They never said anything. They just did things.

Sherlock found a missing little girl because of her affinity for the giraffes in London Zoo, and they'd gone home and fallen asleep on each other's shoulders in front of the telly. (Sherlock liked to sit and watch historical documentaries so he could point out all the flaws in the dramatic re-enactments. John liked to point out that Sherlock's re-enactments of crimes weren't always perfect either.) John took a brief job at a surgery in Camden, and Sherlock came to keep him company whenever he stayed past closing time to fix the shambolic charts of his predecessor. Sherlock would come to bed at five in the morning, and pull John so tightly to his chest that the soldier wheezed. They worked on a grisly multiple shooting, and Sherlock spent the night with his head resting over John's heavily beating heart. They still sat slightly apart in cabs, but more often than not John would interlace his fingers with Sherlock's and rest his thumb over the pulse point on the inside of the detective's wrist.

John asked about those eight months, and Sherlock told him, with his head in John's lap one lazy afternoon. (They had those, too, now.) When they didn't have a case, John made sure that Sherlock didn't wear flapping dressing gowns while embarking on experiments involving Bunsen burners or blowtorches, and Sherlock left passive-aggressive comments on John's (wildly popular) write-ups. Sherlock did get an Oyster card, and he amused himself (and John) by muttering his observations about each and every passenger on the way to Richmond Park. John caught a pernicious cold from one of his patients, and Sherlock did the shopping (even if he did need a bit of a push from Mrs Hudson.) Sherlock pressed on nicotine patches, and John peeled them off. Once, when Sherlock had come home later than usual—if there even was such thing as a usual with them—and John had fallen asleep on the sofa, the army doctor woke up with that Belstaff coat draped over him like a blanket.

But they didn't say anything.

They talked—that was different. If anything, they talked more than they had before. John had tried to get Sherlock to stop harassing him at work, but it seemed that the detective would stop at nothing to stay in touch with him. It wasn't as if John was taking as many jobs either, as they were taking cases and solving them so efficiently that even the Daily Mail had no complaints. At first, Sherlock had kept his musings and deductions quieter than he used to, as if he had become used to having no one around to hear them. John still wasn't any better at keeping his exclamations of 'extraordinary!' and 'brilliant!' to himself, though, so they evened each other out soon enough. It was like meeting again, but without the uncertainty. They'd both walked straight back into a life they'd adored.

Neither of them voiced any of it.

They knew the worth of words. Both of them understood how empty words could be. Sherlock dealt with empty lies on a day-to-day basis, all thrown out with an eye to money or fame or sex. No matter how many times Harry swore she'd never pick up another bottle of red again, no matter how many times she picked up her phone and hiccuped through an empty promise of No, I haven't been down the pub, John never quite believed her. Sherlock strung together words to get what he wanted, and whether or not they hurt was an element of language that was entirely irrelevant to him. John had said anything to make Ella stop pressing him for answers.

They weren't eloquent, but they were in the same realm of disbelief together.

So, they talked all right, but they rarely said anything. Sherlock was (for once) entirely out of his depth, and although John was more predetermined to feel, he was no more likely to say. At least, not yet, not when he knew that Sherlock was so unready. Oh, John knew, just like Sherlock knew and they both understood, but there was a difference between curling up around each other and saying 'I love you,' even if, for them, it meant the same thing.

So they kept on doing things, and they never said anything.


The first time one of their investigations went wrong, it was pissing down.

Or, at least, it had been when they arrived. The rain had eased off a bit, only drizzling as the police vans and medical personnel buzzed around the crime scene, cleaning up the mess that they'd had quite a large hand in making. Well, Sherlock had, at least. He'd been the one nearly strangled.

It wasn't that much of a failure; at least, John didn't think so. To quote all those bad police dramas that ITV commissioned, they'd got a result. The suspect was in custody—well, as close to custody as he could be when he was sat in the back of a police car—and they'd managed to stop him from adding one more strangling victim to his list of conquests. Sherlock's clever conversation of riddles even got the guy to name some of his accomplices. There was a slight suggestion that they might be able to find a few of the missing persons that had recently been reported to London police stations, though if they were dead or alive was unclear. Lestrade would have a (relatively) easy time writing this one up, even if he was stony-faced as his team worked around him in the quiet building site.

Then there was the face that John had shot the bugger in the knee with a gun that he wasn't supposed to own.

Still. It could have been worse.

The bright, flashing lights on top of the cars blurred in John's eyes, and he put it down to the rain. There were too many sounds hovering around his ears to be able to listen to all of them, and the one that stood out the most was the incessant squelching of shoes against mud. He was vaguely aware that he'd ruined his own shoes, but whether or not he'd ever be able to wear them again seemed irrelevant. He doubted he'd want to; there was something that told him they'd remind him of the day he almost saw Sherlock die for a second time.

God, the way his eyes had rolled back in his head…

That was when he'd pulled the trigger.

He hadn't shot to kill, this time. He hadn't been shooting to distract, either, just to stop. To stop, to stop Sherlock from turning blue in the rain and to stop the bastard from making John do everything again. To just… stop.

For a moment, it had been too much. Everything had blurred into one, and the only thing that mattered was Sherlock. That was dangerous for a man who spent most of his waking hours chasing the detective around the seedy underbelly of London. Would there come a time when John would step too far into the wrong side of the law for Sherlock's sake? Would there come a time when he'd fuck everything up because he wanted to come home from the surgery to a bored thirty-something who was convinced it was appropriate to act like a waspish six-year-old?

