I have been totally feeling the love from you guys and it's really been brightening a crappy time so thanks for that! I don't know really when i'm going to end it but i think it might get a bit more than bro-mance action i think. Nothing to graphic but i don't want it to come as a shock in later chapters :P

Please Enjoy and any feedback, critical or otherwise is appreciated :D

Chapter 5

Back to the Past.

It had been almost a month since Sherlock's return and Mary's abrupt and surprisingly uncomplicated departure and things were starting to get back to 'normal' at 221 B Baker street. John still had the occasional nightmare, that Sherlock had never returned, or that he was taken again, but these worries were vanquished by a sneaky trip to the upstairs bedroom. He would push the door open, which was always left ajar, not shut, and peer into the gloom, just to establish that there was a slender human shaped lump under the duvet. He would stand awhile, just long enough for ears to pick up on the decreased breathing rate of the detective, caused by sleep; when he had heard that he would usually leave. On occasion though, Johns dreams had been extremely vivid and had even lead him to believe that it was Moriarty and not Sherlock who had returned and was residing in the upstairs room. In these instances John had to hold his breath and tiptoe closer to the bed, and lean over the sleeping form to get a view of the face, it was always Sherlock's' face of course, it didn't take more than a few seconds to recognise the high cheekbones and the full, almost effeminate lips but rather than leaving immediately John would gaze awhile, just to make absolutely sure…

John had apparently forgotten that he was invading the personal space of the world's only consulting detective, whose newest notable achievement was to apparently cheat death. Although he didn't mention it, Sherlock was fully aware that someone and he had a pretty certain idea who, was venturing into his room in the middle of the night. The door was never at the exact angle of incidence the frame as it had been when he had gone to bed, the carpet showed signs of footsteps, heavier than his, and once he had found a greying blonde hair towards the end of his bed. It unnerved him that John would do something as irrational as checking on him whilst he was asleep, in some ways it was understandable, the whole situation wasn't exactly the norm, but after a month the detective thought that the continuance these night time events was somewhat unnecessary. John of course was taking a great risk of being caught, Sherlock was a unpredictable sleeper at best, but being back in Baker Street seemed to have given him somewhat of a need for routine, he hadn't slept at all well in his three year absence, and he guessed that John hadn't either, so both of them often retired to bed before midnight and didn't usually rise till about eight thirty, well, not including Johns wanderings. Sherlock hadn't ruled out sleepwalking, but it seemed unlikely seeing as nothing else in the flat was ever disturbed and he was so quiet that Sherlock had only ever awoken twice, and both times John had retreated before a conflict could occur. He wondered if John would mention his new hobby if Sherlock started to lock his door, however then John would know he knew, causing awkwardness for both of them. Human social convention was ever so complicated, at what point had he, Sherlock Holmes, become so bound to them? He of course knew it was Johns fault; he wanted John to know that he cared and he could only do that by acting caring. Annoying. Sherlock was considering on confront John on his recently developed habit when a thought popped into his head. 'We should go to Scotland Yard, ask if there are any cases.' He looked towards John, who was reading the paper, 'Really? After how Lestrade reacted to your resurrection?' John grimaced at the thought.

It was never going to go well of course, but even John couldn't predict the extent of the Detective Inspectors shock. Sherlock had walked into the station, past the shocked or confused underlings of Scotland Yard and waltzed straight into Greg's office, his arms wide open and declared 'Look, it's a miracle! I'm Alive!' Lestrade had let out a roar and promptly fell backwards off his chair, before scrambling up and letting out a stream of curse words some of which, John felt sure Sherlock wouldn't have heard before. He just stood there, a tall, lanky slice of calm. This soon changed to dodging and weaving as Lestrade decided to throw anything and everything he could get his hands on at Sherlock's head, objects included a stapler, a mug bearing the Met police logo and even the computer keyboard and mouse. Finally, when he was exhausted, he had just slid down onto his desk and told them to 'get out and never show you're faces around here ever again. EVER!' Looking back it amused John to think how Sherlock could have forgotten this very obvious request.

'Sherlock, have you completely forgotten what happened?'

'No, of course not John but it's been nearly a month and he's probably cooled down by now. I'll give him a call and ask if he has anything for me.' And with that Sherlock whipped out his phone and speed dialled the number. After a few rings someone picked up and just as Sherlock's face had split into a grin, a series of violent and largely incoherent words came screaming out of the phone before it went dead. John had to refrain from laughter and instead just coughed and said 'Maybe try him again in another month.' With that Sherlock leapt up from the sofa and stepped up and over the Ikea coffee table, which John pondered, was possibly not as stable as the old solid oak one that had been there before. Sherlock also noticed this and whipped round to glare at it 'What's this?' John sighed and replied 'It's a new coffee table Sherlock.' Sherlock rolled his eyes and continued 'Yes I have eyes I mean why is it here? Why did you need a new one? Or did Mary just decide to change it because she likes interfering.' Sherlock stopped for a moment and looked troubled, it occurred to John that he might be remembering whatever it was she had said to him but when John cleared his throat, the expression, along with the thought, disappeared. 'I mean why John? It's spindly and hollow sounding!'

