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John finished his pint, groaning at the sting and bursts of light from behind his tired, heavy lids. It had been a rough day at the surgery; two children deaths. Granted, one of them was on the wrong side of the car during a crash, and the other had a roughly 12% chance at living through the next couple months even if the surgery had been successful.

Still. Neither of them were even ten bloody years old yet. He winced at the flashes of their lifeless bodies, untouchable beneath his hands, and he waved for another drink, hoping that drunkenness could quell his angst.

"Last one," the bartender warned, gesturing to the clock. It was nearing one in the morning, and John nodded lightly, sliding over some notes to pay. After finishing his drink, John flapped his hand in what he assumed to be a double-visioned wave, and stumbled out the door of the pub.

It took him a moment to figure out which way to turn, but it's not as if he were blocking the pavement. Absolutely nobody was outside, not unsurprising given that it was late on a thursday night (or, would it be a friday morning?), and positively dreary outside. It was going to storm, John was sure.

When he stumbled into Baker Street, John squinted up to the flat, surprisingly-unsurprised that Sherlock stood in the window, light pouring from all around him. Like an angel. John waved his arms, smiling widely, and the curtain swung closed in response. He scoffed with humour into the night air.

John was just crossing the street when the door to 221 opened, quiet in regards to (the presumably sleeping) Mrs. Hudson. Sherlock emerged, feet rapidly maneuvering the stone steps, and reached John's considerable distance in a disproportionate amount of (huge) strides.

John tilted his head at Sherlock, as well as the two slightly more blurrier versions that bordered him. "Hey," he greeted with a smile, clasping the taller man on the bicep, all past feeling of malaise forgotten. Luckily, John didn't slur words when he was drunk, but he did however lose the filter that he prided himself on. For example, "Woah, Sherlock, have you been working out? Your arm is bloody firm."

Sherlock huffed out a laugh, like he's been holding it in with his breath. He seemed… well, not anymore, but he had seemed worried. Sherlock didn't do worrying, unless for his experiments, and John was quite certain that he wasn't playing the part as one. At the moment, he amended.

"You're positively drunk, John. You need to get a good night's sleep, there's much to do in the morning."

John smiled dreamily, dropping his hand from Sherlock's upper arm. "I don't have work in the morning, nor next week. I reckon they took pity on me. Rough day, it was."

Sherlock perused him, read him of specific times he (didn't have the time between patients to) eat and precisely how long he spent at the bar through narrowed eyes. "I can tell. Two, was it? Both girls? Nothing you could have done to prevent it, and you know that. But you still had to get yourself drunk off your arse."

John ignored the first part, seeing as that was the whole point of the latter. "You haven't seen me drunk off my arse yet, Sherlock. And I hope you never will."

Sherlock quirked the corner of his mouth, eyebrows raising bemusedly. "Oh, really now. And why is that?"

John leaned in, whispering conspiratorially. "Because I'll snog anyone in sight."

And then, he popped Sherlock on the behind with a rowdy laugh.

Sherlock jumped, surprise crossing his features, before settling into something akin to bewilderment. But not that actual expression, heaven's no. A version much blander. "Okay, this seems to be my cue to be that decent flatmate you're always prattling on about. Up with you, time for bed." He flicked his eyes quickly down John's body, lingering on his leg, and then spun to John's right side. Sherlock took his good arm, and swung it over his shoulders.

John didn't get what Sherlock was trying to do, since the height difference was causing him to stumble dramatically, and that just made him depend on Sherlock's solid frame even more.

Ah. John could suddenly see the merits.

"You're a good friend," John drawled, clumsily dragging the hand that hung at Sherlock's chest up his face, jutting past his nose and jabbing him in the eye.

"Hey-!" Sherlock protested, wincing slightly as John knotted his fingers into his curls, jostling their heads together affectionately.

"Great friend. The best, really. The best friend." He was pulled up the steps and pushed through the doorway, stumbling into the stairs to the flat whenever Sherlock released him to close and lock the door. "I can walk, you know. I'm not invalid. Well, not today, anyway." He giggled at that for an unknown reason, and then winced as he leaned his bad shoulder against the wall for leverage.

"Idiot. This is why I was helping you, your limp is acting up from stress and the incoming weather is affecting your shoulder." Sherlock returned to his spot beside John, wrapping his arm around his waist once again and pulling him up along with him.

They only made it up a few steps when Sherlock realised that John giving no effort was really making it difficult to pull him up the steep stairs. With a sigh and a silent apology to his future self, he knocked out John's knees with his right arm and pulled him up into his arms. A string of profanities curled from his lips at the strain, but he began braving the summit once again.

