I am so sorry that it has been months since my last update, I'm really having a bad time with my laptop at the moment, basically it died and was away being fixed for ages, then I got it back only to have it crash again, then I had it wiped and it turns out my microsoft word product key has been wiped so I can't use it, so yeah really bad times, so I'm so sorry for the wait hopefully someone's still out there to read this and I hope you enjoy and I know it's shorter than usual but the next chapter will be a lot longer to make up for it, sorry again!

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Holmes despises Cavendish Place; it's exactly how he thought it would be, completely Mary, not a shred of Watson's taste in the marital home, so much so he found it hard to believe that the Doctor even lived there. He stops in the threshold and the elder ushers him inside, takes his coat and mumbles something about rooms, Holmes clutches his case like a child would a teddy bear, he wants to go home, he wants his Moroccan case, the kiss of a needle against his skin, he wants this unfathomable ache inside of his chest to fade away. He glances at Watson as the doctor removes his own coat, he notes the smile that holds at the corners of his lip and he hates him for this happiness and seeming quite so heartless.

How can you not understand...?

There are footsteps in the hallway above them, they echo with the gentle tap of a women's heeled shoe, Holmes narrows his case and relaxes his posture, he knows that Mary is coming to greet her husband, he traces her movements with his mind, blueprints of the house form behind his eyes even though he had never traced the corridors before. He steels himself now, blankness fills the ink of his pupils and he holds insincere words on his tongue for when Mary smiles at him with that sickly sweet smile and grips onto Watson like a leech.

She descends the staircase and when she comes into view the surprise that holds her face causes a smile to grasp Holmes' heart. Watson turns immediately a dog running to its master, he holds her arm tenderly and whispers sweet words that Holmes does not have the strength of stomach to listen to, whatever they are, they lighten her mood, she smiles at him and extends her hand in greeting. Holmes has always played his part perfectly, he thinks in another life he may have been one of the great actors on Shakespeare's stage, for he smiles warmly at the women whom he cannot stand, he brings her hand to his lips and places a tender kiss to skin far too soft and scented far too greatly that if fills him with the urge to sneeze, with his sincerest of smiles he holds her hand, meets her eyes,

"It is an absolute pleasure to see you again my dear, you look truly radiant this evening." Mary is like so many other women, she craves attention and compliments, tell her she is beautiful and for a heartbeat you are her best friend regardless of past experience, Irene is not the same, she knows her beauty and uses it as her best weapon rather than relenting to its weakness.

"The pleasure is all mine Detective, still I do wish my husband would tell me of his plans in advance, I had no idea we were expecting you this evening." There is no visible flinch to the word 'husband' yet inside his heart convulses at the mere suggestion of the word. He tries not to look at Watson even when those steel eyes bore into him, so desperate to read whatever is crossing his mind,

"I was just about to show Holmes to one of the guest rooms," she nods and smiles and steps aside, explains she has to check on her mother and disappears down the corridor, "Holmes,"

"It is a lovely home the two of you have here, you seem to have an abundance of space," he has always hated space, so desperate to fill it with anything he sees as being mildly interesting, Holmes loves disorder.

"Mary has done wonders with the place," Holmes smirks because he's been proved right and he enjoys nothing more than knowing that he's made an accurate deduction, he always thought his greatest fear would be to grow old and rusty and be nothing more than a shell of the once young, great, Sherlock Holmes, he's come to realise there is much more to fear and it always comes back to Watson.

He follows Watson like a shadow, the elder man mumbles about the house, points out rooms, there's his and Mary's and the detective tries to forget the information before it can fully be absorbed. He's stood in a guest room seconds later and can't really remember how he got there; there are none of his home comforts here, no tiger rug to curl up on when the world begins to crash in, no chemically burnt desk to study and experiment on, no bottles at arm's length to numb. There is not a single thing in the room that makes him think of Watson and he drinks in the sight of the Doctor as if hoping it will carry him through his stay.

"Holmes," he licks cigarette stained lips, places his case on the bed and stands like a lost child in the centre of the far too large room, "Holmes, is everything to your liking, you seem slightly pale," there's a hand on his shoulder, it migrates to his forehead, he bites at his lip and clenches his hands to stop them from reaching out and latching onto the elder's.

"Of course I am absolutely fine, though you know how attached I am to Baker Street," he glances up to meet Watson's eyes, ink black clashing with steel blue, he feels his reverie break almost instantly, "this is ridiculous Watson, I shall head home instantly," he reaches for his case and Watson grabs his hand to stop him, the case falls clattering to the floor, Holmes watches as the Moroccan case tumbles to the floor. He grabs Watson, pushes him away, uses the momentary distraction to kick the small case beneath the bed where he knows it will be out of sight. "Apologies old chap," he smirks and offers his hand helping the elder to steady his balance, Watson's looking at him with suspicious eyes, the elder offers his sincerest smile, "you were just about to stand on this," he lifts a gem into view it sparkles brightly, reflects the light in a similar manner to a diamond, though it's the deepest of sapphire, "a little something to say thank you to Mary for her hospitality,"

"She shall be most pleased with it, though you are aware that you needn't have spent so much,"

"I always felt terrible about how I treated her that night at dinner; I thought it would be useful in way of an apology," it's all lies, he's reading as if from a well rehearsed script when really he's making it up as he goes, he watches Watson, the way he willingly allows himself to fall for the lies when if he questioned it if even for a moment it would lead him to find the thing he dreaded the most, he knew how angry Watson would be if he found that case, but part of him craved Watson's anger.

"She will be thrilled Holmes, I will leave you to settle in," he feels sarcastic words on his tongue, swallows them like a bitter pill and smiles through cigarette stained lips, this is how Watson leaves him and when he glances out of the window the snow is just starting up again.

He buries himself in newspapers, in articles that would usually hold no interest to him; he tells himself that it's work and not blatant avoidance. He locks the door because it's easier to simply say that he was asleep than to pretend that he is actually happy to be where he is.

He looses himself in the kiss of a needle and is too far away to hear the knocking on the door hours later, the snow is piling up outside of his window now and the chill seeps through to enclose him in dangerously trust worthy arms. He thinks he wants to freeze out in the snow, he wants to close his eyes and feel how the ice burn his flesh, he wants to free himself, wants to understand. He's spent his whole life trying to discover what makes the world tick, what drives people to do the things they do to one another, he's seen terrible things, he's done terrible things and yet with Watson beside him it all seemed bareable, without him it's cold, it's truth, it speaks volumes about him, things he doesn't want to know. He has too much time to think in hours like this and the drugs and drink do little to numb the thoughts that crowd his head. He thinks of Watson as he watches the snow, it's his biggest mistake since following the Doctor here and the urge to run floods his veins, the desperation to head out into the snow and keep running until his feet refuse to carry him any longer. Watson will be the end of him, he realises this and yet he won't give him up, despite the pain and the tears that fill his eyes, the ache in the very base of his heart at the mere mention of his name. He holds to scraps of the elder, the waistcoats left behind that still smell so much like him and he feels pathetic, nothing like the Sherlock Holmes that he prides himself on being, John Watson makes him so weak.

He loves John Watson and it's crushing every ounce of his being...

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I am sorry it's so short but I had to post something after all this time, the next chapter will be twice as long and I hope it was ok, I know it's not my best, thank you and I will see you next time, next chapter will be a bit more eventful,