Thunder cracks loudly overhead, and I can feel my breathing quicken with every minute. It's only thunder, it can't hurt you, idiot! I curse myself mentally, and try to focus on the experiment at hand. Another jolt of thunder, and a flash of lightening through the window stirs fear deep within my core. I try to distract myself with numbers and equations, but I can't seem to focus on anything but the sounds and bursts of light.
My mobile rings and I jump, despite myself. I recognise the song almost immediately. The Burden of Being Wonderful by Steel Panther. A vain, irritable song John set for himself before-. Because he knows it annoys me. I answer the phone quickly, both because I want the song to end, and because I want to hear John's voice again. Thirty-three and a half hours is just too long to go without him!
"Hello." I say stiffly, like I don't already know who it is.
"Sherlock, hi. It's John, though you probably already knew that. Still not like the song?" John says, I can hear a hint of amusement in his voice. It should aggravate me, instead it entices me.
"It's ghastly. An insult to my ears." I don't know if he can hear the smile at my lips, through my monotonous tone, but if he can, is he happy I'm smiling? Or does he not even care?
"Are you okay?" He asks, worry evident in his voice. I hate when he worries, I always feel guilty when I'm the cause of it, he shouldn't bother himself with me he has enough to worry about now.
"Why wouldn't I be?" I reply, sternly. I inhale sharply as another boom of thunder rattles through the flat.
"The storm. I remember last time there was one this bad." John says, softly. I remember that night vividly, too.
It was before I died-only I didn't die, not really. But John insists of calling it a death, though the only thing to really perish was our especially close friendship, something I still mourn to this day-but not too long before. I was bored, need a cigarette to function, bored. And the only thing I could find to do was investigate a 'haunted' shack. Unfortunately, in order to get in I had had to break the lock, and the door was held open with a heavy file cabinet. This was unfortunate because it was blocking the door, meaning I would have to go through the process of moving it again.
So there I was, walking around the really very large shack, looking for something that could point towards a being of the supernatural variety. Outside I could hear rain pounding against the roof and woodland outside. The first `jolt of thunder came not long after the rain, and I jumped higher than I care to tell. It was loud and bold, and with it came lightening, and angry glow in the dark of night.
Behind me came a crash of a different kind, I knew it wasn't thunder, but in my present state I couldn't think rationally. I jumped at this, too. I looked around and saw a wide-eyed John, staring between me and the door in disbelief, his mouth hanging open stupidly.
"I came looking for you, and I had to move the cabinet to get in here, and then the door slammed. But, I'll open right?" John said, finally finding some form of articulation to have an actual conversation.
"No." I replied, realisation dawning on me. "I had to break the lock from the outside, the cabinet was holding the door open. We can't get back out again."
John swore under his breath, just as another thunder clap arrived. I let out an embarrassing sound and turned away, hoping to whatever God there was that John hadn't heard me. That he hadn't seen-well, heard-my weakness.
"Sherlock?" John asked, I could hear him moving towards me. "Are you okay?" He placed a hand on my shoulder as another round of angry noise blasted through my ears, causing my to shake, and nearly sob.
"Idontlikethunder..." I mumbled, refusing to look at John.
"I'm sorry, I didn't catch that." John said softly.
"I don't like thunder, okay?" I admitted, letting anger seep its way into my tone.
I shook John's hand off my shoulder, and made my way over to a sofa that was sat in the corner of the room. I brushed away some dust build up, and sat down. I brought my knees up to my chest, and began to rock and sob as more thunder and lightening came.
"Dammit, no signal." John said from somewhere in the room, "Must be the storm." He came and sat next to me on the sofa, and put his arm around my shoulders. With one hand, he pulled me over to him, so i was half sat on his lap. "Shush, it's okay. I'm here. Nothings going to hurt you." He soothed into my hair.
"Please don't ever leave me." I begged, my usual collected demeanor melting away at John's touch. My arms snaked their way around John's waist, afraid that if I let go he'd vanish into thin air.
"Never." He muttered, resting his cheek on my curly brown locks.
"I'm fine." I lie.
"Are you sure? Do you want me to come over?" John asks, something else in his voice now, hope?
