John's attention strayed from a documentary on banking regulation. He'd only been watching it in case they mentioned war pensions. He switched it off. Sherlock was leafing through piles of paperwork, they shuddered like a wafer thin edition of Jenga.

"What political party are you with?"

"The correct one."

"Seriously, though."

"The naming of a party only reflects one's economic sensibilities. Do we stay with the current system" he raised one hand, "or overhaul it based on a different philosophy of mankind?" and balanced it in the air with the other hand. "But aside from economics, there is much about the country I would like to change. Red tapes burned." His hands dropped and eyes twinkled at the idea.

"So, economically what are you?"

"Conservative. The current capitalist model is the best of all workable ones if competition is king. I would tweak and alter many non-economic forms of governance, though, in those regards I'm thoroughly independent."

"What's Mycroft?"

Sherlock looked over, puzzled. "He lives in North London, take a guess."

"I need a bit more proof than a postcode."

"How many aspects of government do you see him trying to overhaul?"

"None." John sighed. "Conservative, then."

"Born and bred." Sherlock threw the Union Jack cushion from the sofa at John's head.

John's soldier reflex training kicked in and he caught it in front of his face. "What did you want to be when you grew up?"

"Adopted."

John went back to watching the television.

"John, why are you so interested in my background all of a sudden? If you're filling out an online dating profile for me I will shoot you. In the foot."

"I wouldn't dare. If you did require my assistance however, I am a hit with the ladies." He smirked.

"I suppose such a specialization could come in useful at times. I prefer mine more technical. I'm a world expert in interrogation."

"Hm? Who died?"

"Anyone who wouldn't talk." Sherlock met John's look as he spun around, and couldn't keep a straight face for long.

"What was your first case?"

"Jack the Ripper."

"Aw, really?" John leant forward in his chair.

"Yes, really."

"Whodunnit, I've always wanted to know."

"Aaron Kosminski. Temped at a butchers', hated women. I figured he must've blackmailed someone to assist in hiding him, but with the shoddy state of record-keeping in Victorian London combined with the destruction of the scenes that player will forever remain a mystery."

John's mouth was open a little for a few seconds. He remembered himself and pressed his lips together. "I've always wondered about you... " he shook his head, "so many things..."

"Like what? You live with me, thus you know me better than anyone else in the world, whom I'm not a blood relative to of course."

"Of course. I can't remember offhand all the questions, they'll come to me, over time I guess. Do you have any questions for me, or do you see everything about me instantaneously?"

"There'll always be time, John." He patted his shoulder. "To ask me anything you like. My eyes don't see, they absorb. Patterns, specifically. Yet I confess I cannot see very far into the past, you'll have to tell me for yourself."

"Why the limitation?"

"The patterns mesh over one another, like scribbles on a page, it becomes indecipherable."

"No questions for me?"

"What did you want to be when you grew up?"

"Superman."

Sherlock smiled warmly. "Close enough."

"Missing in one crucial respect." John looked at the floor.

"Flying? I'd like to fly." Sherlock looked at the ceiling, imagining the blue skies. "My long overcoat feels like a cape on blustery days."

"Superman saves everyone. It's impossible. You can't save everyone."

"It isn't one person's job to save everyone, that's the 'super' in hero, John." Sherlock briskly strode to make them some tea. The only thing capable of calming John down when he considered his battle biography was tea served with company.

"We should try." John's eyes welled up, barely perceptible.

"Naturally, yes. That's what good people do, listen to the angel on their shoulder." Sherlock passed John his tea to his dominant right hand. His non-dominant hand got shaky at times like this.

"Have you ever failed?"

Sherlock halted mid-step. He considered lying. He considered throwing a quip. He considered a barb. He considered these to be incorrect replies. "Yes" he said quietly. "As with every game, life we can only play the best hand we are given by circumstance."

"I've never understood how you got by without me."

"It was awful."

"No don't make stuff up, I need to hear your genuine thoughts." John sipped at his tea and collected his disparate thoughts.

