"Okay...well," John says carefully. His eyes shift to look at Sherlock, then back down over the ledge. "Shit."

"Yes," Sherlock agrees. His eyes never move from the body hanging 30 feet below them. The rope was still swaying with slight momentum. John watches it rock back and forth along the ledge.

John stuffs his hands into his pockets, unsure of what to say. He sniffs, his nose cold in the brisk morning air. The sun is just starting to rise, and it turns the smooth lines of Sherlock's face pink and orange.

"You got anymore of those gummy worms?" John asks. Sherlock furrows his brow as he fishes around in his pocket. John hears the familiar crinkle of plastic as Sherlock pulls the bag out of his coat.

"Just the sour dust," Sherlock states flatly. There is a brief moment of silence when both he and John stare down at the empty candy bag in Sherlock's hand.

John shrugs and holds out his hand, "That'll do."

The thunder of foot steps coming up the stairs is so loud that it rips John out of a perfectly restful sleep.

There is a moment of panic that almost sends him barrel-rolling off the edge of his bed to reach for his rifle. It isn't until there is a rain of frantic knocks on his door, followed by the equally frantic "John!" that he realizes where he is. He is at 221B Baker Street. There is no rifle underneath his bed (only a baseball bat he found in the garbage).

Sherlock bursts into his room, and throws on the overhead light. John winces into the bright light and shouts at him, throwing his arm over his eyes. Sherlock seizes him by the arm and forcefully drags him into a sitting position. All the movement is too much for a sleepy John and he rips his arm from Sherlock's death grip.

"What the hell, Sherlock?" He blinks blearily up at him.

"John, you have to come with me right now," and it's the first time John has ever seen Sherlock express any real form of outward panic. He instantly knows that something bad has happened. He sits up completely straight and is immediately awake. Sherlock grabs his arm and hauls him from the bed, ignoring John's feeble attempts to grab a shirt to put on.

"Sherlock, what's going on? What happened? Is it a case?" John asks, allowing himself to be yanked down the stairs. He starts running through all the possibilities of what could possibly have Sherlock so frantic. A good case made him jump for joy, so John highly doubted that it was a case. Sherlock doesn't answer him, just pulls him to his bedroom door. John doesn't even have time to register what's happening before Sherlock opens his bedroom door and he sees what has him panicking.

John blinks, "Oh." He swallows. "Oh."

Rewind 5 minutes back to Sherlock not so much as knocking on John's door but throwing himself at John's door.

Rewind 15 minutes back to Sherlock watching the man before him, too deep in thought with writing notes about the twitch of the foot post-orgasm to realize that the man wasn't breathing.

Rewind 30 minutes back to Christian Dorian Grey saying, "Relax. I do this all the time. Just relax and enjoy, baby."

"'Christian Dorian Grey'?" John reads aloud from the card Sherlock hands him. "You fucked a male prostitute named Christian Dorian Grey?"

"I did not partake in any sexual act with him. And must you use such crude language, John? It makes you sound like an idiot," Sherlock scoffs.

John rubs a hand across his forehead and stares at the male body tied up at the foot of Sherlock's bed. His whole body is slowly starting to turn blue. John hasn't had enough sleep to deal with this kind of shit.

"Then what in God's name happened here?" He asks incredulously.

Sherlock stalks over to his chair and waves a notebook towards John, "Experiment."

"Experiment," John repeats slowly, measured. He feels as though he's not nearly as surprised as he should be.

"Yes," Sherlock confirms. He starts to flip through his notes, "I was studying the sexual preferences of male homosexuals and the physical effects of said preferences on the human body. Christian Dorian Grey happened to enjoy autoerotic asphyxiation."

He stops on his last page, "I was studying the post-orgasmic twitch of the outer extremities when..." He trails off, his eyes shifting to the very dead at the foot of his bed.

John massages his temples, "So... you paid a male prostitute to jerk off while choking himself so you could take notes?"

Sherlock nods.

"And in the midst of you being too deep in your mind palace, said male prositute chokes himself to death?" John asks.

Sherlock nods, again. John hopes he realizes just how bad this sounds.

