I owe you fantastic people a thousand apologies. It's just I was on holiday in London for two weeks and I left my laptop at home… and… and… I'm sorry! I promise I'll make it up to you. I will attempt to get through another chapter this week and maybe another oneshot and then I'll try to keep a more regular schedule after this, like a chapter a week. Thanks for being so lovely and patient!

Part Two: Smoke

John hadn't spoken to Sherlock all the next day. He woke early, avoiding Sherlock waiting for him on the couch and walking straight out the door without his usual morning cup of tea.

Sherlock waited and waited. John had gone to work at the surgery, but surely he was done by now. The sky had dimmed and the sun had set. They never kept him this late. John must be avoiding him, unable to face him.

There was this strange pain in Sherlock's stomach, a sort of hollowness that wasn't hunger or illness, but something more. It was something that wasn't quite physical. There was no source, no reason. It was this empty ache that radiated from his insides out. It was heart-wrenchingly cold, but uncomfortably warm too. He shifted in his skin, anxious, head spinning. He'd never felt anything like it before. He was supposed to have cut himself off from emotions long ago. Why was he feeling like this?

Sherlock cursed the betrayal of his emotional walls and stood on his restless legs, pacing back and forth, wracking his brain, whose thoughts not as clear and precise as they should have been, a dreamy fog clouding his vision.

He grabbed his coat hanging beside the door. He'd just have to go find John himself. He had a pretty good idea of where he'd be. John could be equal measures of predictable and unpredictable sometimes. It made things with him all the more exciting.

The street was cold and wet, moistened from rain earlier in the day, but it had stopped despite the ominous clouds still hanging over London. Where he was going was close enough to walk, so he let the cold wind sting his cheeks, coloring them slightly. There was no way he was going to be able to keep his restless legs still on a taxi ride.

Sherlock's mind was swimming in uncertainty, the one thing he hated above all other things and then he reached his destination and his mind went quiet. There was nothing, not a thought stirring.

He was at John's favorite pub, and who was outside the door smoking but the man himself, leaning dejectedly against the building. Sherlock was only a few feet away, but John didn't seem to notice, eyes fixed on the somber sky.

John inhaled the smoke in a long draw of the cigarette and then let it out agonizingly slow. His breath and the smoke mixed in the cool air, a steady stream of white exhaled and then hanging about for a moment, swirling in grey-white spirals.

Sherlock took the few steps to John and leaned against the wall beside him. "You don't smoke," he stated plainly.

"Oh, hi," John said with a jolt. He brought his gaze down from the sky to look at Sherlock and then immediately decided he couldn't bear it and looked up again. "I don't, but under the circumstances…" John trailed off and left the sentence unfinished. He paused a moment, taking another drag and then spoke again. "I just felt like I needed one."

Sherlock was quiet. He was certainly entitled to the cigarette, after what Sherlock had done. "Look, I'm sorry about last night. I—"

John cut him off. "No. No. I'm sorry. I shouldn't have… I didn't mean to… I know you weren't really… You didn't really want… I went to far. I'm… I'm sorry."

John took another long drag on the cigarette and Sherlock was silent. He was confused. What did he think he forced himself on me? Did he think I didn't want it? Is that what this was about?

There were a few more puffs of smoke in the silence, neither ready to speak again. Then, Sherlock tested the water. "Do you have another one of those?" They were the same words from last night, the ones that led to their scene. Sherlock hoped John would pick up on the hint.

John looked down at Sherlock, now holding his gaze. He'd gone over the night enough times to recognize the line. He dropped his stub of a cigarette and stamped it out. He bit his lip in anticipation. "Sorry, last one."

Sherlock turned to John and leaned in, gently catching his lips with his own. John's lips this time were dry and smoky. They tasted dark and dangerous, vaguely sinister.

Sherlock released John's lips hesitantly, waiting for John's next line, the last confirmation that this was okay. Sherlock's heart was racing, his eyes hurting nervously, eyes dilating to the edge. He could hear the heartbeat in his ears and time began to crawl. They lingered quietly, and Sherlock was afraid he'd walk away again, leave Sherlock all alone again.

Then, it came. "I wasn't quite finished with that."

John reached up to gently pull Sherlock towards him, rough hands grazing his smooth cheek. He brought their lips firmly together and this time they didn't break. John's hand slipped to the back of Sherlock's neck, holding him there solidly. Sherlock let his hands fall to John's waist, wrapping halfway to his back. John raised his other hand to pull Sherlock by the back of his neck as well, simultaneously pulling Sherlock down to and himself up to the perfect height for their interlocked lips.

Sherlock could taste the cigarette. Their lips moved faster and Sherlock tentatively loosened his jaw opening just a bit, and suddenly John's tongue was there, fire licking off of it, bright and warm, edging around his teeth.

And then, Sherlock's tongue was there too, intertwining with John's tasting burnt embers and biting tobacco. His tongue slipped between John's teeth and it was like kissing a dragon. It was bright and warm and in a constant threat of bursting into flames.

Sherlock pulled John closer, feeling instantly the fire in his stomach as their chests blurred together. He was so warm in contrast to the cool night air. It was such a dramatic change, it took Sherlock's breath away and he forced himself to part, but not much, holding his face inches from John's face.

Sherlock could see blue fire licking around the edges of John's pupils, staring up at his own which felt far brighter and wider than they should have been.

They stood there, not knowing where one began and the other ended, engulfed in the flames between them. John could smell the warm smoke on John's panting, white breath.

And where there's smoke…