(Probably. He was halfway there already.)

They sat in silence on the back of the ambulance. Both of them had been treated to shock blankets (and what a shocking orange they were), but Sherlock had neglected to pull his back up over his shoulders when it had slipped to the floor. Not surprising, really. They sat so that they were in contact from ankle to shoulder, emanating and sharing body heat through layers of denim and cotton. John let his head fall gently onto Sherlock's shoulder—he was immensely glad that his cheek met the slightly damp, rain-soaked wool of Sherlock's coat. It smelled of Sherlock, too, of his shampoo and his chemicals and his adrenaline.

Without missing a beat, Sherlock turned his head and pressed the bridge of his nose into John's scalp. For a moment, John panicked, although he didn't really have the energy for it; they hadn't talked about this, they hadn't discussed... but then again, he knew that they don't have to, and that they wouldn't. What they did have to do was stay there, stay there and listen and feel each other breathing. They had to know they were alive, that they were okay. They were all right, sat there in the boot of an ambulance, John with his eyes closed and his mouth in a small, relieved smile, and Sherlock with his eyes open but all his senses focused on John and John's sheer presence.

Because they weren't dead. Neither of them. Not this time.

Lestrade noticed first, as he walked past them with a sealed evidence bag, but he didn't say anything. He smiled, though, to himself. Sally noticed next, and gawped. (She never really had embraced the gentle art of subtlety. It was a miracle she didn't point and shout.) No one else seemed to notice, or at least, no one else they knew. And why should any of them care? They had jobs to do, not gossip to disseminate.

It really would have been simpler for them to kiss theatrically upon their reunion, to throw themselves into each other's arms to really put an end to all speculation with a big, juicy public climax. But that wasn't them, was it?

They were more than that.

Not that there was anything wrong with that. John had experienced that sort of attraction, of emotion. He knew full well that it was genuine and not to be discounted, but there was something different with Sherlock. Something there that wasn't there with any of the women who had thrown their arms around him when he'd come back from Afghanistan on leave. Maybe it was the fact that they'd been through it once before, and they'd had to mime their way through a dress rehearsal for the inevitable. Maybe it was just John and Sherlock.

Maybe it was nothing, and maybe that nothing was absolutely everything.

John let his fingers search for the sliver of skin in between Sherlock's gloves and the cuff of his ever-so-expensive shirt. He knew that it was there. He'd searched it out many a time before, in taxis and while they were watching telly and in the middle of the night when he'd woken with a start. Sherlock's wrist was thin and pale, the blue of his veins standing proud against the milky white of his skin; yet the joint was not weak, and the pulse that was beating beneath it was anything but. John leant into the sound more than anything, because it was their lifeline, their proof that nightmares no longer existed in the physical sense of the word.

Sherlock let him have his hand—and it wasn't like he needed it. John could tell he was tired; Sherlock generally was, after several consecutive days where thoughts of food, drink and sleep were easily eclipsed by clues and theories. It didn't usually set in so soon, though John reckoned he could cut Sherlock a bit of slack. The detective hummed into John's hair, the only noise he could make that wasn't a hoarse croak—not unlike the one John's childhood dog would have made if he'd given it a Fisherman's Friend.

You've gone all croaky. Are you getting a cold?

John smiled, and was half tempted to chuckle. He'd humoured Sherlock, then.

He probably would now, too, when he got the energy.

The squelching footsteps came distinctly closer to them then, although once or twice whoever was approaching slipped and cursed under his breath. There was a distinct pause after each exclamation as Lestrade—for John could tell it was Lestrade, and it wasn't as if any of the other officers would come within ten feet of Sherlock—tried to regain his balance. He took advantage of the delay and raised his head from Sherlock's shoulder, clipping the detective's chin as he did so, and he gave the wrist one last generous squeeze before replacing his hand into his lap. There was no need for them to flaunt themselves, after all. John wasn't exactly in the mood for fielding the inevitable questions, either, and highly doubted that Sherlock felt any differently.

'Right, you two,' said Lestrade as he came to a squelching halt in front of them. 'All right?'

Sherlock grunted—which was probably the extent of his vocal ability at that moment—and John tried to muster up a smile that would suggest ease. It didn't come easily.

'Yeah, I suppose,' he began, blinking against the flashing lights of the neon cars that were pulling away. 'I mean, he's just about been strangled and I took out the guy's kneecap. All in a day's work for us, really.'

Lestrade looked unconvinced, like he always did with Sherlock and John until they could hand him incontrovertible evidence. 'Yeah, well, let's not make a fuss of it, then. We've got the bastard, so I don't want to have to wade through bureaucratic nonsense just because you two were involved.'

'I was under the impression that there was always a load of paper-pushing to get through at the Met.'

'Yes, well…' Lestrade trailed off, and ran a hand over his face. John knew the feeling, but could barely find the motivation to do anything but sit next to Sherlock, barely leaning into his warmth and steadiness. Then again, he was only being steady because he was stunned, and that didn't happen often. It gave John enough reason to worry.

A silence engulfed them, one that had distinct boundaries between their quietness and the hectic movement of everything else in their surroundings. John blinked heavily, now more out of exhaustion than anything else, and watched Lestrade struggle between being their friend and being their Detective Inspector.

