# # # - And I'll Rip Out My Insides

I toss and turn in my bed. I should sleep. My body is about due for some. It would be a beneficial thing, to sleep. And yet my mind is churning and whirring on an unstoppable and destructive path, as always.

I sigh, fidget. I stand, pace. I take out my violin. I pluck the strings quietly; can't play it in full. I used to, at any hours I pleased, but John is already angry with me, and I am trying my hardest not to be as inconsiderate as I normally am. I am trying to have John forgive me. He thinks he has, but I know he hasn't. I can read him. John surprises me often – forever the anomaly, the only person of lower intelligence (but not too much lower, really) who can – but this is not one of those cases. He is genuinely trying to readjust to me. And I am making an effort for it to succeed.

I sit down on my bed, violin neck in my left hand, its body resting as a familiar wooden weight on my lap.

I fall backward onto my bed, raise my violin to my chest and strum it like a ukulele. I silence the vibrations with a slap.

"Could always go out and turn on the telly, watch something mindless and dull until I drift off," I suggest in a quiet voice to myself. I snort with an almost-laugh. "Like that would do any good. I hate the telly. It's all crap." I sigh again.

I need to sleep. I ought to, and I need to. But sleep is evading me like the plague. My mind cannot rest, cannot relax. There is something fraying the edges of my thoughts, something nagging me, eating away gray matter; a parasitic concept worming its way through me.

What is it? What does it want? Does it pertain to John? I bet it does. I can scarcely keep him off my mind for long these days, since my return. John. John Watson. Always John, always my dear doctor, always in my mind, more so now than ever, JohnJohnJohn.

"Ahh!" I yell in a whisper, one of the most contradictory of sounds, but perfectly accurate to my current situation. I rolls over onto my stomach, arms dangling above my head, half off the edge, violin nearly scraping the floor. I groan in frustration into my mattress.

Bored. Bored, bored, bored. (John.) Faked death. Cases: no case. (John: Is there an apology he's waiting for that could set things right?) Violin: unhelpful. 4 AM and counting. Bored. (John.)

Sighing for a third time, I roll onto my back, sit up, pack away my violin. I turn on a lamp near my bedside and prop up my pillows against my headboard. Then I sit, sheets strewn about my crossed legs, and close my eyes.

If there is nothing mentally stimulating or relaxing enough to find on my own, then I shall have no choice than to create something. Haven't had a basis in a while; I remember all my old fantasies, have them all categorized and filed, buried as skeleton-secrets, but I long for something new. And something constructed from today works as well as anything.

#

Mind Palace. Downstairs. Catacombs. Walls, skeletons, chambers. Imagination Room.

#

Small outward smile. Here I go.

#

Unlock the door, dance inside. Fill it with Baker Street, John's bedroom. I am at his closet, purple shirt in hand. John enters the room, surprised at first, but soon sighs and sits down on the edge of his bed. 'What's this, then?'

'You kept my shirt,' I say. 'Why?'

'I missed you,' he answers. He pats his bed, gesturing for me to sit beside him. I hang up the shirt again and step over to him, watching him watch me intently. I take a seat, hands on my knees. John props his right hand up on his right knee, fingers turned inward, elbow bent at nearly a right angle. He leans into it and peers sideways at me. 'Of course I would keep something of yours. You're my best friend.'

'Best friends don't keep each other's clothes. Flatmates, either. There is another reason. Sentiment, but which sort? Why keep it?' I repeat. I need to hear John say it. I need to have the delusion of what it could mean.

'Fine,' he concedes reluctantly, dropping his hand and lying back. He covers his eyes with his forearm. 'I kept it because I missed you more than I could handle, and God, it still smelled like you for the longest time.'

'You kept it because you're in love with me,' I whisper.

'Good deduction, yeah,' John replies, blowing air out his mouth as he removes his forearm from his face. He looks up at me from down the length of his body to my back right. I lick my lips. He says, 'But you don't feel that way about me. You don't feel that way about anyone. You can be interested in people – The Woman was proof of that – but you don't love them.'

'Not true, John,' I murmur, turning, lifting one leg to rest, bent, in front of my body, my arm leaning back to support me. 'Not true. No one has held my interest as long as you. No one can withstand the insufferable – me – as long as you have. And I appreciate that, I do. And I care about you. Doesn't that tell you enough?'

