"I am as light as a feather, I am as happy as an angel, I am as merry as a schoolboy."-Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol


Whilst John sleeps, Sherlock happily peruses a stack of old case files in the middle of the floor in the corridor with the high, painted ceiling. Ever since he finished the detail of John's eyes, he keeps finding his virtual-self drawn here every so many hours. The reason why is unknown even to the great detective; as with so few things in his life, he simply accepts it and stops quelling the urge to look up every so often, enjoying the view behind his own closed lids of those gorgeous eyes. He is now able to admit that he missed them with a ferocity that is staggering.

Somewhere deep in the bowels of the mind palace, an alarm clock is going off. Sherlock, paying very little attention to how many chimes echo through the place, lays aside the virtual file and stretches, arching his back and unfolding his legs effortlessly from the lotus position. He gets up off the carpet in a single movement and cruises down the corridor. With each step, a little more of it falls away behind him until an outsider would observe that he seems to be walking a path of nothing. Sherlock stares into the mirrored walls as he passes them, receiving a nod from Machine and a wink from Doctor/Warrior John. They appear to be enjoying a rather intense game of poker because Machine has a large stack of blue chips by his elbow; John has about ten, each alter then returning to the fan of cards in their respective hands. Sherlock nods back, noting that they are using his favorite deck, the one with the Jolly Roger pattern; he idly wonders if real life John is such a terrible card player.

Re: John and poker: another little note to add to the room of Things to Ask John.

Back in the bedroom in their flat, his gaze falls upon the empty spot beside him where John had been soundly dozing earlier. Sherlock has truly lost track of time and has no idea whether he has been in the mind palace for an hour or three. In a mirror movement to the one he performed in the mind palace, he uncrosses his legs and looks at the clock on the bedside table, surprised to find that it is well after noon. Forget three hours, apparently Sherlock has been digging through old files for six. He drags his palms over his face and opens the bedroom door, tightening the sash on his dressing gown. He needs to know just how upset John is going to be because he's been ignored all this time; Sherlock knows that ignoring someone after they've been so attentive to your needs the night before is probably not the best way to begin the day.

000

John waits in line at the grocery shop and frowns at the woman in the bright orange shirt having a very loud and very obnoxious conversation on her mobile in front of him. Apparently she owns as Shi-Tzu that bit somebody and it seems to him that she can't decide if she is horrified or tickled about the whole thing. A small part of him wishes he would have waited to come out until Sherlock was awake or out of the mind palace, whichever of those two things he is actually doing (John suspects a little of both,) but there's nothing in the kitchen at all, so he thought maybe he could be out and back before Sherlock decided to rejoin him.

Like all the best laid plans, however, John is stuck holding an overly cheery bright blue basket of foodstuffs while AnnoyingLadyWithTheBiteyShi-Tzu chatters away to the annoyance of everyone else in the store. Or maybe it's only John that has somewhere else he'd much rather be. He sighs and watches hopefully as the woman pauses; people in the lanes on either side of the one he's in look over; one lady even arches an eyebrow and looks incredibly unamused.

John daydreams about taking the phone away from the woman and saying something cleverly snarky like Sorry, ma'am, this isn't America, but he knows there's probably only one person on the planet who could ever get away with that.

On second thought, perhaps two...and they are both named Holmes.

000

Sherlock begins his search in the kitchen. He scans the small space and moves to the sitting room. Didn't Mrs. Hudson mention something about breakfast? Though he's missed that by a landslide, without a doubt.

It was obvious when he first left the bedroom that the loo was vacant, so John's not there, either. The sitting room is empty save for Sherlock's miscellaneous stuff that has already begun to creep about the shelves and desks. Even Sherlock didn't realize how quickly he could do that. He shrugs and climbs the steps to John's Old Room, his heart beginning to beat a little harder.

000

Most likely all the customers still remaining in the entire store really, really want to give a shout in appreciation when the doors close behind the Loud Conversationalist Lady. John certainly does, but he would never do such a thing. He politely waits—again—for the spotty cashier to ring up his purchases, tosses some bills at her then politely grabs his bags and politely strolls to the door while some rather impolite thoughts swirl through his mind.

000

John's Old Room is empty. There's a few dusty boxes tucked up in the corner, the mattress is stripped and there are no pillows because those are down on Sherlock's bed. Their Bed, now, really.

Sherlock's heart pounds and the back of his neck prickles with heat.

000

John walks home briskly, ignoring everything else because he has just remembered he didn't leave a note for Sherlock and wonders if the idiot genius will notice that he's stowed what few clothes he has at the moment in Sherlock's bureau. Respectfully, he stayed away from Sherlock's socks and underpants. He hefts the grocery bags and eases into a quick marching pace to make some time.

000

Sherlock circles back to look in his bedroom again. Still no John. There's a slight bit of noise from the mind palace, but he puts it down to Machine besting clone John at their card game and pays them no attention. Instead he picks his violin off the shelf and hunts around for something to clean the dust off of it with. Five more minutes pass and he decides that he better get used to the idea that perhaps John isn't coming back. Maybe he's finally seen some sense and decided to cut his losses.

With that thought, Sherlock's chest tightens painfully as he raises the bow to the strings. The instrument screeches in pain, forcing his attention to tuning it. Playing the scales drowns everything else out for the moment.

000

John finds his forward motion pulled to a halt on the pavement outside Baker Street. The melancholy tune Sherlock is spinning with fingers and strings is like a punch to the gut. Surely, the genius didn't think…?

"Oh God," John mutters. He fiddles with his keys, shifting the grocery bags left and right in order to free up one hand and get to the door handle. He yanks it open and pounds up the steps in double-time. John pushes at the inside door with his hip and drops the bags gently to his feet so that he can turn and watch Sherlock. Time slows from a rolling boil to a simmer.

Gracefully, the tall man pivots on the balls of his feet, hips rolling to the understated beat of the music he's teasing from the violin. John's breath catches in his throat because in his heart of hearts, he's missed this. As much as the whirlwind of everything that is Sherlock Holmes grabs him by the hand and spins him in circles and even makes him forget which way is up and which way is down…as much as he wants that part of Sherlock in his life, this part is utterly remarkable: the way the master of the science of deduction can weave a complex jumble of notes into a coherent melody with such feeling…this fills him up and threatens to drown him in its tenderness.

"Wow," he lets slip when green eyes change from jade to emerald as Sherlock moves back and forth through the light from the windows into the shadows of the lounge.

Silently, John opens his arms wide. Sherlock deftly takes the violin from beneath his chin then gently rests it and the bow on the sofa before closing the circle. He rests his nose against the side of John's neck, trying hard to get all of himself as close to all of John as possible. John is no fool, he doesn't need Sherlock to let him in on his thoughts this time. He lets Sherlock hide from his own source of insecurity.

John holds him, lets him be himself there in his old dressing gown, bare feet and sleep-mussed hair. Sherlock breathes in John and at some point they move a little so that their mouths can touch with the hardness of black velvet.