Sherlock made a small, squeaking noise in his throat, and even though it could have been nothing more than a misplaced struggle for breath, John murmured to him. 'Sherlock,' he began, and although he could have found more words if he'd had the time, he didn't need to. Sherlock dipped his head, inclining towards John slightly although he still looked forward at Lestrade, and hummed. Not in contentment, and definitely not like a well-stroked cat, but just in… recognition. Their sort of promise.

John turned back to Lestrade, who sighed heavily and shoved his hands into his coat pockets.

'Go on, I'll get your statements in the morning,' said Lestrade with a concerned glance. John didn't know if he'd noticed Sherlock's hoarse excuse for a voice or if he'd read the expression on his own face, but either way, he was grateful.

John was aware that there should have been a comment from Sherlock then, something along the lines of You can't be a decent detective if you haven't noticed it's already morning, but there was a part of him that didn't want to hear it. It might have said that Sherlock was all right, but it wouldn't have been true. Not really, not after this. His feet felt heavy as he slid off the back of the ambulance, roughly bundling up his blanket and throwing it behind him with little care for where it landed.

'You'll text us a time, then?' he asked Lestrade, who was already turning back to his car.

The detective nodded, the solemn expression on his face cracking slightly. 'And you'll be late, just because you can.'


The lights of a very much awake London flashed past the windows of the cab as it carried John and Sherlock back to Baker Street. They sat apart, leaning on their respective doors, like they always did. It was, however, one of the few times that John didn't reach out and take Sherlock's hand. The only normal thing between them was Sherlock's stillness, his inability to do anything about it. So they sat staring forwards instead, listening half-heartedly to whatever radio drama the cabbie had on. Or, at least, John listened; who knows what Sherlock was doing with that mind of his.

Whenever John wasn't paying attention to the overdone West Country accents and their ridiculous storyline, his mind kept driving back to Sherlock. He should have expected it, really—the last time the bugger died, John hadn't been able to get Sherlock's voice out of his head. So why would he keep his distance when he was only on the other side of a cab? John couldn't decide if he wanted Sherlock, wanted him so close. But of course he did, it was his strongest instinct to connect them together in some way, any way… yet there was a searing white heat whenever he did, a distinct surge of fear that made him feel more than just a bit sick. Every separation was a connection was a connection, and every connection was a separation. It was as if he was still afraid that whatever bit of Sherlock he did wrap his hand around would send the same chills through him as his lifeless wrist had so many months ago.

After all, they'd almost been there. They'd walked that line and only come down on the right side of it because they didn't toe the line. John could have easily been the one to cradle a lifeless Sherlock in the mud of an abandoned building site, and the rain would have stung his eyes as much as the tears did.

But they hadn't, and they were still alive. The adrenaline was still there, coursing around the veins that suddenly seemed so inadequate, and instead of sharing it with a laugh and Sherlock's smile, he just felt sick.

John jumped as his phone made a shrill noise in his jacket pocket. He turned to Sherlock—it would be just like him to text when they were sitting right next to each other—but there was no mobile in his slender fingers.

25-04-2013 01:23
You and him, then? —GL

John sighed as he read the message. He knew that they weren't exactly secret, and he knew that the majority of the tabloid-reading public suspected that they got up to more shagging than they did crime solving. But saying that yes, it was John-and-Sherlock this time felt… well, new. It was the only thing that felt new about the entire thing; pressing kisses to Sherlock's forehead and falling asleep with Sherlock's arm wrapped around him felt entirely normal. It'd just been them, before. Now it was everyone else.

25-04-2013 01:25
Yeah. Problem? —JW

He answered his own question as he pressed send. John could accept and live with the reality of their situation and their lifestyle, the life-threatening bits included. Hell, he needed it as much as Sherlock did, only in a different way. But if this was how he was going to react every time someone pulled out a gun, or a knife, or laid their bare fists on Sherlock, well… then, that would be a problem.

John would be spending an awful lot of time feeling as if he was about to be sick. Sherlock would hate it—he'd be a terrible conversation partner. Yet it was just another thing that he'd have to carry with him, like the bullet in his shoulder and the memory of Sherlock's grave. He wasn't about to scurry away from the brilliant man who'd saved his life so quickly.

John's phone buzzed in his hands, and he only turned to look at the screen after a prolonged glance at the back of Sherlock's head.

25-04-2013 01:31
None at all. —GW

John did smile at that, even if only for a second.

It was just another thing that they had to be grateful to Lestrade for.


When they were both back in the warm, Georgian glow of Baker Street, the bile that had been rising in John's throat disappeared, only to be replaced by a growing desperation to help Sherlock. Except, like always, he had close to no idea how. That in itself made his stomach turn.

Sherlock peeled the coat off his back gingerly, the slow motion very different from the swift movement with which he'd put it on. John had torn his own off as quickly as possible when he'd got through the door; he'd toed his shoes off as well, more of out an attempt to distance himself from the events of the night than out of concern for Mrs Hudson's carpets. It wasn't as easy for Sherlock, though, John knew; he would be sore, painfully hurt with almost any movement. Strangulation didn't stop at the throat; it took its victim hostage.

