"'In the case of choosing a career, I find nothing at all of interest. No amount of wealth could ever stop an ordinary job from being suicidally tedious, and any attempt to convince me otherwise is fruitless and pathetic.'"

"Clearly, I wasn't listened to," Sherlock muttered as John continued to read under the boy's hurried script, "'You'll change your mind in uni' he said. Honestly. I don't know why they bother making us write these essays, it's a bloody waste of time."

John couldn't help grinning. He could just imagine the fixed withered look on Sherlock's face through every day of school that he had to endure. John kept reading. "'I'm sure there's something you want to do that hasn't occured to you yet, but don't worry about making a decision now: you're only sixteen-'"

"Seventeen," Sherlock corrected.

John paused and looked up from the paper. His grin faltered. "Seventeen? When was your birthday?"

Sherlock shrugged. "Friday."

"And you didn't-"

"What? I didn't tell you? Remind you?" John suddenly felt uncomfortable as he slowly put down the paper. Sherlock visibly swallowed. "You're my therapist. Why should it matter?"

John didn't have an answer for that. He licked his lips nervously. "I could have-"

"Don't," Sherlock snapped, "I said it doesn't matter."

John hated this- hated how the atmosphere had changed from warm to suddenly tense and constrictive. It had been at least two weeks since they'd decided not to talk about that day when John had nearly told Sherlock everything (everything he felt and probably things he wouldn't know he felt until he had the opportunity to speak), but they couldn't deny that there was no returning to the- admittedly- flimsy barriers that they'd had before. It felt like they were miles away from that day when they had spent the rest of the session together with John weaving patterns through Sherlock's hair to calm him down. Yet even though they couldn't go back to something so dangerous,John still craved it and it scared him just how much he wanted it. Now when their eyes met, John thought he could see the same hesitation in Sherlock. But they both knew that they couldn't, and they'd agreed not to talk about it. So it stayed like this- easy if they forgot about it, and then painfully tense when it was brought up again.

But there was also the fact that Sherlock still had a fading bruise on his arm from yesterday and their argument about it (that involved John asking what happened and Sherlock stubbornly insisting that he didn't want to talk about it) was still fresh in their minds.

John sighed and left Sherlock's essay on his desk. "They have a point though, making you at least think about it. Do you have any idea what-"

"Shut up."

John gave him a stern, cold look and for the first time since they'd met each other, John felt like the adult- the kind of adult that he didn't want to be, stern and hypocritical and unfair. Sherlock met his gaze evenly and it seemed like they were just going to spend the whole hour like this trying to out-glare each other, until Sherlock huffed and closed his eyes.

"Sorry," he muttered, with the kind of reluctance that John knew was from being out of practice when it came to apologising.

"It's fine," John answered stiffly. It became so quiet then that he almost thought he could hear his watch ticking. He didn't like it.

"There's something bothering you."

John waited.

Sherlock pursed his lips. "Me."

John sagged. He knew what Sherlock was talking about, but he didn't want to focus on that now. They were over that. "It's not your fault-"

"But it has something to do with me." His voice was more forceful, argumentative and stubborn. "Don't lie."

John met his gaze evenly. "This session is about you. What I feel isn't important-"

"It's important when it's about me." Sherlock's eyes were a cold gray steel, and John felt his anger rise again at being defied.

"It's nothing," he said sternly, glaring at Sherlock. "We're not going to talk about it."

Sherlock was suddenly livid and John had never seen him this angry before. "What, so you keeping your distance is 'all right'? Everytime you're near me it's like you're holding your breath, as if so much as looking at me will kill you. That was all it was, wasn't it? You...touching me-" John flinched "-holding me as if you actually cared, it was nothing? You acting like you cared, what was that?" A muscle in his jaw twitched as he tried to stop, but it was too late now. "Why are you treating me like I don't even know what I'm doing? Why are you treating me like a child?."

John hated himself for it, but it was out of his mouth before he stop it. It was true anyway. He knew that.

"That's because you are a child."

Sherlock visibly flinched before he stood up, his hands clenched into fists by his sides, and he struggled with words as he tried to find the right ones, and eventually settled on, "I'm nothing to you."

"That's not true."

Sherlock glanced at the photograph on John's desk, of the framed picture of him and Mary standing in front of Big Ben like a picturesque London postcard. They were happy then. It had only been a few months ago too, and it was terrifying to John how things had changed so drastically since that picture. Mary was the same- vibrant as ever- but John didn't know where he was anymore.

"You love her."

John's eyes snapped back to Sherlock's. He was right. But unless John was really too far gone, he could hear jealousy in Sherlock's voice and for a moment the man was truly horrified. What had happened with Alice wouldn't happen again; that had been years ago, a mistake but something he'd known how to deal with. This wasn't new or special or different. He had to remember that. Whatever he was hearing in Sherlock's voice, it wasn't there. It had never been there.

"But I've seen the way you look at me."

There weren't many things that really terrified John anymore. There was no point to fear, and his father had taught him that when he was younger. Now he had more adult fears, but there weren't many of those either- he didn't worry about dying (or even dying alone, as he had for years before), about losing important things like his house or his car. He worried about losing Mary or Harry, but since their mother had died years ago and dad was long dead, there weren't that many people John cared enough about to lose sleep over.

But then there was Sherlock, and he was suddenly front and center in John's universe and fighting for attention with Mary (who should have been his one and only romantic priority) now he was starting to see just how much he'd given himself away, and how much he would never be able to take back.

It was too late, and it had been this way for a while now.

Sherlock didn't wait for a response- John's expression alone confirmed everything he'd obviously been thinking for weeks. He fell back onto the edge of his chair and leaned forwards with his elbows on his knees as he studied John's face. "Something's holding you back."

John pursed his lips. "You mean other than the obvious?"

Sherlock glared. "Other than the obvious, yes."

John was vaguely aware of nails digging into his palms but he tried to keep his expression calm. Being read like this was making his skin crawl, but he knew there was only so long that he could pretend for.

"What happened?" Sherlock asked.

Silence.

"Tell me what happened." Desperation.

Silence.

"John, please!" Anger.

"Her name was Alice."

Sherlock's expression didn't change. He waited.

"She was younger than you, about fourteen. It was all fine for a year. She used to burn her fingers and tried running away from home five times before I met her."

"And she fell in love with you."

Hearing it again like this wasn't something he was ready for. He could still remember her, and it wasn't as if it had been long enough ago to be able to forget. They'd gotten along. She'd gotten better. She'd gotten attached. John hadn't had the heart to let her go, at least not until she'd tried to kiss him, until he'd tried to explain to her that they couldn't and that it was wrong and he didn't feel for her like that, until trying to put her feelings aside nearly broke her.

"It happens, sometimes," John said, and his voice was too mechanical to really sound like his own- it was stiff and controlled and robotic. "You're always told to be careful. They depend on you and became attached to you. You can't pity them or lead them on. You have to let them go. So I let her go. She was just a child."

"Would you let me go?"

John stared at the boy for long enough that he felt like time had stopped entirely and that the universe would stop moving until he confessed or lied, until he said something that would change everything.

He opened his mouth a few times, looked away and then back again. And finally, when he felt like he his entire body was burning he sighed, pinched the bridge of his nose and said, "I can't."

Sherlock didn't say anything after that; another tense minute of silence passed before he slowly stood up.

"Maybe when you realize that other people don't matter, you'll stop making yourself so miserable."

He let himself out.