'Yes that's because it's from Ikea…'

'Where's Ikea, is that a town?'

John laughed incredulously 'No it's a big, like, home shop, furniture, light fittings, whole kitchens if you want them and it's all displayed in like, modal rooms, so, say, there's five different lounge scenes, so you can imagine stuff better, or see what it would look like if you bought all the stuff.'

'But what happens when people buy the stuff? Do they change the scene, or just the furniture that has been taken?'

'No, Sherlock, that's just a display, everything has a name, like, that table I think was called Syorik, and you write it down with a little pencil that you can find in pots around the store and you go to the big warehouse and get one, take it home and build it.'

'Build it? Why isn't it already built? That's the point of the tertiary sector industry, to add value to raw materials by turning them into ready to use items. Why don't they just ask you to buy a tree and chop it down and whittle it?'

'Sherlock its flat pack furniture, that's the point, you assemble it yourself.'

'Yes but why?'

'Because- well, I don't know. But it comes flat so you can fit it in the car'

'Ikea… who came up with this ridiculous idea?'

'Ah that would be the Swedish. The meatballs are nice though, you can get them in the café'

'There's a café? In a warehouse? John, this is madness.'

'Madness? No it's just Ikea; people spend hours in there kitting out their entire house, so they need sustenance.'

'It sounds like a horribly dull place.'

John sighed, 'It is. Although I have always wanted to hide in one of the wardrobes, jump out and shout 'I've just been to Narnia!'' John grinned at the image but Sherlock was frowning…

'Where's Narnia, John?'

After explaining the entire fictional realm created by the mind of C.S Lewis, Sherlock finally allowed John some quiet; he made a cup of tea and sat down with his laptop. For the first time in three years he went onto his blog and started to write;

Dear followers, some of you have stopped visiting my blog and I can understand why, I haven't added anything since the tragic death of Sherlock Holmes. I would like to announce that-

John stopped and glanced at Sherlock who was now lying on his back on the sofa, he legs resting on the arm at an acute angle to his torso, 'Sherlock, are we not going to tell the general public you've come back?' John kicked himself; he'd never been gone in the first place. Sherlock let out a long drawn out 'No' before continuing in a laboured drawl, it wasn't meant to offend, he was merely considering what he was saying as he said it, 'I think it best for me to remain out of the public and media eye now. Just in case some people who would seek to do me harm are still lurking about.' In a more brisk tone he added 'Besides, I think faking your own death comes under one of those 'against the law things… thinking about it, Lestrade could have had me arrested. On a good note, he hasn't, which means there is still hope for our friendship' Sherlock flashed a smile before closing his eyes once more. John continued with his blog, a slightly amended version to the one in his head

I would like to announce that I have found a new flatmate, just as brilliant and intelligent as Sherlock was. He has been living with me for approximately a month now and we have become good friends. He has even started to take an interest in some cases that had gone previously unsolved by Sherlock and myself. Will let you know how we get on. If there's anybody out there who still reads this, I'm not broken anymore. I got my life back.

John realised the last bit was overly sentimental for a public blog, so again amended it