John could make a list of all the things he could do—should do. He could put the kettle on, supplying both cups of tea and a hot water bottle. He could send Sherlock straight to bed and make sure he slept the entire ordeal off. He should really don his white coat and examine Sherlock's throat, for strangulation could kill hours or days after the fact. He could bundle Sherlock into his arms and rub circles into the detective's back until he could forget the feeling of that bastard's fingers around his neck.

But John did nothing of the sort. He couldn't.

'Sherlock.'

He needed Sherlock, and some less rational part of him remembered that he might just need Sherlock more than Sherlock needed him in this particular situation.

Sherlock turned from where he had stood facing the hook where he'd just hung his coat. John could see that the whites of his eyes were bloodshot, and there was a tightening in his chest that threatened tears.

'John,' came the reply. Sherlock's voice broke while John's name rested on his tongue, and John swallowed heavily around the realisation that they were both in one piece—even though it didn't feel like it. Somehow, that uncontrollable hitch told them both exactly what they needed to know.

John walked over to Sherlock, and rested his head against the detective's collarbone. His hands clasped Sherlock's hips, and pulled him closer, as close as they needed to be. Sherlock snaked an arm around John's shoulders, and its weight against his spine was a welcome pressure that John never wanted to forget. They were mad, they were broken and they were battered, but they were alive, and at the end of the day, and that was what mattered most.

'God, Sherlock,' John said against the rumpled cotton of Sherlock's usually impeccable shirt. 'You scare the shit out of me.'

There was a barely perceptible kiss pressed to the top of John's head. An apology, an excuse, a confession… everything all in one.

'You…' John started again, screwing his eyes shut and pressing his forehead even closer to Sherlock's skin. 'Don't. Just… don't.'

John didn't ask him to promise. They both knew that he couldn't do that, and that one day he'd probably end up bleeding out on a damp stretch of pavement when John couldn't get to him quickly enough. But not this time, and not the next, and not even the one after that—not if they could help it.

John raised his head from Sherlock's shoulder, although Sherlock kept his grip around John's shoulders. The doctor raised one of his hands to Sherlock's neck, his fingers tracing the jagged scratches that he must have given himself in the manic struggle to free his airway. There would be no obvious bruising around his neck, nothing as plain as the bodies they saw on morgue slabs following lethal strangulations. No, non-lethal attacks left marks that wouldn't be obvious to a casual observer. It was times like these that John didn't know whether he was thankful of his medical training, or regretted having it at all.

He raised his fingers to Sherlock's jaw, and gently pushed his face to one side. The detective obliged, and John gulped as he saw the tell-tale signs of his ordeal intermingled with his dark curls. Bruises and pressure marks lingered behind Sherlock's ears, a reminder that he had come so very close to oblivion. Then again, Sherlock was well-acquainted with oblivion, wasn't he?

Still.

John leaned up to press his lips to one of the more prominent marks, his own throat thick with a tremulous pulse. Sherlock didn't pull away, and moved his arm to John's side; his fingers scrabbled at John's clothing as he pulled just enough of it free from the waistband. Sherlock's hand slipped under the shirt and jumper to draw lines against John's skin with the pads of his fingers. John rested his forehead against Sherlock's head before kissing the hinge of his jaw, the small connection of jaw and neck that had become their own personal crime scene. He continued, following the line of ever-so-real bone, and John lingered there, as close to Sherlock as he could possibly be.

Sherlock's jawbone tasted of salt, and all John could do was swallow.


In the dim light of their bedroom, Sherlock grabbed at John's t-shirt before the doctor even had a chance to lay himself down. It was a rare thing indeed when Sherlock was in bed before John was, but normality seemed as if it was a far way off yet, and they'd just have to make do until it arrived.

John didn't fight Sherlock; he never did. He bypassed his own pillow in favour of sharing Sherlock's, even though it was too high and too firm for his taste. If Sherlock wanted him there, he'd be there. He always was.

Sherlock buried his face in John's shoulder, the hand that had been so insistent before laying lax against John's back. Sherlock's breath was warm against John's skin, and although he tried to ignore it, there were hitches in his breathing patterns that betrayed unseen damage. Sherlock's swallowing had changed, too, and John bit back the words that came tumbling into his mind. He knew that Sherlock wouldn't want them.

They lay there, still and silent, until they were breathing in unison. John wanted to get closer to Sherlock than he was to himself. He shifted—or at least, as much as he could around Sherlock virtually pinning him down. In any case, he had enough mobility to lift his head and press a kiss to Sherlock's cheekbone. John smiled as a closed-eyed Sherlock exhaled a breath that sounded like it had been held back, and he trailed his mouth down Sherlock's shower-warmed skin until he felt the pulse point on Sherlock's neck comforting beneath his tongue.

Then John shivered, as if someone was walking over his grave… although he didn't quite know why.


'No, don't. No! Sherlock!'

Sherlock hadn't known that mere words could burn so brightly through the darkness.

Oh, he had a mental catalog of the number of times words had prompted someone to kill and to main, to kidnap or to take revenge. He'd just never really understood why. He'd never really wanted to, either; he didn't need it. He knew that words did, and empirically, that was as much as he needed to know. Sherlock could read situations from their case files and know which words to use where to get the answer he needed… but why words seemed to hurt considerably more than sticks and stones had always escaped him.