"For instance, how can you be self-sufficient, independent to the point of - whatever you are, yet..."

"Go on." Sherlock sat, a finger resting on his teacup's handle.

"I've seen the way normal people react to you. You don't hide what you are. How can you do that? Doesn't it hurt, to wear your true nature on your sleeve? God," he laughed nervously, "if I was honest about what's happened to me over the years, if I could drop that cheery act I do to pretend everything is okay, I couldn't stand the slightest insult. It'd break me." He gulped tea.

"Loneliness was good. It was a constant reminder, there was no one I could hurt. Simply put, I'm a Social Darwinist."

"The perspective whose slogan might as well be 'fuck other people; every man for himself?'"

"Precisely. It's a shell and my particular shell reflects my true intellect ..but not my personality, as you've seen. Only a few people in the world know my true personality, but I allow everyone to know my intelligence."

"For work?"

"To show off. Rub it in their faces. Nothing pisses off the British populace quite like exemplary intelligence."

"Keep talking, I need the distraction."

"There are always fools willing to attempt a coercion of the different. The unashamedly intelligent have this worst of all. Even society doesn't like them, despite benefiting most from their works. They don't fit in. They don't keep their head down and follow the rules. They want more. They ask questions. That's dangerous for those in power, to be considered by such intellectually powerful individuals. So what do they do?" Sherlock brandished his palms. "Tarnish the reputation of the individual. The only one that matters is the intellectual ad hominem. Of course everyone makes mistakes, but heuristics has shown people still fall for it. So they call the genius mad. He is heard - and laughed at. No longer a threat to the placid normality of the population they are compared with. Few outcomes are sadder. A disorder in the clinical set is merely a clustering of behavioural traits or character states which is unusual in the population at large. Their attribution to values, to good or bad, right or wrong, is entirely dependent on culture and perspective. Normal people see from one side of the mirror. It's called mental illness for a reason: if you don't suffer from it, they don't count it. Jahoda's six criteria for ideal mental health get the gist, google it if you get time. However, there is a common misconception that harm to others counts. But for it to do so, that harm must be definable. Imagine the number of people insulted on the Internet. Everyone has a different pain scale. Some have their widdle feelings hurt every five minutes; about work, a relationship or something dramatic about life in general. Others are made from sterner stuff, with a few taking offence to nothing at all. Hence, counting the perceived slights of acquaintances is a useless pursuit, for it is unfalsifiable. The individual in isolation should be considered, for even in a vacuum of no other people, mental illness will develop. The trigger pull is the last point in a very long chain of events, remember."

"Yeah, I'll remember that" John replied, deep in thought. His cup of tea was empty. "Here's my cup of kindness" he handed it back for a refill.

"Have you seen my screensaver?" Sherlock replaced the vanishing tea.

"For what?"

"Computer." Sherlock brought it over and his long fingers danced briefly. He showed it to John.

Three words. Never like them

"What does that mean?"

"Think about it and get back to me."

John's mouth twitched. He knew Sherlock had set a brainteaser to distract him and he was grateful for it. Sherlock began drinking his own tea and picked up the paper.

Sherlock chuckled.

"Reading the celebrity gossip pages? Not like you." John frowned.

"No." Sherlock looked up. "Financial. The EU is a joke everyone else is just starting to get."

"I know you predicted this, but you needn't delight in it so much. Seems like the kind of thing Moriarty would do."

Sherlock sniffed righteously, "Moriarty assembles the pieces on the board and allows them to slaughter one another. I just watch proceedings. I tried to warn a few politicians, but they weren't about to listen to some kid fresh out of Uni. Now they're fetching pales of water for a fire." Sherlock looked at John with a wry smile. "Ignorant of how water makes chemical burns worse."

"But what can they do?"

"Wait. It's too far gone now. Has been for years. The chain is breaking and it will lead to political embezzlement."

"Did you tell Lestrade?"

"Of course. As he said, it's not our division."

John switched on the TV. "Shit..." he mused.

"Yes, John. Bullshit. It's beginning to stick to the fan."