"What could you possibly need that infor- you know what? I don't even want to know," He shakes his head and walks out of the bedroom, towards the kitchen.

"John? Where are you going?" Sherlock asks, and the panic in his infliction is clear and obvious. John hears his foot steps behind him but doesn't turn around.

"I need a cuppa before I can even begin to think about this, Sherlock."

John is halfway through a particularly strong cup of tea before he speaks again, "We can't tell Lestrade."

There is no way that he would buy Sherlock's story. John barely buys it - he only believes Sherlock because he knows him a bit too well.

Sherlock looks at him like he's sprouted two heads, offended almost,"Obviously."

John is still shirtless, but he feels pretty numb to the cold draft that 221B Baker Street always carried. He falls silent again as he sips his tea. There is a crinkle, a rustle of plastic, that makes John turn his head to see Sherlock digging through a bag of gummy worms.

Sherlock shoves a neon worm in to his mouth and looks at John. He doesn't say a word - only chews and swallows quickly.

"What are you doing?" John asks. Never mind that it's THREE in the morning (which may be a bit too early to be eating gummy worms) but it's Sherlock and Sherlock never eats.

"Stress eating," Sherlock replies around three gummy worms he's chomping on.

John blinks, "But you're never stressed."

John blinks again, "And you never eat."

Sherlock stops chewing, only to lick the sour dust off his fingers, "Yes, well drastic times call for drastic measures."

The gears in John's head turn and just as he's about to bring up calling Mycroft, Sherlock shoots him a deadly look that confirms to him that Sherlock is in fact a mind reader.

"What do we do then?" John asks.

Sherlock sighs and rolls his eyes before digging through the bag of candy, "Isn't it obvious, John?"

John frowns, aggravated, "No, Sherlock. It's not obvious."

"We're going to wrap up the body and carry it into the back alley. We're then going to climb up the fire escape, tie a rope around his neck, and push him off the roof to emulate a suicide. You'll write the note - something like "goodbye cruel world" or whatever other woe you can think of that a male prostitute would have. We'll wait for someone else to make the call, but by the time the body is discovered, it'll be a very blatant suicide that'll be thrown aside by noon," Sherlock explains.

John huffs, "Why do I have to write the suicide note?"

Sherlock rolls his eyes again, "Don't be an idiot. My handwriting is too recognizable."

John abruptly slams his fist on the table, "Don't call the person who is going to help you an idiot."

He pushes himself away from the table and stands up, "I don't need this. I'm going back to bed. Figure this shit out yourself. "

As he's stomping from the room, he hears the chair scrape along the floor as Sherlock scrambles to him. He wraps his sticky fingers around John's arm, "Please, John. I'm sorry I called you an idiot."

John stops, but doesn't turn around. The fingers around his arm tighten as Sherlock pleads, "Please, John."

He closes his eyes and counts to ten. He's silent just long enough for Sherlock to whisper, "I need you, John. I need your help."

John rips his arm from Sherlock's grasp and turns around, pointing his fingers at the taller man, "Fine. I'll help. But I want all of your red and blue gummy worms, or no deal."

Sherlock sends a forlorn glance towards the package of gummy worms in his hands before he shoves them towards John, "Fine. Deal."

Fastforward to ten minutes from now, when John has finally put a jumper on. Sherlock wrestles with Christian Dorian Grey as he tries to put his clothes back on him. "Please, John. No one would hang themselves naked," Sherlock had scoffed.

Fastforward to twenty minutes from now, when John and Sherlock are carrying out a sheet wrapped Christian Dorian Grey whose body was slowly growing heavier as decay began. "We have to move him before rigor mortis kicks in, or else it'll be almost impossible for us to carry him out of here barehanded," John explained. Sherlock had tossed him a look that blatantly read 'I know that, you idiot' but kept his mouth shut. John was grateful that he did because he was sleep deprived enough to not give a shit about punching Sherlock.

Fastforward to thirty minutes from now, when Sherlock loses his footing and drops a very dead Christian Dorian Grey down the stairs by Mrs. Hudson's door. "Shit, shit, shit," Sherlock actually swears as he hurries to catch the body. John is already picturing himself in jail.

