(note: Sherlock does not belong to me. And here is a kiss, everyone! A fairly chaste kiss, but a kiss nonetheless! Will these boys ever stop being emotionally stunted and/or distracted? Will they ever take off their pants around each other? Find out… eventually…

Also, hope Sherlock's deduction sounds Sherlockian enough…)

Sherlock Holmes: You'll never be the most luminous of people, but as a conductor of light, you're unbeatable!

– The Hound of the Baskervilles, Sherlock BBC

JOHN WATSON:

After Lestrade left, Sherlock barely glanced up at me from the folder he was holding in his hands. He was moving, and there was a harsh tension in his back, which was rather interesting to observe as he hadn't put his shirt back on. Occasionally he'd twitch, as if tossing something in his mind's eye out of the way. It really doesn't take me too long to adjust to this anymore.

There he goes again with his mind-palacing.

I drifted into the kitchen, turned down the thermostat (the look on Mycroft's face had been priceless), and put my shirt back on. Drifting back out to the sitting room I watched him for a little while. Usually he tosses me out before he begins his 'process' but I assume he's getting used to me by now. I gently pat his shoulder; I doubt he will respond.

"Right, errr, I'll go upstairs for a moment then, let me know when you've finished love."

I wince, the last word slipped out involuntarily, but I decide it would be more awkward if I try to explain it away and head upstairs.

"Don't be that pedestrian John"

I glance back at him. He isn't looking at me, he's still sorting through his brain.

"Oh, that, I… it just sort of came out. I didn't really mean it, I know we're not even really in a relationship yet."

"Of course we're in a relationship John. We have been for months. Everyone who interacts with another person on a regular basis is in a relationship, it's just the way you define a relationship that gives you things like kissing or babies." (The last word he practically spits out in disgust. It is good that the future of mankind does not depend on the progenies of Sherlock Holmes.)

"So you've already defined our relationship then."

Sherlock closes his eyes, and brings his hands together before opening them again. When he does open them it's disconcerting, because his eyes are still glazed, but his attention is focused in my general direction. "I will never love you, John. Love isn't a feeling, it is a tradition. It is mindless, pre-packaged trope. I am obsessed with you, but never expect me to love you."

I smirk. "Did you just shut down your mind palace for me? Before you finished?"

"I didn't shut it down, it's on pause. It is my brain, John. I can do anything I want to with it."

"Normally not for other people though."

His mouth spasms into a smile, almost involuntary. "It is important to keep my blogger happy."

He wants to start moving his hands again, I can tell, but I walk over to him. He shrinks back a little as I touch him. "This isn't the best time, John." He sounds mildly irritated, but he isn't shooing me away like a disobedient dog.

"Sherlock, I'm not entirely sure if it would ever be the best time with you. You've told me I'm attractive to you. Fine, yes, okay, that was a bit of a shock, because I'm really not. And before that you seemed to be trying to go out of your way to prove my bisexuality to me in a fairly unorthodox manner. So, okay, you are obsessed with me. Is this a kissing kind of obsession, or is this the sort of obsession where you wind your flat-mate up to an emotional crescendo, and then get bored and irritated with him when it turns out he's not on the same wave-length as you?"

"You're not an experiment John, now please! I need to get back. I think I'm almost there." His fingers are twitching by the side of his thighs, like he's trying to grab onto something.

I reach up and stroke his cheek. It feels rather like gentling a wild stallion who has been running by himself for far too long. It occurs to me, as I touch him, that I am standing and touching Sherlock's mind; that as I touch and brush against his cheek I really might as well be touching and brushing against the grey creases of his brain. He might have put the searching and cataloguing on hold for me but he was still very much there in his mind, and not here in the outside world. "What's it like in there?" I ask. "Sorry, I see you like this enough that I wonder."

It is almost a rhetorical question, but Sherlock sighs, a little impatiently, "It's big, and it's an information dump. Everything is in there; it's like waterfalls, I suppose, though not really scenic, more just… data."

I kiss him just under his jawbone, chaste, but I let my lips linger. He twitches but doesn't move. I'm not entirely sure what I'm expecting, perhaps I want him to look down, be distracted by me, and kiss back, but I know he wouldn't. He is such a paradox right now, passive but with an almost manic attentiveness, split between me and the data shifting through him. For one long moment I don't move. I feel a bit like I am attempting to mate with a praying mantis. If I make one wrong move he will move his head down, see me, and crush me. I'm not sure if it's an gesture of sacrifice, supplication, or perhaps the love he doesn't believe in.

A strong arm crushes me to his chest. "Wait, John, stay right… oh bollocks, it's gone now but that was perfect, what you did was good! Yes, there you are." He seems to be drawing a map in the air with his finger. "Perfect! Lestrade wanted us at the scene of one of the bombings, but we don't really need to now, that's what I was trying to get at. The location is here in this file. The man's finger nails… it was the finger nails!" He makes a circle with his thumb and forefinger and squints at the invisible map. "There!"

"Fingernails?" I'm overwhelmed by the praise, and the sensation of having the air crushed out of my lungs.

"Look!" He pulled a picture of a body that looked significantly dead out of a file, along with a close up picture of his hands. "Most of the bombers managed to escape the scene of the first explosion, except for this one who was shot by a policeman who had seen him plant a suitcase. He had climbed the stairs, and was getting on the escalators, which means he would have been at a height that would not have caught him in the blast radius. This man's fingernails are yellowed in a manner which might at first suggest smoking, though of course the police didn't pay it much attention in the reports. He had a full post-mortum, which checked out fine, no underling conditions. But, for a man who is still relatively young to have his fingernails discolored to that extent he would have to be a chain smoker, so we would expect to see evidence of either a pack of cigarettes or tobacco. None such items found on the body, also, if one studies the close ups, no indentations in his shirt or trouser pocket that suggest he has such a habit. He is fairly well off, and keeps himself clean as evidenced by the name brand clothing. The bombs used do not contain chemicals that would discolor his nails either. Therefore, the yellow on his fingernails is probably dirt, which we can assume was acquired by him as he was making the bombs before he left to demolish the underground. Now, middle class sector of London, which has fenced yard space where he can manufacture bombs without the neighbors seeing and yellowish dirt… would be…"

He pointed at his invisible map.

"That was absolutely brilliant." My eyes are a little bit glazed. My hard-drive is already full, and that was a slight data overload.

"You helped."

"I kissed you. I'm not sure if that constitutes 'help'."

He smirked. "If it did, would you kiss me more often?" He drags on his shirt, then grabs me by the arm. "Actually, forget that last question. You will be kissing me more often, John Watson. If you don't I'll throw tantrums and make your life miserable. Come along! The game is afoot!"

"That's a bit of an anachronism, isn't it?" I mutter as I find myself almost literally dragged out of our flat.