Hi everyone! Thanks for the kind reviews on this story so far. Now, finally, we get to the heart of things—Sherlock and John, and the beginnings of the main mystery!

Particular thanks for reviews about characterization—one of my goals with this fic is to keep the boys as in-character as possible while slowly bringing them together. So any comments on that are especially welcome!

Now let's visit 221B and see what these boys are up too…

Manzy

Chapter 2 – Twang, Twang, Twang

Late Sunday morning at 221B Baker Street. John Watson stood over a simmering tea kettle, rummaging two useable bags of PG Tips out of the utensil drawer (why were they in the utensil drawer?) as he waited for the water to boil. He stretched his small frame, feeling only a little twinge in his back at the apex of his stretch. Good, he thought, better every day.

Twang, twang, twang came from the living room. John pressed his lips together in something halfway between a smirk and a smile. "It's not a guitar, Sherlock."

"Thank you, John, I'd worked that out for myself," came the voice from the sofa.

"I'm just saying, you might get better results if you used the bow instead of your fingers."

"It's an experiment."

John laughed. "An experiment? In what?"

The kettle began to whine, signaling water at a boil. John turned off the burner and poured two cups. Tea bags, in; milk (the good milk, it was Sherlock's turn to throw out the bad milk, and so help him it would sit in the fridge until he did), sugar, napkins. John noticed with a snort that Sherlock already had his hand outstretched, waiting for the cup of tea he'd assumed John was preparing for him. Shaking his head, John placed the mug in Sherlock's grip.

"Calloused fingers," Sherlock murmured.

"Eh, what?" John said, pulling his hand back a bit faster than necessary and examining his fingertips. How could Sherlock have…they'd barely touched, right?

"The experiment. It's about calloused fingers." Sherlock felt John's confused stare and rolled his eyes—only a little, John noted with some satisfaction. "Blue-collar workers, musicians, people who work with their hands, they all develop calluses. It's a huge percentage of the population, when you think about it. I'm trying to work out how long, and in what way, one needs to scrape one's skin to develop these calluses. You can learn a lot about someone from his hands."

John considered Sherlock's hands, still scraping away at the strings of his violin. "And you've just decided to run the experiment on yourself, have you? Scrape up your own fingers?" That's going to hurt, he thought to himself, the usual uncomfortable pang of worry pinching at his chest.

"Your concern is noted and appreciated. Forgive me if I proceed to ignore it."

It was John's turn to roll his eyes. "I'm just saying, there's probably some medical literature out there on that subject. If you like, I can even try to find—"

"I wish you wouldn't say that."

John blinked. Months with Sherlock and he still wasn't quite used to being interrupted. "Sorry?"

"'I'm just saying'." Sherlock sighed, eyes closed. "You've said it twice already this morning. I know you're just saying, you're the one saying it."

John flopped down into his armchair. "Just a turn of phrase."

"Wasteful. Boring. Wish you wouldn't."

The pang of worry (was it worry, exactly?) was now a memory, replaced with the more acceptable, better definable, and far more common emotion of frustration. "I'll keep my mouth shut then."

"I didn't ask for that," Sherlock whispered.

John sipped his tea in silence for a while. He often, honestly, didn't know why he put up with this from Sherlock. He sometimes supposed, when he wasn't quite as piqued as he was now, that it was the adventure and the sheer genius of life with Sherlock Holmes that kept him here. The cases, the deductions, the mad pace of, well, everything when you lived with the world's only consulting detective.

And it didn't hurt that, in his own cold, sociopathic way, Sherlock was his friend. At first he hadn't even been sure that Sherlock could have friends, the way he snapped at everyone, pushed them away, thought them stupid. But then small things—I'd be lost without my blogger—started to pop up and he started to think that maybe he was Sherlock's friend. For certain, he was Sherlock's ONLY friend, a thought which in and of itself pulled on John in a way that he wasn't entirely comfortable with.

And then there was the night three weeks ago, at the pool, the look in the taller man's eyes when he thought John was in danger, the fear, the actual fear unmasked by logic or bravado or dismissiveness, that Sherlock very clearly felt when he thought John could be killed—

But no. John was determined not to think about that right now. This morning, right now, with the twang twang twang and the eyerolling and the nitpicking his grammar, Sherlock wasn't being a hero. Sherlock was being a prat and John was determined to be angry at him about it. Sighing loudly, he reached over and grabbed his book of crossword puzzles off of the coffee table.

"Oh, for God's sake, Sherlock!"

"I thought you'd decided to be quiet."

"You've filled in all my puzzles!"

"Oh, that. Got bored."

"And you used MY book to solve that problem?"

"Technically speaking, no."

"Technically speaking? Sherlock, the puzzles are all filled in. Who else did it, the skull?"

"You implied the book solved the problem. It didn't. Pick up a harder set next time."

John groaned. "I spent £10 on this book, I was hoping it would last for a while."

"As I said, get a harder book next time and perhaps it will."

John guzzled the rest of his tea and got up. "As a matter of fact, I will. I'm going down to Foyle's right now and I'm buying myself another book. I'm taking a 10-pound-note out of your wallet to cover it. Then I'm going to lock it in my room when I get back so you can't get your bloody calloused hands all over it." He tossed his mug in the sink and grabbed his coat.

"Oh, don't get sulky. It's really not cute when you sulk."

John froze for a moment. "Please Sherlock, on top of everything else, don't call me cute."

There was a pause. "Noted," Sherlock said.

John put his coat on, that weirdly uncomfortable pang rising in his chest again. He took Sherlock's wallet from the side table and grabbed a handful of bills.

"I'm leaving."

"When will you be back?"

"Dunno."

"Can you pick me up a box of patches while you're out?"

"Sod your patches, Sherlock."

John stomped his way down the steps, the twang twang twang continuing quietly behind him. I swear, if he could only treat me like a human being occasionally, maybe sometime when I'm not being held at gunpoint… John wasn't actually sure how he would finish that thought. Of course, he wasn't actually sure that Sherlock could ever treat him like a human being, so really, it didn't matter, did it? Maybe this would be a good reason to go see Sarah. It had been a few days…

He was halfway down the block to the Tube station when his phone went off.

Forwarding you an email I just received. Need your thoughts.

SH

With a second vibration, the email icon on John's phone lit up.

John stuffed his phone into his jacket pocket and continued walking. For exactly five steps. Then he stopped, cringed, abused himself verbally for a moment, pulled the phone out of his pocket, and opened the email from Sherlock.

To: sherlocksh .uk

From: wo

Dear Mr. Holmes,

A potential client and influential man would very much like to speak with you—it's important. Your recent work with the Royal Bank of London was sensational—we think you're someone who can be trusted to deal with some things discretely. Please be home Sunday afternoon, around 1 o'clock.

John checked his watch. 11:53. He glanced at the phone, the Tube station in the distance, then back up Baker Street toward the flat.

"John Hamish Watson, you are a bloody idiot," he sighed to himself and walked back up Baker Street toward 221B.