Title: By Any Other Name…
Word Count: 449
Prompt:Titles
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Colleague, friend, boyfriend, lover…none of these titles suffice for the man who's wrapped himself around John's heart.
Author's Note: Longer than my usual length, but ah well. This came from something I was thinking about, because I know that I would entirely incapable of calling anyone by a pet-name. And I started to write something along the lines of that, but then it morphed and changed. Oops. Maybe I'll do a pet-name one another time, but for now, this is what I came up with. Hope you enjoy, and, again, thankyou for every review being written.


By Any Other Name…

There are countless things about Sherlock Holmes that has John tied up in knots. Granted, this is not a new revelation to him, but it occurs so often that he has to stop and give it thought more times that should be strictly healthy. Sherlock's very being is so mercurial that it throws him off balance and back again in mere seconds, so to be confused by the other man is nothing new.

But the one thing that confuses him more than anything else – genuinely causes his forehead to crease and his mouth to straighten – is what he should call him.

Colleague is just too impersonal, and John dismisses it right of the bat. That may have been true for all of…ooh, five minutes, but not now. Especially not now. Colleagues are simply work related, you grab cups of coffee with colleagues in breaks and bitch about work-loads, but at the end of the day you walk away without another thought.

Friend was acceptable, perfect even, for a couple of weeks. But John has friends, and he doesn't think of his friends the way he thinks of Sherlock. He doesn't talk to his friends, the way he and Sherlock speak to each other. And he's quite confident that he's never been pulled into a bedroom and thoroughly unravelled by the touch of any of his friends either. No, 'friends' doesn't fit anymore.

Boyfriend. No. Just, no. John knows that should he ever to refer to Sherlock as his 'boyfriend' that the dark-haired man would quirk an amused and disparaging eyebrow at him and inquire when, precisely, John had turned into a teenaged girl.

Lover speaks only of mussed hair, hungry eyes and ruffled bed-clothes. Lovers doesn't do justice to the hollowing need in John's chest for Sherlock, nor does it accurately sum up the affection that laces even Sherlock's most I cannot believe the idiocy comments.

Running out of titles, John's left with two options. Sherlock. But that just sounds so unbelievably cheesy that he laughs at himself for even suggesting it. Also, he doubts that Sherlock will take too kindly to the insinuation that he belongs to John (Even though they both know he kinda does, and vice versa.)

So John is just left with the one option. And, really, it was the option he should have seen all alone. He can't name Sherlock because it's impossible to do so. He'll challenge anyone to attempt it and succeed in a way that precisely and correctly labels the complex, enigmatic and labyrinthine man who's wrapped himself around John's heart into a singular word.

Sherlock's nameless. But sooner or later, John knows he'll stop worrying about this.

He always does.