Note:
Dear readers,
it's been a while, but here it finally is. Sorry to let you all waiting so long.
A list with about 90 words, all starting with "O" is what this chapter comes from. Enjoy!
Point 5
There is a stain on the living room ceiling, about the size of an ostrich egg and of a colour that slightly resembles John's oatmeal jumper. It is the remnant of an experiment gone wrong, one of those Sherlock had conducted after his return, when John was living with Mary. When he was alone. It is located directly above the sofa, and Sherlock has perfected staring at it to give the Oscar-worthy performance of being bored.
It is a shame that John is away and can not see him pretending to be bored, because it is a very convincing performance. Sherlock is sure of that. Of course, if John was there, Sherlock would have no need to appear bored on the outside. If John was here, Sherlock would have no reason to feel completely panicked and lost in the first place.
Sherlock repeats the scene over and over again in his head. It was nothing more than an ordinary offence, really. A rather uninspired one, Sherlock has to admit. He might concede that his timing has been a bit not good, though, for John was a bit edgy all day. But in Sherlock's defence it must be mentioned that his patience was strained all day long, too. There is a limit to how many hours of Harry Sherlock can stand, even when appeased with oral sex before the meeting.
And there is definitely a limit to how many times Sherlock can stand seeing John being disappointed by her. No wonder he was pointing out the obvious after 126 minutes. No wonder he did not care about sugar coating it.
What happened afterwards is still a bit obscure to Sherlock, but it had ended not only with Harry, but also with John storming out angrily, leaving Sherlock on his own. Which made no sense at all, for Sherlock had clearly aimed at hurting Harry, not John.
And yet, here Sherlock is, alone in the flat. He spends the first hour being completely unimpressed by John's overrated exit and pretends to have lots of fun correcting the orthography in three different online newspapers.
He spends the second hour thinking about what he had written about situations like that to Mary ("He leaves when arguing too intensely. Do not be alarmed. He always comes back. Do not follow him or call him or text him or send someone after him to watch him or check his oyster card. Apparently that would be a nearly unforgivable course of action. Just leave him some space.").
He spends the third hour wondering how he could ever have believed in the "He always comes back" part.
After four hours, he notices a certain lack of oxygen in the room. What other reason could there be for him to feel unable to breath properly?
John is overdue. Normally he always reappears after no more than three hours and fifteen minutes. But the minutes keep ticking away, and he does not come back, no matter how bored Sherlock pretends to be. How long will he stay away the day their relationship will be officially over? Or has that day come already? Is their metaphorical ship only outward bound, or sinking already? Sherlock tries to deduce how angry John had really been before leaving, but his brain still seems to be out of order.
He tries to take deep breaths and fails.
Then, finally, after five hours, twenty-six minutes and eight seconds, the front door is opened, and there are steps on the stairs. Sherlock knows that he should be able to deduce John's mood by listening to the steps, but he fails. Will John come back to forgive him? Or just to pick up his overnight bag? Does he know that Sherlock has already packed an overnight bag for him, just in case?
Almost too late Sherlock remembers that he wanted to appear bored, but he is not entirely sure that his performance is still as Oscar-worthy as it was three hours ago. He hears John entering the flat and stares at the stain on the ceiling. His breath does funny things inside his chest. His mouth is dry, and he is unable to speak, which comes in handy, for he wanted to pretend that he does not want to talk to John anyway. He swallows, not daring to look at him.
He can hear John standing in the living room for a moment before he speaks up, "I've brought take-away from your favourite Osteria."
Sherlock's head snaps around involuntarily, and all he can do is stare at John. Now his deduction skills slowly come online again. John is wet from the rain that started falling three hours and thirty-eight minutes ago, and cold because he only took his light jacket, Sherlock's olfactory sense tells him that there are olives and oregano omelettes in the take-away bag, and the dirt on John's shoes tell him all about his odyssee through at least four districts, and John is … sorry? Sherlock frowns. Why is he not angry?
