Cross-posted from tumblr/AO3 same day.
/ noun
/ 1. a reddish glow often seen on the summits of mountains just before sunrise or just after sunset.
John was having a pretty good day for once. There had been no mishaps at the clinic and all of his patients had been calm and reasonable. Sherlock hadn't texted him once today which probably meant that he spent the last ten hours sulking on the couch. His leg hadn't acted up once, and there hadn't been a queue at Tesco when he swung in for milk, tea, and coffee. By all standards that mattered, a good day indeed.
And then he walked into 221B and almost into the glimmering summoning circle painted on the floor.
"Damn it Sherlock!" Sherlock, sitting on the far side of the circle, startled and stared at him with wide eyes. "Don't give me that look. You could have texted me. Or, I don't know, painted the circle away from the door? Made it smaller? Paint it on a carpet or something and laid that down like we talked about? Mrs Hudson's going to be furious when she sees you've ruined her floors again."
Sherlock was still staring wordlessly at him and John sighed, giving up the argument for a lost cause and carefully hedged around the slowly fading circle to the kitchen. When he came back out with a fresh cuppa for the both of them twenty minutes later, Sherlock still hadn't moved. John carefully navigated the now completely-dark circle, since one never knew how much magick was stored in something like that until it was dispersed properly, and pressed a kiss to Sherlock's hair as he held out the second mug.
His boyfriend reacted with startling violence, flinging his arms as he scrambled to his feet, knocking both mugs from John's hands, sending them crashing to the floor.
"Okay, what the hell has gotten into you?!" John exclaimed, stepping back, holding his sopping shirt from his chest, feet crunching over the pieces of porcelain.
"Who are you?" Sherlock's voice was guarded, his body tense.
John stared at him, and then chuckled. Which slowly died out when Sherlock didn't move. "I'm… your boyfriend?" he said slowly, taking a cautious step forward. "Your very worried boyfriend. What did you do today?" He took another step forward and Sherlock took a step back, rounding the back of his chair, keeping it between them.
Sherlock was silent for a long while, the space between his brows crinkled like he was working out a level seven puzzle. When he finally spoke, his voice was soft, wondrous, disbelieving, and made absolutely no sense. "I made you."
"You- what?"
"That's what I did today. Before today, there was no… whoever you are. I lived alone. I had no boyfriend. Today, I created a spell to summon a companion. I had expected a… demon, or perhaps a familiar. But I got you…"
"Sherlock, that doesn't make any sense. We've lived together for two years! You know, when Mike introduced us? You know all this!"
"No, I don't," Sherlock denied, shaking his head, his eyes never leaving John's face. "All I know about you is what I've deduced from your appearance. I've never seen you in my life. I summoned a companion… and I got one."
John stood there helplessly, mind whirring with the possibility that he'd never existed before that day, while remaining in denial of it, trying to compile a mental list of every way Sherlock could have given himself amnesia: physical, chemical, magical.
Sherlock took a sudden step forward and cupped John's jaw in both hands. His eyes moved back and forth between John's, as if he could find all the answers to the world there. "I know nothing about you, but I intend to find out."
FINIS
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