If there's anybody out there who still reads this, thanks for sticking with it,

John

It'll have to do, thought John. He looked over to the man on the sofa, seemingly made up of all limbs, his arms stretched out behind him, his hands relaxed and dangling off the edge of bony wrists. He'd never really paid much attention to Sherlock's features before, he was just another man, who was taller, thinner and slightly younger than John, that's where his observations began and ended, but he began to wonder what his mind would conjure if he looked at Sherlock the way that Sherlock looked at everyone else; closely, intimately, picking up on every detail. He realised he'd been staring at Sherlock's hands for a long time now and quickly glanced at his face, luckily his eyes were still shut, brow slightly furrowed as if in thought or reverie. So, Sherlock's hands then, they were pale, spidery so he didn't get much sunlight, but John knew that anyway, his nails were short, very short and not quite smooth. Did he bite his nails? That's what John's observations were telling him; if so, had he always done? There were scars on his hands, dainty marks of even paler, softer skin that was puckered up and stood out from the rest; John hadn't noticed them before, probably from acid or chemical spillages, burn marks. John's eyes travelled up Sherlock's arms, they too were relatively thin, with some toning, so active lifestyle enough to stay in shape but doesn't work out routinely. Again John knew that already, he wasn't much good at this. His eyes searched for anything more interesting, anything he didn't already know or hadn't already seen. Sherlock seemed fairly blank, unreadable, but then again in his pyjamas and blue silk dressing down he didn't exactly seem to represent his usual self anyway, all smart and prim. John let his gaze continue to roam, quite absentmindedly in fact until he saw a snippet of flesh that hadn't been there before. Sherlock had stretched himself out longer, possibly asleep by now, and had exposed a small slice of alabaster skin where his t shirt had rode up a little on his stomach. It was just a stomach but Johns eyes were drawn to it, it was the colour of the moon, and perfectly flat. Not potbellied like John had become or drawn to give an emaciated look, just flat. With a little outie belly button. There was something endearing about it, John had always though outie belly buttons, if they weren't too far out, were the best ones to have. Maybe it was because he himself had an innie, a lack of anything except a dark hole on his stomach. Such a little observation had caused John to start smiling and he could not explain why. He also couldn't explain why his brain didn't stop his mouth from declaring 'that's cute.'

The room was silent for few seconds, although to John they felt like several sunlit days, Sherlock slowly opened his eyes like it was an effort, and as the eyes opened the eyebrow went up. He craned his neck so that he stayed lying down but he could see John, who knew he had gone bright red. His mouth opened and closed like a fish but no words came out; slowly, Sherlock sat up, straightened up and then stood up. Then crossed the small space between them and crouched down in front of John, his head tilted to the side. Sherlock's eyes flickered over Johns face and still, John was silent, he just watched Sherlock moisten his bottom lip with his tongue before saying 'Right.' Clearly had come to some conclusion, or deduction and John feared what it might be. Before he had chance to ask, Sherlock had stood upright again and swept out of the room. John felt terrible, he wasn't sure what exactly had happened but it had made the room so tense. Their relationship had been a point of speculation for everyone else but it had been straight forward to them, they were close friends, nothing more, there had been jokes passed between them but there had never been anything to really suggest they were attracted to each other in any way. Or at least there hadn't been until John had opened his mouth; it wasn't even a sexualised observation, he didn't go for men, he never had, not even experimented. John decided to take action; his palms were sweating but he ignored it, he headed upstairs to Sherlock's room, knocked once on the door and entered. Then all of a sudden a belly button was the least of John's worries. Snatching up clothes and trying to hide his modesty whilst mumbling apologetically, was an absolutely naked Sherlock Holmes. Of course, it all happened so quickly that John hadn't really seen anything, just flashes of white flesh, bare buttock, stripped torso, but even so, as he whirled around and threw himself out of the room his heart was racing with embarrassment, or something close to anyway. Feeling that the ordeal shouldn't be a total loss, John called through the door 'I just wanted to say sorry for the awkward moment, I forgot I wasn't living with a woman. I've always liked outie belly buttons and just forgot myself for a second, sorry Sherlock.' The door clicked and Sherlock appeared in the doorway, dressed, but dishevelled 'An outie?' John realised he hadn't mentioned what he was looking at and felt again foolish.

'Your belly button, it pokes out, so it's an outie. I think they look nicest, I have an innie. Look.' And out of sheer nerves he pulled up his own jumper to display his own stomach, tensing as much as possible whilst doing so, yet not knowing exactly why. Sherlock didn't look down, he just kept looking at Johns face until, feeling ridiculous once more, he let his jumper slide back down.

'John I don't really know what to say other than we have had a really odd morning and should probably never speak of it again. Is that agreeable to you?'

John was startled at his flatmates abruptness; 'Yea, course, it was just a slip of the tongue anyway, I didn't mean anything by it.' John tried to smile but it was strained, Sherlock merely nodded and retreated to his room. The lock clicked on and the noise was unfamiliar to John, as much as Sherlock often liked solitude, he had never locked his door before, not even at night. John doubted he would be able to secretly visit in the middle of the night for the near future, it was probably a good thing though, because the time which passed as he stood in the door way, or looking down at his sleeping friend, was increasing with each night that passed; it had been forty minutes the previous night, and he hadn't even had a nightmare. John just supposed it had become a habit, one which he must now break.

It was around early afternoon that Sherlock finally came back down stairs. John heard him descend the stairs and continue down to the front door; he then returned with the post in his hands, three or four colourful envelopes were among the final demands. 'It's your birthday?' Sherlock looked puzzled, John suddenly realised that he was quite right. 'Yes. Well, no, it's tomorrow. I totally forgot.' His aging hadn't been something that had been on his mind in the passing months, each day had seemed more like a curse. 'I should get you a present.' It wasn't a question this time.

