So, this is the chapter when Harry's extra alcohol gets used. Fair warning!

"Jooohhhnnnn," Sherlock whined.

"Sherlock."

"I'm boooorrrrreeeddd."

John huffed. "Darling, there's nothing I can do about it. Unless I go out and kill a man, which you'd immediately figure out, you're stuck here." Sherlock rolled his eyes. The use of the word 'darling' made him tingly and warm, but it couldn't occupy him for very long.

"So, what can we do that's interesting here?" he asked, not relaying any sort of answer to that question.

At that moment, Harriet decided to walk in. "Hey sexy, can you hand me that other bottle over thataways?" She gestured to Sherlock, who looked horrified.

"Ah, no. Harry, I'm going to confiscate all the other bottles of beer. You're going cold turkey, as is Sherlock." John stomped into the kitchen to take the remaining two glass bottles from the refrigerator.

"What are you going to do with them?" Harriet asked, a hand on her hip.

John did something entirely unexpected right then. He walked up to Sherlock and handed him one. "Sherlock and I are going to play a drinking game. And since Sherlock is bored, it will be beneficial for everyone."

"I've never played a drinking game in my life," Sherlock pointed out.

"So?"

"I don't know the rules. Can the victim kill themselves?"

John sighed. "My darling, this isn't Cluedo."

"Aw." Sherlock had the puppy look in his eyes that he knew John had a hard time resisting.

"We will never play that game again as long as I live." John's voice was the no-nonsense soldier one. Damn.

"Alright. We'll play. How do we do this?"

"So, we take one swig and each answer a question from the other. The one that can't answer after the least swigs loses."

"Simple enough." John came over with a cap-popper and took the beer from Sherlock, taking off the cap and giving it back to him. He did the same with his own.

"First swig." John clinked his bottle against Sherlock's own, Sherlock immediately alert. This game had some very intriguing potential. If John got drunk first, which had a great chance of happening, he could get out of him whether or not John had fallen in love with him. It had been weighing on his mind recently, since John kissed him, and held him, and knew more about him than any single other person on the planet including his brother. Was that love, or friendship, or something as of yet unnamed? It scared him that originally he hadn't meant for this sort of confusion to come about. Just an experiment, he kept reassuring himself. But it wasn't.

John was something completely different, something he'd never seen before. Didn't it make sense to find out what the doctor felt about him?

Sherlock took a small bit of the amber liquid into his mouth and flinched as it burned down his throat. John looked unaffected, but Sherlock assumed it was because he'd done this many times. "First question, what is your full name?"

"William Sherlock Scott Holmes. And yours?"

"John Hamish Watson." Sherlock choked down a laugh, but that was easy since he felt like choking already with that infernal substance called 'beer'.

"Good. Glad that's over," John muttered. "Second swig." This draught was bigger, Sherlock attempting to adjust himself faster to the feeling of the stuff. A light buzz had started to come over him. Sherlock knew that wasn't normal, but he wanted to keep going until he got it out of John. It bothered him too much to wait.

"How about this? What's your favorite childhood memory?"

Sherlock didn't even need to think about that. "When I was seven, I had a dog named Redbeard. I loved him so much, because he always played with me when Mycroft couldn't. One day, he and I got lost on the manor grounds, and he led me home, wagging his tail and never leaving me by myself. Redbeard was devoted and kind and listened to me like no one else did at the time. Mycroft was a good brother then; he'd teach me everything from physics to biology to chemistry, which was my favorite. It was the last of the good days, the day when Redbeard and I got lost on the grounds. After that, Redbeard got put down and Mycroft went to college, and I was alone again."

John nodded. "My favorite memory is probably my twelfth birthday. Harry was eleven then, happy and not drunk. I came home from school to find my parents had prepared a surprise birthday party. There was chocolate cake and rocky road ice cream and all my mates were there. I felt loved and happy, and I got my first stethoscope that day. And the nicest girl that I'd had a crush on for ages had given me a watch. Of course, that was before my parents died and that nice girl cheated on me when I was seventeen." He laughed melodiously. Sherlock loved that laugh too much. "So, basically, our happiest times were before it all went wrong."

Sherlock laughed too. "Yes. We're men of danger and misfortune, if fortune exists."

"Of course it does. Fortune brought us together under the same roof, Sherlock. Fortune exists for that sole reason." John's smile was sweet, and it didn't exactly help Sherlock's buzz from the alcohol.

"Third swig," Sherlock said. John nodded again. They both upturned their drinks, taking the next gulp.

By this time, Sherlock was beginning to feel...not himself. Everything looked lighter, fuzzier, like someone had put a piece of dirty glass over his eyes. He couldn't see Harriet in his peripheral vision anymore. "I've got one," he said. Even his voice was sounding strange. "Who was your first kiss?"

John giggled like a schoolgirl. "The great Sherlock Holmes willingly asking a question about kissing? I've seen it all!"

"Just answer it," Sherlock snapped.

John didn't take any offense to his rudeness, because Sherlock had known for the past few weeks that was rude. "When I was fourteen, I knew this girl named Lynn. She was pretty and liked me, so she kissed me. Lynn had always been bolder than me. The problem was I had braces then, and I thought I would never get my first kiss while I had braces, so I ended scratching up her tongue. She thought that was horrible, and there ended my short relationship with Lynn." He paused. "Do you have a first kiss story?"

Sherlock bobbed his head up and down. "I do, as a matter of fact, have a first kiss story. There was this man named John, and our relationship was initiated by me. The kiss wasn't, though. He saw I was feeling rejected and see-through just...kissed me. I liked it more than I thought I would. Before then, I didn't understand what kissing what about, why people exchanged saliva whenever it struck their fancies. But I knew in that minute. He was everything in that moment, and I got it." He tried to reorient himself, having lost his place in the story. "There's my story. Another swig?" Sherlock gestured widely with the hand holding the beer.

John stared at Sherlock. He'd had no idea that was his first kiss. It explained a lot, like why Sherlock had been so cautious with the touching earlier, and the lack of knowledge about romance, and the innocence that didn't fit a consulting detective that had seen countless bodies. No one had loved Sherlock like he deserved. It made a bottomless pit feeling in his chest.

"Why not?" John replied instead of saying what he was thinking. Sherlock couldn't keep his alcohol very well, in fact, he kept it worse than John, which was strange, since John was a lightweight of a massive scale. He laughed aloud.

"Why are you laughing?" Sherlock looked hurt, and it melted John's already softened heart.

"Because you can't drink any better than I can."

"That's better than I thought it was."

"What did you think it was?" John's fuzzy mind struggled forming the question.

"I thought you were laughing at me for telling that story."

"Oh, darling, no. It's that you and I are both severe lightweights, and that's funny."

Sherlock brightened quite a bit. "Oh. Alright then. Swig?"

"Yep!" Both men drank again, on their fourth swig. Harry, who was paying a little bit of attention to her brother and his boyfriend, thought the whole thing was extremely hilarious. Two men with no ability to drink were playing a drinking game, and telling each other facts about one another. Soon, Sherlock would finally admit he was a virgin, and the two would shag right on the couch. And Johnny would pound him so that he was sore for a week. Not that she wanted to imagine it, but it was still funny to think about.

Sherlock was reeling from the last swig. "So. Do you have any questions in mind?"

John could barely think, much less form a coherent question. "Er...no."

"Neither do I." Nobody spoke for a while, Sherlock and John both trying not to slip under the influence completely.

"Who was your first love?" Sherlock asked suddenly, voice sounding more lucid than it had since the game started.

John smiled bitterly. "Her name was Grace. Beautiful, kind, perfect. I would have given her anything if she asked for it. Of course, she asked for everything. Grace slowly cut her way into my heart and then left it in small red slices when she said, 'You're a pushover and too easy'. So there was the crushed part of crushes. I couldn't stay with anyone for very long after that."

"Why is no one's first love happy? Why can no one be happy with their first chance?" Sherlock wondered.

"I don't know," John answered, moving next to Sherlock and placing his head on his shoulder. "I really don't know."

"Does that mean my first love will be unhappy as well?" Sherlock looked so young right then.

"What do you mean 'will be'? Have you had your first love yet?" John thought surely Sherlock had had one person. But to have had none? It was so much better to have loved and lost than never loved at all, and Sherlock didn't. Before John could apologize for that, even though it wasn't at all his fault, Sherlock spoke again.

"My first love is going on right now. I don't...want it to be unhappy." John's heart broke right then, just looking at Sherlock's face.

"Who is it?" John knew it couldn't be him, it was the mysterious man that Sherlock hadn't named yet. But wasn't it over, since Sherlock was trying to recover?

"You'll laugh at me."

"I promise I won't."

Sherlock didn't look convinced, but he said it anyway. "I'm in love with John Watson. You know him, don't you?"

This was when John realized Sherlock didn't recognize him anymore. "Yeah, I know him."

"I thought so. You'd like him, Mycroft." In what world, John's blurry mind thought, do I look anything like the picture he showed me of Mycroft?

"Really?"

"Of course. He's smart, and loves danger, and has kept up this whole charade that we're dating just to make me happy. He goes on cases with me and actually helps. I love him so much. Mycroft, you should really meet him."

"I already have," John said, even though he'd never met Mycroft. He fully expected to be kidnapped by the politician, but he hadn't yet.

"Then you understand," Sherlock said excitedly. God, John wanted to sob. Why did this have to happen now, when they both were drunk and not understanding what was happening? Even John was losing what little sense he had left.

"Yes," John murmured. Tears were beginning to form in his eyes, but he was already forgetting why they were there.

"Good." Sherlock sounded so satisfied with himself.

"Now, we both need to sleep," John whispered. "I can barely keep my eyes open."

"John always says eight hours of sleep is what adults need. I should appease him." Sherlock laid down on the couch, pulling John down with him.

"Yes, we both should." John's mind silently faded out with the scene. "Goodnight, Sherlock." But Sherlock was asleep.

Harry took the beer bottles from their hands once she was sure both were out like lights. She finished them off with a sigh. How did her brother get into such a mess?

Sherlock's head hurt very bad. He'd seen that hound on the moors, and he knew it wasn't real, but it was too real. He was scared, and he hated it. He'd been scared for a while now, but once he saw him, it went into the background.

"UMQRA. Mean anything to you?" he asked.

"No." But his face, with its furrowed brow coming from concentration, meant more than he knew at the time. "What if hound isn't a word but a set of letters?" Sherlock could deal with something that wasn't a real word, like fear. Only letters, but the man in front of him's name wasn't just letters. It was the most important thing in the world to Sherlock.

"We have to break into Baskerville again." The smile that broke on Sherlock's face was so genuine that he almost couldn't believe it. There was something unnamable here. Something exceptionally amazing.

All those stories are completely made up except the first kiss one. I actually had my first kiss at fourteen when I had braces, and I thought I would tear up the person's tongue, but I didn't. The rest of it is totally not true. Especially since that kiss had very nice results. :)