"Woah! Sherlock, y-you… Christ!" John scrambled in his arms, flailing drunkenly as Sherlock grunted in response. "Y-you're too… this is emasculating!"

"Oh, please," Sherlock growled begrudgingly, trudging up the steps with heavy effort. "You've drank enough alcohol to alert London of your endless masculinity, so just let me carry you up the stairs before your lack of sobriety injures the both of us!"

John glared up at him, arms crossed. "You're more likely to fall while carrying me, I don't see how this is any better."

"Wrong, as per the usual. Because you were too exhausted to put in the effort, your feet catching on the steps meant more upper-body work for me to attempt and dislodge them each time. I was dangerously close to pulling something in my back, which would be overall unfortunate for a plethora of reasons. I'm distributing my - our - weight more evenly now." He spat out all of this rapidly in one exhale, tendons straining in his arms and neck. "Obvious."

John was (oddly) quiet for a few moments, mulling Sherlock's reasoning around in his head, and then he let out a sigh and reached up to thread his fingers into Sherlock's curls once again. "Best friend," he muttered quietly, lolling his head against Sherlock's chest.

Sherlock froze, one foot on the step behind him, looking down at John in unmasked surprise. He furrowed his eyebrows, mouth opening and closing as he fumbled for words. He already knew that he was John's best friend, and vice-versa, that much was clear.

But the way he had said it, with such underlying tenderness and raw emotion, it made Sherlock suddenly have a desperate need to know more. To peel back every layer of John Watson, to lay his mind bare until there was nothing left to deduce, nothing left to observe. What did he mean by that? And why am I so curious about it?

And then the answer, oh so obvious, shone brilliantly like fireworks behind his eyes, deep into his mind like it were New Years and the countdown had finally, finally, reached zero.

He wanted to consume John Watson.

He wanted to take him apart brick by brick and then put him back together, wanted to count the missing pieces in his structure and fill them in with chips of his own. He wanted to hold on tight and never let go, never unlock his fingers from John's ugly jumper and he never wanted John to release his hair. He wanted to drown into this man, and instead of pulling himself from his depths he wanted to drink him in until there was nothing left of him, there was only Sherlock Holmes and John Watson and their essence wasn't of one or the other, no, it was twined together and inseparable and infinite.

And he was terrified.

He hurried up the rest of the steps, opening the door and walking them sideways through the threshold. He looked down at John, watched him doze against his chest, and he pressed his lips together in firm determination. This problem was going to need time, silence, and nicotine.

With a final sweep of his eyes around the flat, Sherlock marched them both into his bedroom, and closed the door behind him with the heel of his shoe.

…

Pain.

John groaned as he awoke, his brain suddenly too thick for his skull and the light too bright from behind his eyelids. His shoulder ached, throbbing in time with his head, and he knew that he'd have to get up eventually. He made another pathetic sound at the notion, but all the same flung back the covers and propped himself up onto his forearms. He peeled his eyes open, brow abidingly furrowed, and was surprised to find that it was still nighttime.

And also surprised that he wasn't in his bedroom.

And, lastly, very much surprised that his flatmate was sitting in a chair that faced the bed, fingers steepled under his chin and eyes staring intensely at John, looking as if he were trying to descramble a difficult riddle, muscles still and taught as if he were a statue.

"Yeah, no, not creepy at all," John croaked, swinging his legs over the side of the bed so he was parallel to Sherlock, running a tired hand through his hair before blinking at his surroundings. "Am I… Is this your room?"

"Quiet," Sherlock ordered, his voice rough with disuse, and John saw that his arm was patched up with nicotine.

He cocked his head, ignoring Sherlock's command, and squinted to his eyes once again. "Is there a case? Is this…" He yawned, the movement only jarring his head even more. He cut it off with a pained breath. "Is it that orchestra case? What's the problem?"

Sherlock didn't answer, as expected, and John took notice of his appearance. He wore his day clothing, only different than the day before. He had changed, then. And his hair was already gelled and teeth brushed. John took a moment to find the clock, and stifled another groan.

"Sherlock… why are you dressed and made-up to leave, all the while watching me sleep, at four-thirty in the morning?"

Sherlock rolled his eyes with a sigh, breaking his expression and leaning back in the chair. "If you had looked around the room for just a few more seconds, or minutes due to your state of mind, you would understand and wouldn't be talking right now."

"Room… Yes, why am I in your room?"

"Think, John."