'No you don't have to, honestly.'

'Don't be ridiculous John, social niceties need to be observed, you are my friend and therefore I must get you a present to celebrate your birthday.' John was silently touched at being called Sherlock's friend, even though he highly deserved the title.

'Ok, well don't spend too much, if you must get something for me, just something small.'

'I can do small' Sherlock grinned, grabbed his coat and new scarf and disappeared out of the door in a flourish. He had only been gone a seconds when he came back into the living room. 'John, I'm getting you a present because we need to get back to normal. It's a normal thing to get someone a gift for their birthday, so we should do it, to be normal.' With that he again disappeared out of the door and onto the busy streets of London town. Leaving John to breathe a sigh 'We've never been normal…'

John had found it difficult to sleep the whole night without once visiting Sherlock's room, instead he lay awake while the silvery light of morning spreading over the inky blackness of night like a bright oil on a dark water. Multiple times John had gotten out of bed, prepared to go and seek out Sherlock or start the new day, but every time he collapsed back onto the bed and swung his legs back under the covers to keep warm. His mind was so full, it felt like old thoughts and memories were beginning to seep out of ears to make room for the new thoughts that were being created. Why had Sherlock stressed the word Normal so much? Did he no longer see John as normal? Had John over stepped some sort of boundary into the weird? Well of course, checking that his flatmate was still alive in his bed was somewhat odd but Sherlock didn't know about that. What if he did? That would make the whole belly button fiasco even worse. Maybe that's why he was being so distant. Oh God, what must he think? Probably that he had some school boy crush on him. Maybe it would be best to move out? Probably, but he'd waited too long to get Sherlock back to leave and not see him again. John hadn't noticed the sound of a violin being played in the living room. He wasn't sure what had made him realise, but the tune was very recognisably 'Happy Birthday'. John got out of bed and made his way downstairs in his pyjamas, like a child on Christmas morning, and he got a similar shock seeing the small pile of presents that had appeared on the Ikea table. Sherlock was dressed in an unfamiliar blue stripped shirt, with his jacket and trouser combination. The shirt was pleasant, not too outlandish but it suited his pale complexion, what? Am I woman now? Bloody complexion thought John as Sherlock set his Violin down and made his way to the kitchen, calling over his shoulder 'Happy Birthday John, what do you want for breakfast? I can do a bacon sandwich if you want?' John was sure he was still dreaming

'You're going to cook me some bacon?'

'Yes, it's not hard. Do you like it crispy?'

'Yea- Sherlock where are all these presents from?' he looked down at the various wrapped packages, differing in size and shape.

'Well, one of them is from me, that's the one in the green wrapping paper without a bow, then there's one from Mrs Hudson, that's the one in the little red bag, one from your sister, that's blue with the silver bow. Mycroft's is the bottom one, the flat one, also in blue wrapping paper. Molly's is the bottle shaped one with the ribbon around it; I suppose we can guess what that is. Also there's a card from Mary on there somewhere- I know, I was surprised too' he added at Johns look of incredulity.

'But how come they're all here? Normally I just get them when I see people'

'Yes that's what I thought, but I wanted it to be a proper birthday so I went round collecting them and telling everyone to meet us in the pub about sevenish tonight. This way you wouldn't have to carry everyone's presents back here.' Sherlock was too busy frying the bacon to see Johns face, he was touched by how thoughtful Sherlock had been, it made his chest feel tight but warm.

Sherlock brought over two plates of bacon sandwiches, two for each of them and went back to fetch the cups of tea. John was fiddling with the small green wrapped box that he had been informed was from Sherlock, turning it over in his hand, waiting for him to return. 'I'm going to open yours first, if that's ok?' Sherlock agreed with a mouthful of bacon and bread. It was so neatly wrapped, so precise, like an experiment, John smiled. He heard a tut of impatience, he was clearly being overly sentimental for Sherlock's liking. Tearing away the paper he revealed a small brown box, it had hinges on it so John opened it up; inside on a small faux leather cushion was a watch. It had a gold black face with golden numbers on it, in roman numerals, the circle around it was also gold, but it was thin so it didn't look too garish. He strap was made of black leather and was quite thick and masculine. It wasn't an ordinary looking watch and John loved it. Without knowing what to say he smiled a small smile at his flat made who indicated with a nod of his head to the box. John took it from off the little cream cushion and undid the strap, doing so he saw small scratches on the back. Looking closer he realised they weren't scratches, it was an engraving. In small intricate lettering it read

John,

I wish I could give you back the time that we lost

But this will have to suffice

Sherlock.

It was so perfect, John was lost for words.