Except now it didn't, as John ran through the street opposite St Barts in his head just as vividly as he had the previous summer. It was always that, now. At one point, John had been awoken by rapid gunfire and the blind terror of the battlefield. Sherlock had taken that away from him, and in a queer moment, he wished he hadn't. Not that he often partook in wishmaking—an entirely useless way to occupy his time—but it was there, the twinge in his chest that had been visiting him more and more frequently in the recent weeks surging forth with a renewed ferocity.

'Let me come through, please… No, he's my friend—he's my friend. Please…'

Sherlock curled his hands in John's shirt and rested them in the small of the doctor's back. John sounded… well, John sounded wrong. He always did, when he muttered those words (for he muttered them often enough into Sherlock's ear, even if he'd be mortified to know.) He sounded… broken. Crushed, even. Torn to pieces. Sherlock had never been so frightened for anyone before.

John's eyes snapped open, hovering white and almost sightless in the darkness as they took in reality. Sherlock pressed his forehead to John's sternum, feeling John's heart beat furiously against his closed eyelids. He was gasping for air, gulping down oxygen as if he'd been suffocated by fear. Sherlock frowned; he didn't like problems he couldn't solve.

'I'm home, John,' he said, his voice sleep-roughened and hoarse from abuse. He spoke against the tee shirt that was twisted uncomfortably along John's solid torso, his lips brushing against cotton. He listened carefully, waiting for John's breathing to even out and his heart rate to stabilize, but neither seemed likely to happen anytime soon. 'John...'

He didn't need to move his head to feel John move towards him, nestling his throat around the curvature of Sherlock's skull. They slotted together perfectly, this way. No inequality, no ranks, no roles to fill—just bodies.

John swallowed hard, obviously still far from calm, and Sherlock tightened his grip on his partner's waist. 'I'm sorry...' he said, pressing closer with every word, as if he needed to prove that he was real, that he was flesh and sinew and blood and not a fragment of John's tormented imagination. Sherlock knew that too many ghosts haunted these rooms—his included.

'I'm… I'm sorry you had to wait so long.'

John's heartbeat still pounded against Sherlock's eyelids, the pace heightened and jumpy. He still took breaths with an air of desperation and defeat. There was enough evidence to suggest to Sherlock that he may have even been crying.

But John raised one of his hands-the one that wasn't trapped under Sherlock's shoulder-and laced his fingers through the bundle of dark curls that lay against the detective's skin, and rested the palm of his hand against the curve of his scalp. John took a rattling breath, his chest shuddering against Sherlock's forehead. The detective didn't really know what to do with himself; he'd never had to offer comfort. No one had ever wanted it from him… but now John needed it.

So he stayed where he was, keeping an arm around John's chest. Being there seemed to be enough; being a heavy deadweight across his torso and a regular puff of air against his chest proved that he wasn't dead.

Because wasn't that what frightened John the most? Wasn't that the one thing that had replaced his wartime post-traumatic stress with an entirely far too similar type? Wasn't that what made John—his John—John H. Watson?

All Sherlock could do was prove John's nightmares wrong, and stay alive.

Or, to put it another way: all he could do was stay with him.


Sherlock must have turned over in the night, for when he woke he was greeted with the vision of sunlight streaming through the curtains. It was nearing eleven in the morning, judging by the angle of the slant. He really should have been in bed alone, judging by the time, but the soft whuffs of breath against the nape of his neck and the hook of an arm around around his middle suggested otherwise.

For once, being proved wrong wasn't quite so bad.

John's arm tightened around Sherlock's torso as the detective wriggled towards the edge of the bed, and although he halted and was prepared to settle back into the warmth of the duvet if necessary, John released him with a half-hearted grunt before rolling over onto his other side.

'Good morning to you, then,' muttered John as Sherlock shuffled out of the bedcovers, a slight smile gracing his mouth. Now, how exactly had that got there? All he'd done was stop wasting valuable time being unconscious.

Sherlock made his way back downstairs to the rest of the flat, not trying to be especially quiet for John's (or Mrs Hudson's) sake. He never had before, after all, and John definitely wasn't one to stay in bed all day. Not when there were more exciting things going on elsewhere.

At least, there must be something going on somewhere that was of interest to them. Sherlock was sure of it; statistically, there had to be something. He just hadn't found the next interesting thing yet. As he was brushing his teeth, it occurred to him that he could pester Lestrade, but the next crushing realisation came while he was in the shower: the detective inspector would still be buried in the previous night's paperwork. God, and they'd have to help him fill it in… the thought that he could see if Mycroft had anything that could make him conveniently busy with matters of national security did occur while he was buttoning his shirt (a black one, with a black suit—it seemed appropriate), but that idea was quickly filed away in the deepest dungeons of his mind palace.

Well, he'd just have to amuse himself then, wouldn't he?

Once Sherlock had got to the kitchen, he opened his laptop on his way to pick up the kettle and tapped in his password with one hand as he went to fill it. Really, there was no need for John to type as if he was a tree sloth that had just been introduced to technology. He shook his head and flicked the kettle on to boil; he really had little idea as to why John's habits interested him so much. There really was very little remarkable about him—apart from, well… seemingly everything.

He poured boiling water into their respective mugs and, after a few minutes, removed the teabags with a deft motion of his hand and poured in milk—the last of it. John would complain about that, no doubt. Either way, he took both mugs and set them down beside his laptop as he pulled up all the sites that could bring him news of a new case, including his own site and John's blog.