"Oh" he answers, still staring, completely overwhelmed.
"I'm sorry for staying away so long, I just needed to let off some steam," John goes on, as if Sherlock was not feeling completely out of character, "I didn't mean to scare you."
"I wasn't scared," Sherlock lies. He looks at the stain again, knowing that eye-contact with John would give away his inner turmoil instantly.
"Of course not," John replies, but there is a smile in his voice and against all overwhelming odds he leans down and presses a gentle kiss on Sherlock's forehead.
"I … " Sherlock starts and stops again. Am sorry? Missed you? Can't stand loosing you? "... prefer tuna omelette." But the wonderful thing about John is that he speaks Sherlock As A Second Language fluently. He understands I am sorry and I missed you and I can't stand loosing you without even giving it a second thought.
Point 6
John knows that he is living under constant observation.
On the one hand, there is Mycroft, of course, with all his surveillance cameras and microphones. Once they were in every room, covering every corner of 221b. John felt watched with every step he took. Then Sherlock came up with a brilliant strategy to get rid of them, and four days and twenty-six extremely dirty orgasms later at least the bathroom and their sleeping room are surveillance- free.
Sherlock, on the other hand, is still observing John closely. At first, John feels a bit like a celebrity. Then it dawns to him that he should rather feel like a lab rat. Or maybe like a nicely treated lab beagle, loved and petted regularly, but stuck in a never ending series of experiments.
There was a set of experiments at the beginning of their friendship, like, how many organs can be stored in the fridge before John gets angry? (eight)
(Sherlock must have been impressed with the result of that one, for it even made its way into his letter to Mary, saying, He does not mind an average number of body parts in the fridge. But I doubt that this knowledge is helpful for you and your boring daily routine.)
How beautiful does the date have to be to convince John to go to an oboe concert with her? (a nine on a scale of ten, for oboe concerts are really boring in his opinion)
How long can he go without sex before agreeing to follow an ugly date to a concert of the "one and only" Ozzie Osborne? (six month, John really hates Ozzie Osborne)
Can he tell organic oranges from ordinary ones? (no, but his allergy against certain preserving agents can)
Later, when they became lovers, John somehow thought that the experiments would stop. Instead, Sherlock just changed his focus.
Does John come faster with outdoor orgasms in a dark alley or at a decent corner in an oriental wellness oasis, where they are hidden from view but in constant danger of being overheard by others? (the oriental wellness oasis)
Does obnoxious odour stop him from jumping into obscure fluid to save Sherlock from drowning? (no, but what idiot jumps into a cesspit just to solve an case first place, knowing he is a non-swimmer?)
Can Sherlock keep John's on-going erection going on for more than a day? (God, yes, and afterwards John has to admit that the relieve was well worth waiting for it)
Is John happy if you give him onyx cuff links for his birthday? (No, especially not because he knows that they have been a gift to Sherlock, who did not like them and handed them on to John, pretending to have a great present)
Does oral sex get boring if it is delivered once daily? (God no)
Does John have a favourite orifice? (YES)
Sometimes John feels like telling Sherlock to stop it. Especially after experiments like Is John really secretly scared of otters? (no, now that Sherlock pushed him into the compound it is no longer secret) and How long does John need to forgive Sherlock for being pushed into the otter compound? (more than two days, and accidentally burning his favourite book the same afternoon does not help)
Okay, to be true, John does tell him to stop it after the otter incident. With many outrageous swear words that would make even an open-minded sailor blush. But it has the same effect a tiny origami object has in an orang-utan compound (none).
Instead, Sherlock just stares at John, as if he is the most fascinating specimen in the world, something completely out of the ordinary, with his intense gaze, and then Sherlock smiles, one of his genuine smiles, and says, "You are so interesting!", and John knows his anger won't stand a chance against Sherlock's love-driven curiosity. Damn.