Yes! "No, don't be absurd. It's just a little thunder and light-" I'm stopped abruptly by another crash and another flash of light.
"I'm coming over." John presses, decidedly.
All I can do is mumble, "Okay..." Back, before hanging up and hurrying into my bedroom.
I climb under the sheets, the way I used to when I was a child. I close my eyes and can almost imagine Mycroft crawling into my pillow fort with me, and hugging me until I fell asleep. I build one now, piling book on book parallel to my bed, throwing a sheet between and one next to it, I place pillows from the sofa against the wall, and bring blankets and bed pillows under the sheet with me. I grab a torch from the kitchen and hurry into the fort. I turn on the torch, wrap myself in blankets, and bend myself into a ball. I flinch and sob every time thunder strikes.
"Sherlock?" I hear from inside the next room, and I recognise the voice as John's.
"In here!" I choke through my tears.
I hear John's heavy footsteps through the living room, the turn of my door handle, him approaching me. He lifts the blanket covering the other end, leans his face in and grins. He disappears for a minuet, but reappears without his jacket and shoes.
"Hey." He whispers, crawling over to me. I don't reply so he continues, "I was really worried about you, you know. About how you'd cope on your own in a storm. I didn't realise you'd resort to a pillow forts." He laughs breathy after he's finished, and it is the most beautiful sound in the world.
"Thank you for coming." I mumble, tears still pouring from my eyes.
"Hey," John whispers, moving so that my head is lent on his shoulder, "I would never abandon you." Like I abandoned you?
"I'm sorry..." I say between sobs, no longer from the storm.
"No-I didn't mean-I wasn't-That isn't..." John stutters, he leans my head to look at him. "You did what you had to do to save Greg, Mrs Hudson, me. I'd have done the same thing." Tears are appearing in his eyes, "Please, just don't cry. I hate seeing you this vulnerable."
"Why are you crying?" I ask, my eyes not drying.
He laughs, like any of this is funny, and says, "Because I love you."
My heart stops-figuratively, of course, I really would be dead if it had really stopped-and I wait for him to add, "You're my best friend." Or, "You're like my brother." Some form of denial that he isn't actually in love with me, not the way that I'm in love with him-have always been in love with him.
"What?" I choke.
"Yeah." He says, still crying. "Yeah, I love you Sherlock Holmes. I'm in love with you. Have been for a while. Since before-You have no idea how immensely happy I was when I saw you again after I'd mourned you. Then, I realised that it was one-sided, after you agreed to go on a date with Molly. I couldn't watch you fall for someone else, I had to move out! Oh God, have I just ruined everything?"
"I didn't realise that it was a date." I mumble. John frowns at me. "I thought it was dinner, I asked if I could invite you. She said that she didn't want me to. I never told you that I left after the first five minuets of her incessantly flirting, because I'd thought the reason you'd moved out was that you'd found someone."
"Really?" John asks, incredulously.
"I love you too." I say, tears still flooding from both my eyes.
Johns lips are on mine in an instant, harsh and hard, but soft and smooth. His hands are in my hair, tugging on strands of my hair. And I'm kissing back, probing at his mouth, hoping I'm not doing it wrong. But, he's moaning into my mouth, so I must be doing something right, at least. He pulls away to breath, and I nearly follow him, already missing the feel of him so close.
"Wow." He whispers, like it's a statement. "Just, wow." His eyes meet mine, "I don't want to go."
"I don't want you to!" I say, squeezing his hips.
"Can I stay? Move back in? Please, Sherlock, I miss you so much. You have no idea how much it'll kill me going back to that empty flat! Especially now!" John pleads.
"Please! Please stay. Stay with me! Please." I beg, barely noticing the thunder or lightening.
John lays back, and I rest my head on his chest. I remember reading somewhere that the most comfortable place in the world is in 'his' arms, and I can vouch for that. John's arm draped around my waist, him breathing into my hair, our legs tangled together-mine so much longer, they're poking out of our sheets. And he's going to be here in the morning, and the morning after that. And every morning for the rest of our lives, I hope.
"I love you, Sherlock." Is the last thing I hear before I drift off to sleep.