Come on, come on, there had to be something for him to do…

John came downstairs less than ten minutes later, his short hair unbrushed and body still wrapped in his dressing gown. Sherlock knew that John hadn't even tried to break the habit of rising early that was a hangover from his years in the army—even if his definition of early wasn't quite as strict as it once was. It must have really slipped if John only made it out of bed after a post-case Sherlock Holmes; he was generally close to comatose the morning after.

Sherlock pushed his chair out and pulled himself to his feet, abandoning his laptop in favour of offering John his cup of tea one with one hand while holding his own in the other. If there was an entirely unfounded social nicety that he subscribed to, it was the ubiquitous nature of tea to cure all ills. It certainly gave his scratchy throat some much-needed relief.

As John staggered into the kitchen, still rubbing the sleep from his eyes, Sherlock made to hold the mug out to the doctor, but he barely had a chance to think before John had snaked an arm around Sherlock's shoulders and pulled him close. Sherlock only just about managed to jerk his hand out of the way in order to avoid covering John with hot tea; he'd spilt some in the meantime, but he didn't care. John held in his the awkward one-armed hug, and Sherlock could do nothing but keep his tea-laden hands well out of the way. John pressed his face into the skin of Sherlock's neck, pushing the collar of the way with his nose, and took several deep breaths.

When John did decide to pull away, he did so only in order to press a kiss to Sherlock's lips. They made an odd picture, standing there with John gripping Sherlock's shoulder like a drowning sailor would grasp driftwood and Sherlock held entirely incapacitated by tea. Still, when had either of them ever minded being a bit odd?

John pulled away properly after a while, and nudged his nose against Sherlock's. 'I do love you, you know,' he said, with a smile, before he plucked his mug out of Sherlock's hand and wandered off towards the toaster.

Sherlock… well, Sherlock stood there, still facing the sitting room, and took a sip of his tea.

Then another. And… another.

He wasn't shocked—no, he was never shocked—and it wasn't like he didn't already know. It wasn't as if John hadn't said it before, either. Then it'd been shouted, obviously meant for him although not in an entirely pleasant way, but this… well, it was almost as if John was talking to himself rather than to Sherlock.

He shut his eyes and shook the thoughts from his head before moving to settle back down in front of his laptop. After all, a breakdown of the sixty-three types of uncommon household poisons wasn't going to write itself. Yet his mind kept traveling back to John, and even Sherlock knew that his distraction had nothing to do with the noisy rolling boil into which John had just dropped two eggs. No, definitely not. So why did he keep sneaking glances at the back of John's head?

Sherlock knew that John didn't need him to say it back. He knew that it didn't matter, and that John would love him even if he didn't love him back. That was one of the follies of the human mind, one of the ways it can inflict pain on itself.

He did, though. He didn't say it, but he loved him.

He probably always had.


He'd been thinking about their relationship for four days when the time came to speak, and even then, he wasn't quite finished. Sherlock couldn't remember the last time a line of inquiry had given him that much trouble.

He'd had a few distractions here and there. John had called them cases, but Sherlock wasn't about to dignify them with that sort of terminology. He'd left John sorting out the bills during one of them—one of the major galleries had an incident of vandalism in their own archives and it had only taken a few hours and not very many brain cells to find the culprit—and come home to find him helping Mrs Hudson repaint some wainscoting in 221C. He'd been so bored he'd come down to keep them company (or so he said), but he wasn't about to pick up a paintbrush so John sent him away, calling him a 'drain on tea and other essential resources.' Then Sherlock had kissed him, just leaned right over and kissed him on the temple, and scampered up the stairs. He could hear John's spluttering and Mrs Hudson's beaming all the way from the kitchen.

When John had come back, he wasted no time in getting his own back. He grasped Sherlock by the lapels from where he was lay on the sofa, and kissed him—hard. Sherlock quite enjoyed John's mouth, as surprising as that preference was. In what other couples would use as a prelude to a more intimate division of passion, Sherlock and John shared a warmth, a familiarity and comfort that overtook most other things. Sherlock sometimes surprised himself as he sought it out; yet then, with his hand cradling the back of John's head as the doctor stabilized himself against the sofa with a knee, everything felt entirely right.

'You won that round, Holmes,' John had said as he pushed himself to his feet, steadying himself with a palm laid on Sherlock's chest. 'But that's just not on.' The palm had morphed into a pointing finger that John jabbed into Sherlock's sternum with each word.

Sherlock had just smirked with that languid half smile that he so often lavished on John, and got an 'Oh, shut it,' in reply.

Now he watched John through the dim light of morning, the doctor stirring only slightly as Sherlock shifted his weight against his back. His hand lay on John's belly so that he could feel the rise and fall of his breaths, and for a while he was fascinated by them. His own breathing had fell into sync with John's ages beforehand and Sherlock could count their breaths, keep track of each inhale, exhale… inhale, exhale…

When he thought about it, he didn't know why he wanted to know. He didn't know what help it would be to keep track of their breathing on a morning in late April, but he wanted to do it. He wanted to know, he wanted to know everything about John—everything that John knew about himself and everything that he didn't. He wanted to know what everyone else knew about John as well, he wanted to know everything he'd seen and everything he hadn't. He wanted to hear John say 'I love you,' again.

