quite, somewhat simple but weren't they all. So normal, normal like John maybe he wished he could be, but wasn't. For all John wanted to be part of the great world, the way everyone told him he should have been, John was a little too much like Sherlock: hungry for something else, something specific but beyond. It was locked in his blood, and John would never shake it out, as hard as he might try, and Sarah could never bring him that.
"Is that all?" he asked wanly, bored with the whole ordeal.
John made a sound akin to a growl again, throwing Sherlock a poisonous look. Self-hate, no doubt, Sherlock thought with a little sigh. The way people lied to even themselves was really astounding. How could they stand it? "Sometimes you are so 'not good' I don't know what to do about you."
He pursed his lips briefly at the words, shifting on his perch to face the wall of information again. "You'll be back."
He tuned out the exclamation of rage (something akin to 'don't you try calling me for help when you need a lackey, you rotten bastard'), the sound of angry footsteps up to John's room long categorized- caught the uneven snatch caused by a flaring of John's psychosomatic limp. Odd, he'd thought that problem to be fixed.
John never came back into the main level, at least not while Sherlock was in. Two days later, all traces of the Doctor had gone: even the cane that had been gathering dust in their umbrella-bin vanished, no doubt in use once more.
Sherlock put it mostly out of his mind, though he would occasionally find himself trailing off while speaking to an empty room, no longer accustomed to working without response.
He didn't read John Watson's blog in the intermittent period, refusing to fill his mind with droll accounts of shopping lists and unremarkable doctoral visits, and had no contact with the man. Anderson and Donovan seemed quite pleased with the whole thing but he'd hardly let them bother him before. A drugs bust had turned up pieces of a green and blue striped mug that had belonged to the man, and they were now sitting on the mantelpiece- not a place of honor, certainly, the spot had simply been the least cluttered in the room when they had turned up; Sherlock simply never bothered to throw them away.
He had been distracting himself from a lull with background telly and poor violin when John Watson returned, eleven months later to the day, banging his things with resolution as he trumped up the stairs. Sherlock could pick out the stiff, uneven gait with no effort- worsened again to its state when they had first met. He didn't look up when the man stormed in, throwing a bag into the doorway. "Not a word from you," John snarled, though Sherlock picked out the notes of exhaustion in the man's voice. He played louder, the caterwauling sound chasing John up the stairs.
Tea was hot when John came back down several hours later, and he stared at the steaming liquid suspiciously before determining that none of Sherlock's experiments could actually smell anything like digestible. Safety verified, he drank it down quickly.
John peered over at the detective when he finished, rolling it back and forth between his hands- Sherlock looked much the same: legs a little too long for his suit, slim to the point of possible (probable) malnourishment , fingers long, pale and restless. The man flicked the edge of his paper down and Watson saw that his hair was longer. Mrs Hudson doubtlessly had been pestering the man to get a trim; Unruly curls crossed over the majority of his vision, tangled almost to his shoulders.
"Did you manage the marriage?" Sherlock asked abruptly, brows arching cleanly. John had never forgotten the pure crystal blue of Sherlock's eyes, but he'd forgotten about their shape, tilted and catlike, crinkled at the edges by a tint of fulfilled amusement.
"Beg your pardon?" he asked sulkily, putting the cup down with a clink as he pulled his gaze away from the man.
"Did you ever get married?"
"Yes, of course," he answered, hot and defensive. "Only we had it annulled," he added after a bit of silence, feeling the weight of Sherlock's amused gaze, half under his breath.
"Gambling, no doubt," Sherlock told him, tone clipped and definitive but warm with mirth, flicking the paper back up. John didn't bother responding, certain Sherlock could deduce the answer in the flush of his skin.