John thought. Memories of last night, of getting drunk and meeting Sherlock into the street, grabbing his… And then, Sherlock had carried… John had the grace to blush, and mutter a quick apology, which Sherlock had waved off just as quick.

"I didn't have the strength nor patience to carry you up another set of stairs, so I just settled you here. It wasn't a problem."

John nodded slowly, rubbing his hands down his still-clothed thighs, and glanced around the room as Sherlock had oh-so-kindly suggested. He had been in Sherlock's room before, so he didn't dwell on the appearance, and his eyes landed on a small pile of luggage, already filled and stacked against the wall beside the bedroom door.

"Are you going somewhere?"

"We," Sherlock corrected sharply, "Are leaving. A cab is to pick us up in twenty minutes to bring us to the airport, so I suggest you begin getting ready now."

John shook his head carefully, a tired smile tugging at his lips. "You do realise that a normal person would ask, or at least tell me in advance that we're leaving."

Sherlock looked up in surprise. "I did. Right now. This is me telling you 'in advance', as we're hardly boarding the plane at this very second."

"Sherlock," John warned, though it lacked its usual luster. He ground the heels of his hands into his eyes, and looked back up expectantly. "You know what I mean."

Sherlock huffed in response, deflating in his chair and crossing his arms childishly. After a moment he closed off his expression and flickered his eyes up to John's face in slight contemplation, before letting out a sigh and leaning forward once more in a mirror of his earlier position, only he wasn't in the chair anymore and his hands were braced on the side of the bed, bordering John's hips.

"John," he murmured, eyes suddenly wide and searching against John's face. His voice was deep, the name rumbling from his lips. "Come to Paris with me."

Maybe it was the way he said it, with an almost-there pleading tone in his voice. Or the way he looked at John, earnest and hopeful, his black hair (in need of a trim) contrasting his eyes a more vibrant, more piercing shade of ice. Or the way he said it, the wording reminiscent of a prince, asking his secret lover to run away with him (okay, that analogy was rather not good, but John blamed it on the fact that he wasn't completely sober yet). Whatever it was, whatever act he was putting on this time, was cranked up a notch into something that most definitely had a near-hundred-percent success rate.

And John wasn't as immune as he'd once thought.

"Okay," John answered in an embarrassingly small voice, eyes withering from Sherlock's face to watch the ground as he clumsily stood up. Sherlock let go of the bed and stepped back to let him, usual expression back in place albeit with a slight, smug smile.

Arrogant bastard.

John stopped in the doorway, turning back in lieu of an exasperating realisation. "Sherlock… if the cab is coming in twenty minutes, why didn't you, say, wake me up a tad earlier to allow me time to shower and pack and all that?"

Sherlock frowned, looking up from the phone he had just unplugged from the wall. "Fifteen now. And I did wake you earlier. I turned on the lamp a half-hour ago, it's hardly my fault that it took you that long to awake by your own means. Besides," he added in afterthought, looking back down to his mobile's screen, "I've already packed your bag up. All you need to do is ready yourself."

John furrowed his eyebrows, opening his mouth as if to say something, but he closed it and shook his head in familiar bewilderment before padding off to his room.

Sherlock smiled.

…

Fifteen minutes, a shower, and a couple aspirin later, John was in the cab, leaning his forehead against the cool glass of the window while his flatmate tapped something into his phone by his side. As it would take some time to reach the airport, John figured that this was as good a time as any for some answers.

"Why are we going to France?"

"'Le Conservatoire de Paris'," Sherlock answered with a flawless accent, not looking up from his mobile. "To join this orchestra, I need to have convincing credentials. I'm auditioning into this school, and (as I'm sure I'll be accepted), I'm taking their prestigious violinist course."

It didn't add up. "Why do you need to go to Paris? Why not Guildhall, that's a convincing and well-known school just around the corner. It would even do a better job, talking music credentials."

"Well, due to your blog," Sherlock drawled, enunciating the last part with a sour taste, "I'm rather well-known here, in name and appearance. My background is that of a French child prodigy, who played violin relentlessly throughout his youth before exploring the world for several years, like he'd always dreamed. He's just returned home and, hearing of the orchestra, wants to settle down and go to school to make something of his talent at the violin, then move to England and join." He said all this while typing something that was surely very much unrelated into his phone, voice monotone. John closed his eyes, shifting his head to another cool spot on the glass, and let out a near-silent hiss at the feeling.

"Will you be changing your appearance, then?" John asked after a moment, in remembrance of Sherlock's words. An irritated sigh at his side, but it wasn't quite aimed at John.