"Are you sure you didn't have sex with him?" John asks as they hoist the body up the fire escape stairs. The rising sun was providing just enough light for them to see where they were going. Sherlock stares up at John, eyes widened with shock, and he moves Christian Dorian Grey's feet up onto his shoulders.

"Please, John. Small boils along his shoulders, faint 'liver spots' along the knuckles of his hands, thinning gums, slight sagging in skin around the mid section to suggest abrupt weight loss, while the lack of shaking and dark circles around the eyes rule out drug use," Sherlock states, and John is still confused.

"I could practically smell his HIV. Honestly, you're the doctor here," Sherlock scoffs. John is too concerned on not dropping the body to reply. His arms are aching as he wraps his arms around Christian Dorian Grey's shoulders. He tries to manuveur around so he can step off the landing onto the roof. Sherlock pushes the body forward too hard, and sends John toppling over the ledge, which means that John is then pinned by a very dead Christian Dorian Grey. Sherlock scurries up on to the roof after him and rolls the body off John. John blinks and shudders and thinks that there is just not water hot enough to wash away how gross he feels right now.

"Are you okay?" Sherlock asks, fingers twisting themselves in the front of John's coat as he hauls him up to his feet. John nods and looks down at the body at their feet. The sheet has slipped, exposing the male prostitute's face, dead eyes staring right up at John. He shrugs out of Sherlock's grasp, "Let's get this over with."

"John, that is not how you tie a noose."

John is incredibly creeped out by how well Sherlock can tie a noose.

"Why don't we just burn the body... or something..." The words are out of his mouth before John can stop them.

Sherlock looks up from the pushing the body towards the ledge. He sighs impatiently, "John. You know as well as I do that bones do not burn, and neither do teeth. If we were to burn him, it's automatically classified as a murder. And you, of all people, should know that a burning body can produce a smell that people over half a mile away can detect."

John huffs because he knows Sherlock is right. He pins his note to Christian Dorian Grey before Sherlock rolls him off the ledge. There is a brief moment when John holds his breath until he sees the rope tighten and sway with the force of the drop. John's a bit ashamed at the sense of relief he feels.

"What did you write in the note?"

"I just copied Virginia Woolf's suicide note. I figured it fit with someone who went by Christian Dorian Grey."

"... That's brilliant, John."

"...What did you just say?"

The two of them stand there, John shifting his weight from foot to foot, unsure of what to do. Sherlock stares out into the sun rise before taking a deep breath and turning to John.

"Yes, well, that's down," He states, and stuffs his hands into the pockets of his long coats. "Want to grab an omelet down at that 24 hour diner?"

John is about to protest - something about bad timing - but his stomach growls, "I'd kill a man for an omelet right now."

He pauses and exchanges a look with Sherlock before they both burst out laughing. He stops when he thinks of something.

"But seriously, Sherlock. Why were you doing this experiment?"

Sherlock's face falls, and he turns away, trying to walk past John. He reaches out and grabs Sherlock's arm, keeping him in place. The taller man straightens his shoulders, refusing to look down at John, "Now is not the time."

John is aggravated again, "Now is the perfect time. I just helped you move a body. I just assisted you in a crime." His waves his free hand towards the ledge they just pushed Christian Dorian Grey off of.

Sherlock fidgets but looks down at the ground, "I was gathering research in the hopes that I could collect enough to formulate a plan of attack when it came to seducing you."

John blinks and releases his arm from his grasp, "Seducing... me...?"

Sherlock leans forward, "Isn't it obvious, John?"

When he presses a kiss to the apple of John's cheeks, his heads swims. He hasn't had nearly enough caffeine OR sleep to deal with this shit.

"Omelets," Sherlock states, straightening and walking back towards the fire escape. John's head is still spinning with the idea that Sherlock could possibly want him.

Sherlock.

Sherlock could possibly want him, John Watson. John Watson.

He feels his cheeks pink - he's not nearly as surprised as he feels he should be.

"Yes, omelets," He agrees, and follows Sherlock.