Sherlock hovered over to the window, opened it and inhaled deeply, bobbing his head from side to side and humming 'London's Burning'. He threw himself back into the chair with abandon.

"Sociopath. You enjoy disaster far too much."

"Haha, I enjoy being proven right." He grinned.

"Why do you bother? All these cases. Surely it seems unrelenting, chasing a dream of peace?"

Sherlock shifted in his chair.

"That is not your question."

"Then what, pray tell, is?"

Sherlock looked down his nose at John, as he always did when heavily appraising his options. His head snapped back like a viper, the impact softened by the head cushion on the chair.

"Why am I good?"

"Why are you good?"

"I'm not."

John scoffed.

Sherlock took a deep breath and looked over at his violin. He flicked his fingers over at it in gesture. "If only I were a good man, it is not for goodness itself. Goodness doesn't exist, as Einstein pointed out. Did you know the violin is the most difficult instrument to master?" Sherlock paused for a response.

"I had heard something like that."

"Similarly, I am 'good', because it is the more taxing path. I once read a sentiment which elocuted it perfectly. That, it is a greater thing, to have the capacity for evil, and to overcome it, than any show of force of strength misused. Power lies in the control of itself, or else it self-destructs. Burns from the inside out, like an atomic bomb."

John breathed out sharply. "Phew. That's a relief."

"You won't get rid of me that easily."

"What drives you? Tells you what's good if there's no such thing?"

"Others. A negative example. I could never... I would never want to do the things those," he voice turned acidic, "people, do." Sherlock mumbled, it sounded to John like 'mindless.'

"Being like them... it's like a death sentence. I'd rather die, than be like them."

"How do you know, when you've succeeded?"

"When? Oh John, your faith in me is darling." He touched John's hand. "Every day is a success. Every case. It never finishes, except at my dying breath, when I can rest and sink into that vacant abyss of nothingness." He sank his head back into the cushioning of the chair and closed his eyes happily. "To lie quiet in an asphodel field for a moment, stretched for all time. No thoughts racing around my head like a melting pot, forever scalding my efforts at living." He put a hand to his forehead and it wrinkled.

"Does that idea please you?"

"Yes, however much it might disgust you. I know the only way soldiers cope sometimes is the promise of a heaven, a paradise, but a continuation of my existence is not in anyone's best interest. Those that live long, live to lose themselves."

They finished their tea in the usual companionable silence.


Later, as John attempted to tidy the piles of paperwork Sherlock had been casting into chaos, he found a stationery box. A small, common, plastic box. It contained a scattering of pens and curiously, a condom. John replaced the lid and tried to ignore it. It pressed in on his mind. It was out of the ordinary for a man like Sherlock, who'd taught him never to ignore the out of place.

He knocked softly on Sherlock's door and asked about it.

"Just in case."

By that time, Sherlock had informed John of his virgin status. "In case of what?"

"Oh John, do you want me to draw you a diagram?" His toothy grin was cheeky and took about ten years off his face.

John frowned. He walked over to the desk and fetched the object in question. Sherlock stayed in his doorway and watched with amusement. "Why would a virgin buy a condom pre-emptively? It's too weird."

"Have we met?" Sherlock held out a hand to shake.

As John held it up to Sherlock's deadpan face, he saw the expiration date on the back. "The date says three years from now. You bought this recently."

"Excellent! You're learning." Sherlock pointed at him. "Indeed I did. Old one needed replacing." His smile was too fleeting for John's suspicions to be allayed. He pressed the matter further.

Sherlock became impatient. "It seems to be important. One of those quintessentially human hobbies." His tone turned nonchalant "I must experience it at least once before I die."

John caught a whiff of a lie, the act was too perfect, "Why do you think you're going to die so soon, Sherlock?"

Sherlock's entire manner hardened to stone.

" ...Sherlock? Answer me. If you've been having ...thoughts-"

"It's a precaution, Doctor. Only a precaution." Sherlock stepped back and closed the door in John's face. He didn't emerge for the rest of the night.