(Okay, I thought that writing in third person would be easier, but damn it, I like their voices too much! Also, Sherlock Holmes is not mine.)

JOHN WATSON

I could still feel the heat in my face as I picked up the papers and chairs that had been knocked over in what Sherlock Holmes described as "a bit of a grapple" when he propositioned me. Sherlock stretched out on the couch and looked at me significantly, canting his hips once as I pointedly avoided eye contact. For me, the interruption and the mention of Moriarty had relocated all thoughts along those lines to a small, dark cupboard at the back of my brain. He shrugged and slapped a nicotine patch onto the inside of his forearm and breathed out slowly, steepling his fingers, lost in thought.

We never really talk about the time I thought he was dead and he was out hunting Moriarty's web, at least not in terms of emotions. We've planned a little; I have a document on my computer with a "What if Moriarty Comes Back" list, but from both Sherlock and my own perspective there are too many contradictions on the list for anything to actually be put into action. Sherlock wants to send me to some small island that Mycroft has access to in the Pacific ocean if he returns so that I am (hopefully) not a target, while I want to quit my job and literally hover over him with my gun at the ready until I shoot that bastard and have his head on a platter. I refuse to let Sherlock die again, neither in a make believe game nor in reality.

"Sherlock, we need to talk about this." I lifted his feet and sat with my lap under them. He kneaded my legs gently with his toes before relaxing into the couch as the nicotine took effect.

"Dull." He murmured.

"Oh come on Sherlock, we never talk about it. You just came back one day; I woke up, walked into the living room and you were spaced out on the sofa like you are now. I thought I was going a bit crazed with loneliness as I'd just broken up with my girlfriend a month before, so I sat in my chair and read my paper until you started babbling about the decomposition of dead maggots, and it really wasn't the sort of conversation I'd imagine my subconscious having with me, so I assumed that somehow you were alive. I would have punched you out if you hadn't started grinning like an idiot."

Sherlock snorted. "Saying 'Right then' and getting up to make us tea was not the reception I was expecting."

"What else do you do when your mad flat mate comes back from the dead? They don't exactly have how-to books on that sort of thing."

"I was at least expecting a kiss. Then it took me months to finally drag one out of you."

I looked down, grinning, "I missed you, you know that."

"I assumed so when I heard you sobbing like a baby in your room later that day. You do realize you could have done that around me. Just because I don't understand emotions the way you do doesn't mean I'd mock you for them in a situation like that."

I'm quiet for a long moment. Sherlock's insistence that he's obsessed with me rather than in love with me is probably true, though he's high functioning enough as a sociopath to recognize that our relationship is more than him trapping me in a corner so that I can't leave him. Still, he acknowledgment that he still doesn't quite get it jarred me a bit.

During my silence Sherlock begins rubbing my legs with his feet again so that I finally glance over at him. He let his head loll to the side, his Adam's apple bobbed, and his eyes widen. He looked sweet, a little naïve, and endearing. For a second my mouth dried, and I felt myself licking my lips before I shook myself out of it. Calculating. He wants my attention away from the conversation and probably back on his cock.

"You never did tell me the details when you came back. You told me you took down most of Moriarty's web, but not what pieces. Is anything left of it?"

"Oh god John. Fine. While I was in Europe and Asia I took down three smuggling rings, one human trafficking ring (both actual human slaves and body parts, they were fairly open to ideas), killed ten professional hit men, and stopped 8 serious insurance fraud schemes. I was seriously injured twice, tortured once, and had the 'pleasure' of having two other people tortured while I watched. I got the main players, but not everyone, no. For example, threads of Moriarty remain in Africa, I'm fairly sure, but I didn't travel there, nor did I travel to Australia."

My eyes widen. "Tortured?"

"Don't look at me like I'm a maimed kitten. They needed me alive so they didn't push me as hard as they might have."

I know better than to ask about the other people he was made to watch being tortured. Sherlock's moral compass isn't exactly a popular vacation destination in my book, though he usually ends up getting things done for the benefit of the most people.

"So if Moriarty's back, he'll be working with less, but he'll still be working with something."

Sherlock nods. "It will be interesting to say the least."

I set my jaw, preparing for his reaction. "You missed him. Moriarty I mean." It's not quite a question.

"Oh yes," Sherlock breathes.

I close my eyes, a sickening feeling clenching my stomach. A bit not good, Sherlock Holmes.