How everything had been going so well and now it had come to this John had no idea. He'd been prodded, poked, and gawked at for a whole hour now. Sherlock had examined every little thing about him to an insane detail, and overall the whole thing had been rather awkward. After he managed to stammer in agreement to Sherlock's plan to examine him he had to clamber onto the man's palm and let himself be carried into the living room. He'd had no idea where to hold on, and had ended up just rather awkwardly digging his own hands into Sherlock's palm in order to stabilize himself. In Sherlock's defence, John could tell he was walking as slowly possible, in an effort to make the journey as smooth as possible. Although it was more personal than the beaker, at least he wasn't able to see the floor through the human's palm. The very sensation of being picked up by another living being was extremely odd. His life was completely in another being's hands. Every foot fall felt like a miniature tremor, with John's stomach flipping each time. He was still unable to get his trembling under control, although at least it had subsided. He'd simply had to avoid Sherlock's gaze the whole time. Even though part of him wanted to look at Sherlock's face, just to see if he could guess what the detective was thinking, he just couldn't bring himself to risk meeting those eyes again. They were a beautiful mix of colour and he could clearly see they were full of life – but they were still they eyes of a predator. He could still see the curiosity and itching to investigate him inside them, an air of superiority radiated from them, and it made him uneasy.

Eventually Sherlock lowered him onto the table and pulled up a chair. He pulled out a ruler from a nearby draw and began measuring John's height, width and limbs straight away, urging the borrower to hold out his arms and legs or to stand up against the ruler while jotting things down on a pad of paper after each measurement. John could tell his mind was bursting with information and theories all the while. Even though the borrower's mind was slightly more at rest he still couldn't bring himself to stop flinching each time Sherlock moved closer to him, his body's automatic flight mode response was impossible to turn off.

Sherlock's eyes flickered over to John's face "Do you mind if I ask you a couple questions? About your lifestyle, I mean."

John cleared his throat and met Sherlock's gaze "Uh, no, I w-would be fine with that."

"How many hours a day do you sleep? And what is your sleep pattern like?" Sherlock questioned

"Well, usually I adapt my sleeping pattern to fit around the people I live with. B-before you moved in, I was pretty much nocturnal, only going outside of the walls to find food and things at night – to avoid your land lady. After you moved in, b-because you don't sleep much, if you don't mind me saying, I adapted to sleeping during the night so I could go out during the day, because you're more likely to be out of the house during the day."

"I suspected as much. How often do you leave to find food? What kind of foods and other items do you take?"

Thus the questions and examination continued, with Sherlock marvelling at every answer, and John trying to answer them as truthfully as he could, only obscuring information he found necessary to hide, for the sake of his own kind.

"Do you know of any other borrowers in the area? How exactly did you end up living alone here?"

"Sorry, I moved a long distance to get here quite a couple years ago, and I don't know of any borrowers living nearby here." John shook his head, praying Sherlock wouldn't see through his lie. He knew of a couple living not far from him, and there were probably others nearby too, but he didn't want to endanger them at all.

"And just one last question, at least for now. What exactly are you? I mean, what do your people call yourselves?" Sherlock asked as he put away his equipment and wrote up the last of his results.

"I- I'm- ah. Listen, Sherlock, you won't tell anyone about me, right?"

"Certainly not." Sherlock scoffed, placing his ruler in a draw "I highly suspect Mycroft – my brother, would stick his nose right in and steal you. No, I'm not going to tell anyone."

John felt his little chest collapse with relief "Well, in that case – I'm a borrower."

Sherlock's eyes widened ever so slightly "Just like in the books and legends – perhaps some of them are real life accounts portrayed as fiction. Absolutely fascinating."

John frowned. Books? Books about borrowers? That was impossible! Humans weren't supposed to know about his kind! So how could they exist?

"What books?" He asked, his voice cracking slightly.

"There are several books and legends about your people. Of course, they are believed to be merely fiction and legend, no one actually believes in borrowers, they just think they're some kind of made up creature, just like for example a dragon."

John swallowed. That was a lot to take in. Still, as long as humans didn't know or think borrowers actually existed, there was no problem – at least, he hoped there wasn't.

Sherlock suddenly turned to John, fully focused on him.

"John Watson." He said, doing his quirky smile again, just ever so slightly "Would you by any chance like to be my flatmate? There's no need to feel you have to just because I offered. But I rather like you... I think I would much enjoy your company around the flat. And it would give me a chance to properly observe your behaviour. Of course, naturally there would be benefits for you too. You can take whatever food you like, whenever you like, I could even buy you specific things, if you'd like that. And you wouldn't have to sneak around any more for fear of being seen."

John almost collapsed for probably the hundredth time that day. He'd almost believed he was imagining what Sherlock had said at first. Sherlock Holmes, the great consulting detective, was interested in... Being, well, being his friend? Surely he had heard wrong. There was no way Sherlock was actually interested in him, or at least, interested in his person, rather than this body.

"S-sorry, what? You- you mean, you'd like me to be your – well, your flatmate?" John stammered out.

"Yes," Sherlock purred out "So... what do you say?"

"I- I think I'd like that too, I mean if you're sure, and if- if I don't have to be involved in any... any, um, e-experiments."

Sherlock rolled his eyes "John, I already told you, that won't be happening."

"I- I know, but borrowers aren't supposed to be seen and I know you like to e-experiment a lot, so I can't really help being cautious." John argued, looking away from Sherlock.

"Mmmm yes, I supposed that's fair" Sherlock replied, tilting his head slightly in agreement. The human then held out his hand to John, his index finger extended. John marvelled a little at how it was almost bigger than his entire body.

"To us meeting, John." He said

John reached out with his right hand and placed it onto Sherlock's finger, and he found himself actually shaking hands with Sherlock Holmes. Things were about to get very different.

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Woah! Look who got of their lazy butt and decided to update! I took insanely long and I'm sorry. I decided I wasn't going to continue this and then changed my mind. Yeah, I don't know when I'll get chapter 4 out, I guess my aim is around late Feburary/ early March. And I might write some other stories too, maybe a homestuck one. Regardless, I hope you enjoyed the new chapter! C: