A/N So if I can keep successfully posting one a day, I'll be done by the end of this weekend!

Thanks to 666BloodyHell666, starrysummernights, linguisticRenegade, Song of Grey Lemons, Hummingbird1759, ThisDayWillPass, and johnsarmylady

Disclaimer I don't own Sherlock or any associated characters, events, etc.

XCVIII. Puzzle

Games. That's what Sherlock's life consists of. Games, puzzles, enigmas, questions, mysteries… always the mysteries. There are hundreds of them, thousands, all running through his mind, scrambling over one another, flitting by his attention just long enough for him to pull together an answer, a solution for them. And he does, almost constantly. The usual crimes are simple enough—all he has to do is look in the right places, connect the obviously presented clues, tell the police what happened and then they're happy, and he's back to being bored.

Those incidents are never anything special, though. They're horribly dull, barely work his mind at all, so that the gears turn without even beginning to strain themselves. Walking, but not running. He never runs, except for when Moriarty is involved—then he brings his thoughts to a steady jog, sometimes edging on sprinting, swift and precise. Moriarty is a challenge, a delightful challenge that he can't deny excites him. He's as smart as Sherlock, and he knows it, he uses it, creates a game unlike any other. A game with real dangers, real stakes, real chances of failure. Chances of failure spur him, keep him going, poised on his heels and teetering at the brink.

Yes, Moriarty is undeniably one of the most fascinating things in his life. That's absolutely true.

But if James Moriarty makes him run, then John Watson makes him fly.

John is a puzzle, as well, a puzzle above all the rest—the only man who's really a mystery to Sherlock. Because, despite his mundaneness, despite his absolute readability and complete obviousness, there's something else to him. Spirit, Sherlock supposes. John is the perfect portrait of an average man, and yet he's so strong, so brave, so loyal, so loving, and those are characteristics that Sherlock can only ever look in on. He's the heart to Sherlock's mind, and the one mystery that it will never be able to unravel, not in a million years.

And even if he can't understand it, that doesn't mean he can't adore it. And adore it he does, respects it and longs for it, even if he never dares to express such a thing. He may not be able to understand it, but that doesn't mean he can't keep it close to him—in fact, it's all the more reason to never let it out of his sight.

He'll keep trying to solve the impossible puzzle, of course, keep trying to decipher John's psyche, to comprehend just how it functions. It'll keep him occupied to the end of his days, and he'll enjoy every moment of it, because there's no threat involved. And perhaps that it what makes it so perfect, after all—there needn't be danger involved for him to be intrigued by John, because the blonde doctor manages to hold his interest anyways. He's unique, special, and Sherlock is fully aware of it. Revels in it, even. There is not—and there never will be—anything in his life that's more valuable than John.