Point 7
Sherlock is overexcited, and John knows that it is not a good sign. There have only been 4 minutes between skipping through the folders Lestrade sent them and sitting in a cab. That alone is seldom a good omen. The fact that Sherlock is happily grinning while explaining everything to John is ominous.
Obviously, the two men everybody had held for opponents were really old friends, working together. How Sherlock can tell that by looking at their online ordering accounts is beyond John, but that is nothing new, really. It has something to do with one of them organising a drug cartel at the occasion of the Olympics, while the other covered up the resulting overdoses. Rumour has it that they even ousted one of the oldest drug lords in London.
Sherlock followed the lead of the two men from October onwards and now he is optimistic that he can end it tonight. Well, no, he is often overly optimistic when on the chase, but tonight he is obsessed. The one everybody considered to be just another addicted oddball seems to be quite clever, and Sherlock takes it as a personal insult that it took him four days to figure that one out.
Obviously they are bound to return to America, and once they are over the ocean they will be out of Sherlock's reach, for Mycroft's relations to the Oval Office are a bit tense momentarily.
There is a surge of adrenalin rushing through John's body, but it is not the thrilling kind that comes from the love of a good chase. It is the sobering one that comes from knowing that Sherlock is bound to do something incredibly stupid.
As soon as the cab reaches the old, empty orphanage, Sherlock jumps out and dashes away, John as closely on his trail as possible. They pass the overslept overseer and stopped at the opening of the orphanage, watching the two men and their two minions. John grabs his gun, but before he can say something, Sherlock just nods at the man sitting on the ottoman, and sprints onwards, right into the centre of the attention.
He surely has not forgotten what he wrote Mary about situations like these (John is keen on other people's safety. Do not scratch your head with a loaded gun, wander alone into a room filled with gang members, or jump into the Thames to prove an alibi.). He just does not care right now.
At first everything happens very fast. Sherlock insults the two men with a strange comment concerning owls, everybody focuses their attention on him, John aims at the best target, moves closer while Sherlock keeps them busy, John's pulse speeds up, he is nearly in the right position to take out the two armed minions, …
But then life switches to slow-motion when one of the men grabs an opaque object and smashes it down on Sherlock's head and Sherlock sinks to the ground with only a strange, strangled cry, …
And then time stands still for a while, as Sherlock remains down on the ground, his body strangely twisted, and does not move and does not attempt to move and still does not move while John fires without thinking, taking down one of the criminals or the other, he no longer cares, and Sherlock still does not move, and the rest of the gang runs away and OMG Sherlock still does not move and how can John shoot and how can the criminals run away while time stands still?
Then, time slowly picks up speed again, as John stumbles towards Sherlock, checks for and finds a pulse, calls for an ambulance, moves Sherlock into recovery position, talks softly to him while waiting for help, and Sherlock still does not move at all.
Then, times flies again, and before John really knows what is happening, he is sitting in a cheap hospital chair, waiting for the neural surgery to be over, and then John is sitting in another cheap hospital chair by Sherlock's bedside, overseeing him day and night, wondering if he will ever wake up again or not, and then John is sitting in the same cheap hospital chair, softly talking Sherlock through his recovery, and then they are back home again, two weeks later.
Sherlock considers his current head injury as an outstanding opportunity to explore temporary amnesia and is kind of disappointed, when the expression "Oswald plays oboe in an orchestra in Omsk before eating oxtail soup, oysters and omelette" comes over his lips fluently. John watches him, stunned, and wonders why he feels like the odd one out here.
They seem to return to normal soon, but John cannot help but feel like something went overboard that day at the orphanage.
John knows that Sherlock is afraid that John might leave him one day. But no matter how much Sherlock outsmarts him, there is one thing the mad genius will probably not understand in time. John would never leave him for being overbearing or insensitive or inconsiderate. But he is honestly not sure if he can stand watching Sherlock risking his life one more time.