Runaway Home

Chp 20

Ahhh! It's chapter twenty! Oh! By the way…there will almost certainly be a sequel to cover the next season, followed by the…third story. Yeah. Also, sorry, I was busy this weekend!

He didn't know why, he didn't know how, but he knew when. Sherlock wasn't accustomed to having such a limited supply of information, he also wasn't used to not caring. Or at least not caring as much. He wanted to know, but would be content with not knowing so long as it continued. At some point during the summer John started taking girls out on dates less and less, and the relationships grew shorter and shorter. Needless to say the detective was pleased. John still flirted with everyone wherever they went, but it was the harmless sort that rarely led to anything substantial. At first he'd assumed it was just a sign of the boy maturing, his over sized libido finally being brought under control by the drop in hormones. Then, John had gone to that dinner. That was the when. After that it stopped; no explanation, no clear reason, it just stopped. John didn't say anything, didn't indicate that anything had changed, he just stopped.

Sherlock observed the boy closely in hopes that he'd find out why, but everything else was exactly the same. His eating and sleeping habits, his studying regiment, his media intake, everything else was left untouched. It was as if the girls had just vanished, and with them, John's memory of them. Because John didn't seem to notice the girls' absence and it brought a smile to the man's face. He liked that John was so unaffected by the change, especially since it made him so happy. The boy still left on social outings, but they were innocent and normally consisted of school work. Nobody had more of John than Sherlock did and that's how he liked it.

Months passed and still there was nothing. Months since the dinner and Sherlock was reveling in it. He loved it, he really did. John being so close to his, being the most important person. Even if John saw it as platonic, it gave the detective hope. Hope that one day he might be able to mold it into something else. Possibly without the boy even noticing. Perhaps the detective could make the change so slow, do it so carefully, John wouldn't know what was happening until it was too late. He wouldn't know he was falling in love with his flat mate until he already had. It wouldn't be too hard, Sherlock knew the boy already loved him; he just needed to redirect that love.

All of that was really irrelevant at the particular moment we find Sherlock in though. Because while, yes, it wasn't to him since that was precisely what he was thinking about, he didn't know how pointless his scheming was. Not only did the boy already return his affection, but in a matter of minutes a very peculiar event was going to take place. This moment of intensity would be the beginning of an epic struggle, but the end of another.

"John?"

Sherlock called out lazily. He wanted the boy to send a text to Lestrade so he could see to it they got another case soon. John's break started that day and that meant he could devote his time to a case. In the detective's mind that meant having John all to himself, exciting the boy in ways only he could. No girl could take John chasing after criminals.

"John!"

Sherlock shouted once more to grab the blonde's attention. No answer. The detective looked over to the clock which read out nine at night. Too early for him to be asleep, had he left? Impossible, he would have said something. Or left a note…Sherlock shot up from the couch to search around the room for a note. On a number of occasions John has had to leave notes out because if Sherlock was too wrapped up in his own mind he didn't recognize the presence of another person, not even one as important as John. There wasn't any note though, so he had to still be in the flat.

"John!"

Was he going mad? Where could the boy be? He put his deductive skills to the test and could tell easily that at the very least he hadn't gone out the front door. Everything seemed as it was when he initially came home from the morgue. Where was John when he'd come home? That's right; he'd said he was going to take a shower. He couldn't possibly still be in there. Just for good measure he checked anyway, to no avail, it seemed John had not taken a four hour shower then. As he crossed the living room to go knock on the boy's door it happened. There was a massive explosion that sent the detective hurtling towards the ground. The force was immense and it took him a few moments to register what had happened. First there was only curiosity, why had the window just been blown in? Then there was panic, because he still had no idea where John was.

"John!"

He yelled as he shakily lifted himself from the floor. He turned to run up to John's room when the boy came rushing to his side.

"Are you ok? What happened? Was this another one of your crazy experiments?"

He questioned as he ran his hands over Sherlock's face where a few shards of glass had cut his cheeks in a minor capacity. He would have swatted those hands away if they weren't John's, if they didn't feel so lovely on his skin. The detective realized that he shouldn't be focusing on such a trivial thing when there was so much more to worry about. John looked more upset by what had just happened than the detective did and there was something off about him.

"I'm fine, and no I have no idea what happened…are you ok?"

He asked carefully. John had clearly been disturbed by something and normally didn't like be assaulted with questioning when he had. It was clear now that he must have been in his room, upset. Who knew for how long. The detective's stomach hardened into a heavy ball of guilt. He'd been sitting on the couch thinking of ways to seduce his flat mate while he was hauled up in his room having some emotional crisis. It was obvious by the deep red rim under his eyes that this was not onset by the explosion (although there was a bit of panic that seemed to be dedicated to that).

"Of course, I was all the way up stairs. You've got some cuts; let me clean them out for you to be safe."

John said almost absent mindedly as he subconsciously continued to stroke the side of Sherlock's face with his thumb. When he caught himself in the action the boy jumped and rushed to the bathroom, presumably to retrieve medical supplies. When he returned the panic had faded but not the lingering affects that crying had on a person. The eyes (obvious) but the tear stained cheeks as well, and the grey hue the complexion took on. John appeared as though he'd been a mix between grieving and having a panic attack. It was awful to see him like that.

"John?"

Sherlock prodded as the boy dabbed his cuts with disinfectant.

"Yes?"

"What happened?"

"Nothing happened ok? Just drop it and let me take care of you."

John wasn't going to admit what was going on easily, but the detective could wait. Eventually he'd figure it out. For now it seemed he might have found the exciting case he'd been looking for.