But why? Why did he want to hear John say it? They were just words, nothing that held much meaning for longer than their utterance, and there was nothing else that would suggest their situation was any different. John still looked at him with that expression on his face when they were on their own (Sherlock decided exactly what expression it was yet, only that it was very much unique to him). Sherlock still couldn't quite figure out why his pulse accelerated when John reached out to clasp his hand. John still pressed kisses to… well, any bit of Sherlock seemed to be the most convenient when the fancy took him. Obviously, there was nothing different about their lifestyle from one week to the next.

So, yet again, Sherlock found himself at odds with the same question: why did he want to hear repetitive confirmations of what he already knew?

John's voice pulled Sherlock out of his own thoughts.

'Sherlock?'

'Mhmm?'

'You awake?'

Well, clearly he was. He'd just responded to a question. What John meant to ask was 'do you want to be awake?'

'I think the fact that I'm speaking to you answers that question.'

'Shut up, then. It's quarter to five in the morning.'

So it was. He hadn't noticed. He'd had other more important and more interesting things to think about. But then again, it was John that had initiated the conversation; Sherlock had been quite content with his own thoughts and observations, so he didn't really see why it was his fault.

Sherlock obliged anyway, and pressed a chaste kiss to the edge of John's hairline. John made a sound that wasn't that far from a purr, and arched back into Sherlock's chest ever so slightly, just enough to bring them that little bit closer than they were in sleep. Not that Sherlock had been asleep. He'd dozed, for all of forty odd minutes, then his mind had caught up with him. John had said, once, when Sherlock had got some odd ideas in his head whose origins even he couldn't pinpoint, that sometimes, things didn't have to make sense… but that didn't stop Sherlock from worrying about the illogicality of it all—of them. He needed more time; more time to think, more time to feel, more time to experiment, more time to discover…

Sherlock tightened his arm around John's torso as he breached the comfortable silence. 'John?'

'That'd be me.'

Sherlock scoffed, the sound muffled by flesh and duvet, but his disdain didn't last long.

'Don't go.'

He wanted to bite back the words as soon as he'd said them, and Sherlock buried his face in his pillow.

John yawned, and pulled the duvet to his shoulder. 'Right now, I'm definitely going back to sleep.'

'John.'

It was almost a prayer.

Sherlock held his breath as John realized the importance of what he'd just said, and pressed his forehead to the back of John's neck. 'Oh, Sherlock…' said the doctor in a low, private voice. Sherlock closed his eyes, pressing the lids shut almost painfully against the small area of John's skin in between his hairline and the neckline of his shirt.

John lifted the arm that was on top of the duvet and reached behind him, resting his hand on top of Sherlock's thigh. He stroked his thumb back and forth, and even through the layers of bedsheets, its message was crystal clear to both of them. John turned his head slightly, and murmured, 'I'm not going anywhere.'


Sometimes, John found that he couldn't stop his mind from wandering. In that moment, he was supposed to be mentally preparing for an informal interview for a temporary position in Hackney, and instead he kept returning to contemplations of a decidedly more Sherlockian flavour. The bloody man had well and truly squirreled himself into every facet of John's life—not that he really minded. He'd have probably done the same thing if he'd been given half a chance.

In any case, he found himself perched on the edge of a chair in a painfully cheery waiting room with his mind somewhere completely different. In their bed, to be precise, although not in the lewd sense that the thought initially suggested. The memory was over a week old, at that point, yet the pressure of Sherlock's hand on his back as he awoke with a start still seared into his skin. The recollection of Sherlock's words against his chest induced a whole new type of pressure, one that made his ribcage feel far too small. All because Sherlock had done something very much out of character: he'd cared.

Well, John knew that that in itself wasn't outside of Sherlock's realm of experience. The man had killed himself to save his friends—because contrary to what Mycroft thought, he could have (and value) friendships. No, the difference was that he'd put himself in the emotional firing line, for once. He'd cared enough to wrap himself around John and admit that he'd done it to him, that he was the reason they were all so fucked up. Not the only reason, no, but one of the big ones. He'd cared enough about John's distress to admit he'd made a mistake, that he wasn't always the cleverest man in the room, that he did have the greatest weakness of them all—a heart.

Sherlock thought that he was entirely unaffected by emotions. He considered himself above them, even, as if they would just hold him back more than any physical injury. But no, Sherlock was governedby his emotions—more specifically, his boredom. He was afraid of being bored, and disliked monotony with a passion that rivaled his animosity towards Anderson. He didn't like what his mind did to him when it wasn't being used, and that influence was much more potent than any sort of love or lust or attatchment. If that wasn't reacting to an emotion, John didn't know what was. So that night held centre stage in John's mind day after day only reinforced Sherlock's feelings, and the fact that he had them at all. He had stopped pretending. He had realized that John didn't care as long as Sherlock was there—and alive.

From that night on, Sherlock always came to bed. He didn't always sleep, and he wasn't even in pajamas most of the time, but he was there as John drifted off into sleep. He almost always brought something with him: his laptop, a massive reference book, evidence from a case. He tried once to bring in a bit of one of his numerous mould experiments, but John had put his foot down. One night, when an especially vigorous thunderstorm had clattered at their windows, John awoke to find that Sherlock was still on his laptop, tapping away on the keys as if his fingers were racing one other in an attempt to set a world speed record. John really did need to learn how Sherlock did that.

'Hey,' he said groggily as he turned over, twisting in order to face his bedmate. 'Still up?'