"Yes, unfortunately. Because Mycroft has a sick sense of humour, I have to take up a 'dark and brooding' vibe, complete with turtlenecks and desaturated colours, black combat boots being my preferred footwear." Sherlock looked up at that, eyes incredulous and voice whining to John. "He's having me straighten my hair, John! Do you know how long it'll be?"

John laughed at that, breath fogging the window. "I've an idea, I've seen your hair wet from the shower before. Just use pins to pull the front half back, or gel it." John stifled a second laugh at another thought. "Should I buy you some some headbands or pretty bows, then?"

"Not. Funny."

"Hilarious, actually." John nudged himself off the window, finding Sherlock's eyes in pre-dawn darkness, and grinned. "You in a turtleneck with long hair? It'll make my day, I assure you, so thank you in advance."

"Yeah? Well you're not going to be good old jumper-wearing John Watson, neither," Sherlock said in spite, pocketing his phone and animatedly waving his hands around. "'Ian S. Lewis', former member of the U.S. Army. Ambushed in enemy territory, though you soon orchestrated an escape, saving over half of your squad. Injured in the process. Sent home, young with no ambition, and was shipped away by your worried parents to live with your rich aunt in Venice. There, amidst all the fine music and famous composers, you took a liking for clarinet. You moved back to the States, somewhere south, and spent your days in a successful jazz band. Until now, that is." He said all this matter-of-fact, straightening the cuff of his silk button-up. He grew a wry smile. "You enjoy expensive suits, and long walks on the beach. Quite the romantic, really, with poetry and rose petals and chocolate with wine, though that's actually no differe-"

"Oh, shut it," John cut in, grinning at the last bit. "Ian Lewis," he repeated, letting the name settle onto his tongue, and he turned towards Sherlock, back leaning against the door. "Quite the American name, if I've ever heard one. And yours?"

Sherlock turned oddly quiet, fingers tampering with his cuffs with more fervor. John narrowed his eyes, clicking his tongue with the suspicious raise of his brows. "Is there something you haven't told me, Sherlock?"

"Oh, John, there are many things I haven't told you these past years, how naive of you. You'll have to be more specific."

"Sherlock."

"Oh, all right," he huffed, dropping his hands back onto his lap. "My faux name is Raphael, if it's so important."

John furrowed his eyebrows, somewhat taken aback. He was expecting something hilariously extravagant, given the man's reaction when asked, but Raphael didn't exactly live up. It was somewhat unusual, and quite pretty, so it fit Sherlock rather nicely, but…

"Raphael Cousture-Lewis."

Oh. Oh.

"Sherlock, did you neglect to tell me that we're-"

"-married? Obviously not, as I'm telling you now. Do keep up."

John chuckled, bewildered, and jostled Sherlock's leg with a blunt kick. "Us being married should have been mentioned in the beginning, Sherlock. Is it even necessary?"

Sherlock swatted John's foot away, pushing it back off the seat. "The composer of the orchestra is gay, John. Even part of a few LGBT clubs, so for us 'sticking it to society' and getting married will definitely earn us his favour. It also gives us a reason to be seen talking together (about the case), and sneak off time and again (to steal what we need from his office). In comparison to it not even being an option, it is quite necessary."

"Yeah, alright, I understand," John said, even though he kind of didn't at the same time. "It's just that… well… it's a bit ridiculous, you know?"

Sherlock watched him expectantly, setting his brows and wordlessly urging him to continue. John chuckled nervously and cleared his throat, feeling the tips of his ears begin to heat up.

"Well, I mean… us! Together! Married, 's just… despite what all of London seems to speculate about our relationship, it's pretty far down the list of 'Things that are likely to occur', just under 'Elton John releasing a rap album'. It's just… mad! Absolutely, positively, raving mad." He let out a short giggle at that, nudging at Sherlock's knee with his foot once more. His leg was knocked off rather aggressively this time, and the laughter died off.

"You'll have to change that opinion if we are to be convincing when the time comes, so I'll suggest keeping quiet until then." His voice was colder than normal, and he turned most of his body away from John so he could look - no, glare - out the window. Oh, christ, he was brooding now.

John mulled back over his words, and realised that they may have come across a bit… offensive. It shouldn't have bothered Sherlock, it wouldn't under normal circumstances, but for some reason, now it did.

For some reason.

John rolled his shoulders and turned back around, settling correctly back into the seat and crossing his ankles. He sighed, hands twitching at the sudden, familiar tension, and searched the sky for clues of an incoming dawn.

Again, don't worry if you see this on AO3, I'm posting it there too. As always, R&R and send some ideas my way!