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First there was the discovery. The paralyzing insight that you weren't like everyone else, that the reason people behaved the way they did was that their minds didn't work the way yours did. That you and your brother were different. Unique your mother said, but you had no idea what that meant. You just knew that even compared to most adults you were far superior at seeing the big picture. You think you were about five at the time.

Then there was school. How you hated school. Aside from the enjoyment you got from quietly masterminding clever schemes against dumb teachers and dumber classmates, there wasn't much in it for you. And every now and then someone noticed you, and that tended to get uncomfortable. You remember unfriendly looks and unintended fights, a feeling of not being in on something that all the others knew, and carefully hiding your intelligence. You remember those years as mind numbing, when you remember them at all.

Then there was collage, and finally accepting being so much smarter than everyone else. It was the obsession with finding out the truth and figuring people out, figuring out what buttons to push and how to make them tick. There were the small realizations and the big confrontations, and playing that game until you finally got that look, the look that meant victory, but also something else. Something you were never able to place, but that you now suspect was pity.

Then there were the drugs. And while there were the drugs there wasn't really much else. You can still feel the echo of the euphoria of a perfect high, when the universe unfolded itself before you and abstracts solidified into something you could touch, but what you really miss are the lows. The lows that slowed your mind into a sense of contentment you haven't felt since, and that no memories can recreate.

But while there were the drugs you know, even though it's all vague and out of focus, that there were also the back alleys, and the police, and the night in the ambulance when your heart was chemically beating you almost to death. It's all blurry, but you know that there was a moment of total clarity, when the bright ceiling lights were blinding you, and sometimes you wonder why it didn't scare you. They were rushing you through the dark London streets, sirens wailing and lights blazing, and all you could hear was the blood drumming a symphony in your ears and all you saw was the light and it didn't scare you.

It scares you now.

And while there was the drugs there was Mycroft, somewhere in the background, with a disapproving scowl but still enabling, at desperate times even providing, and so many words you didn't hear. And there was mother, in flashes tinted with shame.

Then there was The Case. The very first case. It was something of a happy accident actually, you were looking for something new to occupy your time and you stumbled into a police investigation. After solving your first case, that of the missing rehab clinic accountant, in fourteen minutes using a phone and your brain you knew you had found it. Soon the Science of Deduction, the violin and the small private detective agency followed, all under Mycroft's watchful eye as he got appointed to a minor position within the British government.

Then there was the consulting detective. Technically you suppose there was Lestrade, who was smart enough to realize what you could be and, begrudgingly, let you. After the lovely Mrs. Bloomberg informed him that the code he and his colleagues had been struggling with the last couple of months had been cracked in all of two hours by this wonderful young private detective she had found, Lestrade paid you a visit. After twenty rather draining minutes he hoped he would never see you again, but a voice in the back of his head told him the odds weren't good. It wasn't long until it was proven right, and after three cases of uneasy cooperation and even more uneasy communication you came up with the term consulting detective. You declared that you would come in and work independently on special cases under special circumstances, namely the ones where the police didn't have a clue. You weren't too popular after that.

And now, apparently, there is John. Which frankly still surprises you. You were hoping for a flat mate that wouldn't be too much of a nuisance, but you ended up with what you are pretty sure can be described as a friend.

You didn't think you could have those.

But being with John is easy in a way being with people never was. He talks back at you in just the right way, he asks the right questions and he repeatedly makes you smile. Sometimes you wonder what it is in John that is either so alarmingly adaptable or so screwed up that he fell out of the realm of the normal and landed in Baker Street 221 B, and why he chose to stay there, but usually you just take it for what it is. He's here. You are growing comfortable with that, so much in fact that you sometimes forget that John isn't really like you. Not quite. It's in his eyes when twelve people dies and you don't care. He thinks you should. He wants you to, and you are afraid that he needs you to. You can handle his disappointment, you are what you are and he has to accept that. But lately there has been the nagging fear that one day he will have had enough, that there is a breaking point, a limit, that you are not aware of, and when you hit that John will leave. You would give a lot to avoid that. Right now that is not really a concern though. John is here, and he seems to both genuinely enjoy your company and admire what you do, which is more than can be said for anyone else you've met.

Maybe with the exception of Moriarty.

You don't like to think about that though. The whole incident is something you would rather forget. You can still taste the panic that flooded your veins when you realized that John was the last voice and that one wrong move from you, one mistake, would blow him into tiny little pieces. The fact that John was willing to die for you is something you by large are trying to ignore, the implications are more than you can handle, but every now and then it hits you. Usually when he is doing something mundane, like putting milk in the fridge, or looking disapprovingly at your unopened mail or chuckling at something on the telly, and when it comes you just watch him for a while and wait for the feeling to pass. He caught you once, and even though he didn't say anything you suspect he understands.

You were surprised when he stayed. On some level you excepted him to start packing the moment you finally came home that night, to distance himself from this madness, but he just had a cup of tea, bandaged your hand and said something along the lines of "well, that was interesting, but let's not do it again". You keep reminding yourself that he is a soldier, that this was hardly the first time he risked his life for someone else and that he has had guns pointed at him before, but his calm still amazes you. In some ways John is every bit as extraordinary as you. His ability to look you in the eye while being marked by a rifle caressing the explosives strapped to his body and not flinch even the slightest is truly admirable. As is the way he managed to put the entire evening, the abduction, the soft voice that fed him lines designed to humiliate, and the fear, behind him. There is a quiet confidence in John that can't seem to be shaken, and for that you are grateful.

You wouldn't admit it, but the poolside still haunts your dreams some nights, in them John is burning, and there is the lingering guilt that has never been spoken but that you can't quite shake. You owe him, and you will remember that for as long as you live. And John, you are pretty sure, is happily unaware. Which is just another thing to be grateful for, because this, this ease you still have, you wouldn't trade for anything.