A couple of weeks earlier

Sherlock Holmes shifted his long limps slowly and carefully. They'd been frozen in one position for so long it felt like they were on their way to turning to stone. Maybe, if he just kept lying on the sofa like this they would. What a ridiculous thought. Sherlock rolled his eyes subconsciously and realised they were still shut. It took him an unusual amount of strengths to fully open them.

Judging by the single beam of light falling through the curtains it was about noon. He wanted to stay like this just for a little bit longer… Just like this, detached from everything. There were some dust motes dancing in the light.

John wasn't there… when did he leave? Sherlock couldn't remember.

John. Was getting married. He would leave. Ultimately.

xxxxxxxxxx

"Have you told him yet?" John didn't reply and looked down at his plate.

"John! You haven't, have you?"

John kept staring at his plate and slowly crushed his chips into mush with his fork.

"John! You have to tell him!" His sister Harry, who he'd met for lunch, was glaring at him fiercely over her plate of tomato pasta. John sighed. He'd known the conversation would lead here.

"I will… I will tell him eventually… He's probably deduced it by now anyway."

"Has he gone mental?"

"…No"

"Then, he hasn't bloody 'deduced' it yet."

"Allright, alright…" John murmured. "it's bad enough I had to tell you..."

"Oi! Don't get bitchy with me little brother."

"Alright" John repeated, not really in the mood for sibling banter. "Would you just keep your voice down, please."

Harry rolled her eyes and continued eating her pasta. She'd been chuffed for her brother when he'd told her about the engagement. She liked Mary, she was lovely and smart and Harry didn't have to worry about John getting killed on a daily basis when he was with her. Which was a serious improvement towards both his army days and his …partnership or whatever you'd call it with Sherlock. Now him she wasn't to sure off. Harry had met Sherlock on a couple of occasions and she'd been a regular at AA meetings and rehab facilities long enough to recognise a self-destructive personality when she saw one. And that Sherlock Holmes…To say he looked like trouble was an understatement.

"John… I know he means a lot to you…" John groaned. Apparently their conversation wasn't over yet.

"…Actually, when I first met him, and I saw you two together, I thought you dating or something, at first…"

Yep, and now they were back to this…

"John." Harry was speaking in a more serious tone now. "It's not that I would've minded you dating a man. I'm obviously the last person who'd judge you for that. It might've been a bit of a shock to mum and dad though…" She smirked for a second.

"Anyway. It's just… it's not healthy." Harry paused. "He's not healthy."

John stayed silent, he's had different versions of this conversation several times.

"And it actually doesn't matter if your… a couple or not. You might as well be and I don't care. It's just… not."

For once in their relationship John felt like he was the one attending an intervention. To cure his addiction, to Sherlock and everything he stood for. And Mary was his rehab.

"She's great John, she really is, and she's good for you John. Your not responsible for him, he's a grown man; He'll be able to live without you. He did it before you came along didn't he."

Yeah… and we know how that ended don't we, John thought to himself, thinking of the drug busts Lestrade was still keeping up every now and then.

"It's not like you're not gonna see him anymore, John, is it? You're his best mate! He's gotta know your life can't evolve around him…. Seriously what does he expect?"

Harry had raised her voice again.

"It's fine Harry. I'm gonna tell him." John desperately wanted to change the topic now.

"Oh for fuck's sake, John! You know it's not about that." She sounded angry now.

"You can't make everything you do dependent on him! Don't you remember what it was like when he left three years ago? Did he waste a thought on how you'd feel? You were heartbroken damn it! And still you'd do everything for him! And how does he pay you back?"

Harry looked into his eyes as though she was looking for a last bit of sanity.

"Just don't fuck this up for him, ok?"

"That's enough, Harry"

"John, I'm just…"

"I know. I got your point."

"I hope so" Harry sighed.

John nodded. He felt the familiar mix of hurt and anger that still accompanied talking or thinking about Sherlock's absence. It was a time he'd love to delete from his memory but that skill seemed to be reserved for the world's only consulting detective.

John knew that most people thought like Harry. He'd given up trying to explain his relationship to Sherlock to them. Because how unbalanced the two of them might seem to everyone else, what they didn't get was how much he owed to Sherlock; he had saved John.

He'd been broken and useless and alone and Sherlock had come along and from one day to another given his life a purpose again. He owed the detective himself. It had seemed like such a random thing at the beginning, like he could've been anyone and it had taken John some time to realise that Sherlock Holmes didn't do anything randomly.

John had wondered over the last few weeks what it was going to be like; living without Sherlock and part of him wanted nothing to change. But another part, perhaps his sane part, thought that maybe Harry was right and was screaming loudly to let go and run while he still could.

...yes I know, I said soon. But apparently I can only write a list of one shots from any point of the story, rather than chronological chapters. Let's see how I get on in the next one :) Cheers for reading!