Day 3 – Wednesday 16th December, 2015

It was a slow day at the offices of the Intuition, there was a bizarre sort of understanding that, in relation to news, things tended to die down a little at Christmas. Or, at least, become so monotonous that you barely noticed the workload underneath your fingers.

It was all the same, it had been since John had begun work as a journalist and he highly expected that it always would be.

The minute the snow started to fall, someone invariably got married, there were numerous traffic accidents and just accidents in generally that were attached to the season and all its glory and there was massive hype and charity work for underdeveloped countries.

Oh, and if you were really unlucky, you had to cover the Christmas television and music for the year that you could probably recycle from an article from last year and still manage to produce the same results.

John shuddered when he recalled trying to compare the auto-tuned number one of that year to the festive classics that warmed his soul in a way that little else could.

That was why he was grateful when he finally made it to his lunch hour. It meant a few hours less until he could leave his desk and enjoy Christmas with his family but today in particular it meant he could spent his lunch time with genuinely good company. Something he was hard-pressed to find in his new job.

The minute John got his lunch hour, he made his way to a cafe in the city centre and sat down at an empty two-seater table. He ordered two coffees and took off his gloves, shivering as he flexed his fingers, willing the blood to return to them.

This was a cafe he frequented often but right now it was barely recognisable with the tacky white Christmas tree in the corner and the decorations on the ceiling, Slade was blaring from the radio just to add to the atmosphere.

It made John smile nonetheless.

"Hey." Came a familiar voice as Sarah sat down opposite, pulling her long scarf from around her neck. Her cheeks were red and sore-looking from the blistering wind outside. He gave her a sympathetic look.

"It's bloody freezing outside." She said redundantly.

"That's probably because of the snow."

"Shut up." Sarah berated and John laughed. It made her smile. He was almost unrecognisable from the grumpy, unhappy person he'd been last year. Even though she didn't see him as much as she used to, or indeed as much as she would like; she was glad for him.

"Sooo, how's Sherlock?" She prompted, grinning as she cupped her coffee with her fingers to warm them back up again. Readying herself for tales of love and joy from one of the most annoyingly adorable couples she knew and liked to think helped to orchestrate. She remembered her own crush on Sherlock once upon a time and the thought made her blush.

John, however, completely threw her off by frowning.

"Oh my God. What happened?" She asked immediately, concern in her voice.

"Nothing's happened." John assured her quickly, keeping his voice deliberately low and leaning across the table in his urgency as if he were afraid someone was spying on them. "Nothing, I'm really happy, it's just..." He sighed again. "I feel so bad about having these doubts because Sherlock is so sweet and so lovely and I've literally had the best year of my life with him and I love him so much and..."

"Woah, woah, woah." Sarah but her hands up in an attempt to stop John's rambling. "What doubts?"

John hesitated as he seemed to become aware of what he had just said. He hadn't meant to poor the deepest, darkest thoughts from his heart to her the moment she'd sat down but the moment he saw her it seemed to be all he could think about. He realised just how desperate he was to talk to someone about it. He finally voiced something that, although obvious, lost its impact over time but was still very much relevant.

"Sherlock isn't normal."

Sarah laughed and leant back in her seat, sipping her coffee. "I thought you liked him that way. Not pretending to be someone he isn't. And not the same generic failed-relationship boyfriend-type."

"I do." John assured her, and he did. "I love him for it." He did. "It's a love that's epic and amazing and never-ending but...Sherlock is like a hurricane, he's never going to settle. He'll never want anything like a house or...or children. He'll never not be obsessed with being a detective." He sighed into his coffee. "I feel like I have to chose between the life I want and the man I love."

Sarah raised an eyebrow. "Are you sure you're not just inventing problems?" She asked sympathetically. "People do that when things go really well for them. Especially when they're not used it. You assume something will go wrong so your subconscious starts inventing things to go wrong just to get it out of the way so you can relax. Just let things with Sherlock play out. I'm sure he'll come 'round to your way of thinking at some point. And you have no way of knowing he'll never want those things. People change."

"But he wont, though." John said glumly.

Sarah laughed disbelievingly. "Well, I don't know. Break up with him, then. If it bothers you that much." She joked, laughing. Because it was such a ridiculous notion.

But John didn't take her comment quite as lightly.

He closed his eyes.

…

Although Sherlock's attention was focused heavily on the laptop screen in front of him and his grey eyes were scanning through the DNA files Molly had emailed him half an hour ago and going through various improbable theories in his mind, he was still aware of the things going on around him, and specifically, for example, he was aware of Mrs. Hudson pottering around in his kitchen despite her continued insistence that she didn't look after him.

"You know, you came home from work about three hours ago." Mrs. Hudson called over to him from the kitchen.

Confused, Sherlock looked up from his laptop and frowned at her. "That...was an odd observation to voice." He admitted.

"I mean, you could put the laptop down." She pointed out, hands on her hips.

Oh.

"Oh." He turned back to his work. "I'm just busy at the moment."

He wasn't looking at her anymore, but he could see her shaking her head at him in his mind's eye. Nothing she hadn't seen before. Mrs. Hudson had been one of the few to know Sherlock's true identity when he'd been London's superhero, and had known him to work rather than eat or sleep, and sometimes even shower. But now that he was the villain and this stuff was common knowledge she still didn't let up about his welfare.

Still, she fell silent after that, and presumably continued cleaning. Before he'd given up trying, Sherlock had told her countless times she needn't bother but she never listened to him. He supposed she was just glad he hadn't disappeared off to America after all.

Still, it didn't stop him.

"I can clean later." He called out absent-mindedly, hearing her approaching footsteps.

"This century, though, Sherlock, dear?" She questioned rhetorically, walking into the living room and nearly tripping over an abandoned, damaged, upturned bunsen burner that had obviously wronged Sherlock in some way.

She sighed as she bent down to pick it up, grumbling something about being too old.

"I hope you don't make this much mess at John's flat." She scolded in that gentle, motherly way he'd never experienced growing up.

"He's not as meticulous as you." Sherlock commented, shifting focus and smiling fondly at her.

She returned the smile but it didn't disarm her. "I'm not sure how that lovely boy puts up with you." She said airily as she turned to move back to the kitchen.

Sherlock stopped what he was doing and swivelled in his chair to look at her. "What do you mean?" He asked.

"Well, John's very normal, sweetheart." She clarified. "And you're very...not. Your differences will catch up with you one day. It's the way of life. You just need the strength to overcome them."

Sherlock was sure she meant that to be a positive affirmation of their love but all it did was make the detective queasy.

He didn't want them to face some insurmountable problem in their relationship. He wanted them to continue on as happy as they were for as long as they could. Because the truth of the matter was that John was literally the only good thing in Sherlock's life at the moment. He'd never do anything to sabotage that, and he certainly didn't want his oddness to come between them, he loved John. He would do anything for him.

He supposed he had to begin acting on that.

He stared at his laptop screen for a long time, no longer interested in the murdered teenager. Of course he would give John whatever he wanted, or at least whatever he could give, but he knew that John didn't insist upon the conventional things he'd been used to seeing in the media. He didn't want riches or a expensive trips or anything capitalism had tricked Sherlock into thinking that relationships were about. Instead, he was trying to figure out a way of making his relationship with John more normal, knowing it would take more than picking up the bunsen burners he tossed about in his frustration.

That thought suddenly sparked into an idea and he came to a decision as he came to everything in his mind; quickly.

And also as with everything in his mind; he knew it was right.

He closed his laptop.