'No. Say it. Tell me,' John demands, and he wouldn't demand it, but in my mind, he does. Sometimes I like it better when he takes control for me, eases my mind of making trifling decisions, like when to eat and sleep and how to treat people. I like it that John keeps me in line, helps quiet my mind. I just like to expand it here, make him rule me. He might as well; he's always in my head, always…

'I love you,' I profess, turning further until I land on all fours, crawling the width of his bed to place one arm on the other side of his head, and the other bent at the elbow, his neck cradled on the underside of my forearm. I bend down and kiss him, slowly, slowly. I give the apology, the one that Real John might be waiting for, I don't know. 'I'm sorry I left. I'm sorry I dragged you into my mess with Moran. I'm sorry I went through your things while looking for my violin. I'm sorry I didn't tell you sooner how I felt.'

'Apology accepted,' he breathes, and brings his hand up to tangle in the wilder curls at the back of my head, dragging me down to kiss me fiercely. I groan against my lips, his lips. I keep my eyes open to watch him, though it's a bit blurred, a little cross-eyed on my part, but he is perfect. He fits me. No one could ever replace John. I hope I am as unique to him.

I pull out of the kiss to bring up my hand to align with his. I trace his palm with my fingertips. I play across the tops of his nails with mine. I kiss his wrist, flutter my eyelashes delicates against his veins. I take his pulse. It's beating in rapid time with mine, just barely off a quarter of a beat.

His hand slips out of my grip and touches my face. 'I'm happy you're home safe to me. I do forgive you, Sherlock. Believe that.'

I want to. I merely nod. I feel dumb doing so. I always have the final say. But I can't now.

John leans up, supported by an elbow, and glides his hand down my neck, into my shirt, against the smooth warmth of my upper back. His mouth is at my opposite ear. He licks the lobe, kisses my jaw. His breath is warm on my throat, but cool where his saliva is drying on my ear. I shiver from the contradiction.

John. So gentle with me. He could be brutal, rough. He's a doctor, a soldier, knows my ways. He could calculate precisely how to touch me without bruising, how to bite me without breaking skin, how to wrestle me to the ground. But he wouldn't do it. He could, but he wouldn't. His nature is too munificent, too demure, for the most part. He has his edge, but he chooses to be affable. My John…

#

From here, I could turn it into a tender, lovemaking fantasy. I could even make it a non-sexual, intimate fantasy. I could arouse myself, or content myself.

But I only feel vacant, poignant. Lax, in a defeated manner. I pull out of my Mind Palace in stages and let my eyes flutter open. My lashes are damp again, my eyes squinted. (Oh.)

I unexpectedly yawn. I'm sleepy, all of a sudden.

At least that much worked in my favor.

#

In the morning, I wake groggily, and realize that it isn't quite morning any longer. My phone clock informs me that it is after one in the afternoon. How did I sleep so late? I recall getting up around six-something to urinate, but after that…

Stretching, rubbing my eyes, and forcing myself up, I slip on a dressing robe and head out into the kitchen for coffee.

John is smirking from over his laptop. "Finally up, are you? I'd make a Sleeping Beauty or Snow White joke, but then, those require a kiss, don't they? And that isn't your area," he teases, and it nearly makes me spill the coffee grounds.

Sadly, he doesn't know how much my area I would have kissing be if the contact came from him. I clear my throat. "Haha, John, very funny. Just the idea of fairy tales is hilarious; who came up with such ridiculous things as spells being broken by kisses from 'true loves' and spells of death-like slumber in the first place? Completely unscientific."

"It isn't meant to be scientific," John snorts as he clicks out of something and shuts the lid on his computer. "It's meant to be romantic and imaginative and for children."

"Well, it's turned into the worst cliché and redone into parodies and films and revamped novels the world over, and frankly, I am tired of it," I relay as I wait for the coffee to brew. "Why don't they give it a rest already?"

"Because they're classics!" John protests, getting the way he does when I don't understand very common things for everyone else, like pop culture references (ones that don't pertain to cases, anyhow) and idealized other aspects of society. "And because some people like a little whimsical romance in their lives. It comforts them."

"That's silly. –Why does it?" I scoff, then question curiously.

John sighs. He gives me one of his looks. "Because some people long for it, Sherlock."

"They long to be locked away in towers or glass coffins, guarded by mystical creatures, fast asleep, waiting for their princes to come?" I frown.

He laughs. "No. They long for romance. For that 'true love,' someone they can spend a life with. They like to escape into the fantasy of a world with dragons and mermaids and princes for a while, just so their lives don't feel so repetitive and tiring."

"Ah," I say at last. "So even normal people think their lives are monotonous. That is quite the revelation, John, thank you."

He shakes his head at me. "You don't get it," he says, standing. He puts his laptop on the desk and looks at me in wonder. "Don't you ever long for something more, Sherlock? Anything?"

"New cases. Interesting ones. Serial killers preferable, since they are the most interesting," I say easily enough.

He clenches his jaw, swallows, and looks away. "Yeah, I thought you'd say something like that." And he mills about, picking up various rubbish that didn't make it to the dustbin and moving to toss it out.