'Of course, John. Blogs don't run themselves.'

'Just trying to be nice. No need to break out the sarcasm.' John's sentence was drawn out by a comfortable yawn.

'There's always a need.'

'Right. You don't do nice, do you? How could I have forgotten?'

John turned to face Sherlock when he didn't get much in the way of an answer. The detective had propped himself up against the bare wood of the headboard—undoubtably giving himself a neck ache that he'd complain about, with absolute relish, in the morning. He'd left all the lights off, too, even the one that John had tried to establish as the one that wouldn't bother him. The artificial light of the whirring computer on Sherlock's lap cast his face in a sickly blue gleam, and for a moment it was all too close to the blood-spattered face that John had reached out to on the pavement.

He cleared his throat, and hauled himself up onto an elbow. 'What's it about this time, then?'

John craned his neck, and the sight of a very familiar blogging platform's composition screen greeted his temporarily blinded eyes. The only difference was that Sherlock's writing was much less conversational than John's, and contained far more instances of words with too many syllables. For once, though, John didn't need Sherlock's dismissive explanation of his article. He recognised enough of it on his own: Sherlock had been completing an extensive examination of the fact that the troughs and valleys of a firearm imprint on any bullets fired from the said firearm.

'Oh, something I might know a bit about—and you wait until I'm asleep?' He exclaimed as he finished reading, his voice full of mock indignation.

Sherlock smiled with half his mouth. 'To be fair, I didn't have to wait very long.'

'Prat.'

'You flatter me.'

Which was true, John knew. He had to get that particular unconscious impulse under control. He must have said something akin to sod off, you fop, but he couldn't really remember. What he did remember was the way the mattress dipped when Sherlock lay beside him, and how he turned into its warmth; he remembered the familiar smell of Sherlock's shampoo, and the underlying hint of the cologne that he'd worn since before John had met him. It seemed to just be part of him, a component of his bloodstream and a metallic tang under John's tongue. What he did remember was winding his fingers around Sherlock's wrist and drawing it down, flat against the duvet, as he searched for the heartbeat that had once evaded him.

Sherlock had let him keep it, and finished his post typing with one hand.


John glanced through the newspaper he'd plucked from the pile on the table in front of him, more interested in anything that would pique Sherlock's curiosity than actual news. That was another occupational hazard that came with living and working with Sherlock, and John smiled to himself as he realized what he was doing. There really was no stopping it.

The surgery was getting busier by the minute, as the empty chairs around him were filled by mothers with sniffly toddlers and dubious-looking children being told 'No, of course there won't be any injections this time.' John saw exactly how much they needed another pair of hands; even the receptionist who had told him they were running late seemed frazzled by the influx of patients. There never really was a good time for a doctor to take maternity leave.

There was a couple sat directly opposite him, and the woman was obviously heavily pregnant. John would have estimated six or seven months, if he'd had to guess, but it was the couple themselves—and not their pregnancy—that caught his attention. He husband (for he was her husband, judging by the ring on his finger and the two rings on hers—god, Sherlock was rubbing off on him) looked at her in such a way… well, there was no way to describe it without veering into the realm of sickly poetry. It was as if she was… everything. Not just the only woman in the room, just everything. There wasn't even a room for her to be in, as far as he was concerned. His world contracted to contain only her.

John had once wondered if he wanted children. He probably would have had one or two, if he'd never met Sherlock, but that wouldn't have been from his own impetus. He probably would have been a good father and had a happy marriage. Yet it wasn't something that he thought about. It wasn't something that he missed, or yearned for, or wanted in any use of the word. He wanted to be with Sherlock and that was it, even if it meant no active sex life and no life and no kids.

It wasn't as if he sat across the room from Sherlock consumed by lust, or constantly grappled with want. No, it wasn't like that. He wanted Sherlock to be there, to be alive—and that was a difficult enough task. He wanted to curl up beside him on the sofa when he didn't have cases, and he most desperately wanted to wake up with Sherlock's palm splayed across his back. He wanted to kiss him—sometimes, he wanted to kiss him hard and deep and long. But he still wasn't bothered about shagging him. Not that he wouldn't be willing if Sherlock ever fancied a go—no, he would be game for that, if Sherlock was sure. He just didn't need it.

He loved Sherlock all the same.

He was happy, all the same.

Just as the thought had reached his lips and quirked them into a smile, his phone buzzed wildly in his pocket, rattling against his keys. He shot a nervous-looking boy sitting near him a winning smile as he shifted to dig the phone out of his pocket, and was halfway to turning the thing off completely before he read the text message properly.

03-05-2013 10:19
New case. Insulting Lestrade is boring
without your palpable disapproval. —SH

John shook his head, even though he knew Sherlock couldn't see him. The git was probably picturing him doing it anyway, so why not just give him the satisfaction of being right?

The thing was, even as he set the phone to silent, that he felt an inexcusable urge to rush out of the building and hail the closest taxi. He really did need to stay, though. It wasn't as if Sherlock had had many more five-figure cheques from clients, and even with Mrs Hudson's good price on the flat, there were bills to pay. Not that Sherlock noticed; John doubted that Sherlock have ever paid a bill in his life. Or, at the very least, worried about paying bills. John did worry, and he really shouldn't have been considering going back to Baker Street.

Except he was, and he shot an apologetic smile at the receptionist as the glass door closed behind him.