"What did you want to hear?" I pry. "That I long for romance like everyone else? I hate to break it to you, doctor, but I am not everyone else."

"I know, Sherlock. I know," he replies offhandedly.

I puff up and say childishly, "What is the matter with wanting different things? Some people immerse themselves in their jobs, in the thrill of action flicks. I immerse myself in the same, although in-person, and on a slightly more obsessive level because of my addictive personality. I crave puzzles, challenges. What more is there?"

"Life, Sherlock," John turns, looking at me with that fire in his eyes that flashes sometimes when he is frustrated with me. I imagine it is not too different from the hungry look he might make in the bedroom. –Focus. Focus. "Friends. Family. Lovers. Not just work and challenging oneself. God, will you ever want anything like that?"

"I have what I need," I say quietly. My coffee is ready, but I can't get to it now. John will be even angrier if I seem to ignore him by making my cup. "I have you."

He opens his mouth to say something, falters, wilts like a flower. He sighs in the end. "One friend isn't enough, Sherlock."

I feel my stomach clench. "And, arguably, a few other people. Mrs. Hudson, Molly, Lestrade; even my brother. Although," and I grimace, "I prefer not to include him." I lift my chin. "But I have them. I was getting to them."

"No, you weren't," John replies, and I can't decipher the timbre in his voice, the note hidden there, a pang of something in the backdrop that makes my heart flip (impossible, medically speaking, but speed up, definitely). "You almost never include them. You only ever mention me." And his eyes hurt me. Because they look pained.

"Not true. Not true!" I retort stubbornly. How did a conversation about fairy tales escalate into this? I will never understand (try as I might) the dynamic and logic that is shared between John and I. "They were important enough to me to be threatened by Moriarty before I faked my death to save all of them, to save you! You were right, back at Bart's."

"I was right," he parrots, blinking. It reminds me of our first ride in a cab together. "About what?"

"Friends protect each other," I remind him matter-of-factly. "I protected you, everyone. I hurt all of you by pretending to die, but it was for the best reasons."

He didn't know this before. He had surmised much of it, I'm sure – John is astute when he wants to be, when he pays attention – but I never said it aloud. I never told him directly. It might be because of my fantasy last night, but I think I have to say it. I think I have to, because John never asked, but I'm sure he wanted to know. Needed to hear it. He said he didn't, that it was in the past, but I know John. He likes things explained to him.

"You bugger," John curses, but his breathing pattern has accelerated and his eyes are welling up. His hands are in fists at his sides. "You act like you don't care, like you're a cold, heartless bastard, a right asshole, but you're not. You're too selfless in the end, too determined to prove yourself because so many people reject you for your blunt genius."

"Don't psych profile me, John Watson." I threaten, eyes piercing. But he laughs bitterly and steps forward, grabbing me by the arms, his fingers digging into the sleeves of my silken robe.

John blinks, the tears in his eyes gone, his dark blues clear and fixed. "For once in your life, Sherlock, just accept that you are, in fact, a good man." And he drags me down by my clothing/arms and crushes his lips against my parted ones, my teeth squishing the firm thinness of his upper lip.

Wait. Is he really –

Is this actually –

I am not trapped in one of my own Guilty Pleasures, am I? My imagination hasn't gone too far? I'm not insane, believing my own delusions, am I? Because John is pulling away, now, his lips tugging for a moment on my bottom lip. He's staring up at me. Cursing, "God-fucking-dammit," and releasing me, storming out of the room, retreating to his.

I blink, stunned. Yes, John Watson always manages to surprise and amaze me, time and time again. I do the same, I'm sure, but not always in a positive way. With him, it's always pleasant. I am forever pleasantly surprised by his very existence, and when I am not too absorbed in myself, I appreciate how fortunate I am to have him as my flatmate, my friend.

I stumble to the kitchen counter and use it to keep me standing. With adrenaline-tremulous hands, I make my coffee and bring it to my mouth, washing out the "morning breath" taste in the back of it. I blink again, slowly, using the heated mug on my lips to remind me how John's had felt. That was real, wasn't it? Real John kissed me and fled?

I'm trying to process it. Not once did I ever think anything I crafted in my head about John could be made into a reality.

And I'm… I'm a little dizzy and giddy because of it.

I grin to myself and only finish half my coffee. Then I aim to take a shower and get dressed for the afternoon, and wonder, briefly, what this makes of us. What I can have it be made into. Or if John wants to forget about the whole thing (which I pray he doesn't, because I want to remember that moment for the rest of my life, and I want to be able to have a billion more just like it, and better).

#

A/N: Sometimes I worry that my writing is too dramatic, like an anime, making the characters OOC. You guys will scold me if it gets like that, won't you?