AN: it's been a while since my last author's note, so I've decided to write one here :)

First, I'd like to thank everyone who's reading this, enjoying it or just passing by! I'm sorry for the poor Sherlock, really, but I can't resist the angst. I would like to write lovely, fluffy things and I end up with...this. Bear with me!

Thank you again for your support!

Thirty minutes later, John was sitting on the same armchair where Sherlock had been curled, where Sherlock had slept. He could feel the other man's warmth, the smell of his skin and clothes. It wasn't bittersweet as he had thought, it was…one more time he lacked of words. It was Sherlock's. A mixture of raw musk, sweet tea and smoke. Yes, in a totally different occasion he would've called it bittersweet. But now it was just the smell of doubt, of tears, of hopes. John inhaled and exhaled deeply.

His hands were slightly shaking and his whole body was as tense as a violin string. The image of Sherlock coming close, closer, the closest. The light touch of his lips on his. His own turmoil springing out in less than a second. His heart stopping, his rational side kicking off. The rejection. He had done the right thing. God, what had Sherlock in his mind? Had he really thought that John would have kissed him back? Was really Sherlock thinking that John wanted that to happen? They had been too close that night. Never again. God, a student kissing him. That was far beyond being highly inappropriate. That had written 'John Watson: sacked' all over it.

Plus he wasn't attracted to him in the slightest. Not that if he had been actually attracted to the young man, it would have made any difference. But that made it worse. Because it would have led to explanations. Because it would have led to suffering for the young man, knowing that John didn't want him, didn't…love him back. Wait. Love? Now, that was really something that John couldn't associate to Sherlock. A kiss would have meant love for most of the people, but for Sherlock? God help if John could figure it out. Nevertheless it meant something, it meant something for the young man. It meant troubles for John. A lot of trouble. Why was it always him? Why the goddamn fucking world couldn't just leave John Watson be? Why had it to mess everything up?

What had just happened was truly a thing that John hadn't expected and hadn't wanted. Christ. Fuck one more time. Just fuck. He had just done what everyone was thinking he was doing with Sherlock Holmes. And he had never wanted something like that to happen. Sherlock was just a brilliant student as he had already repeated to himself a million of times. Even in their awkward closeness John had never thought about him in a different way. But maybe even Sherlock had mistakenly taken his interest for something different, especially after their last night.

The question lingered: was Sherlock somehow attracted to him? Again: a normal person would have answered yes, but he knew the young man. At least he thought he slightly knew him. After the kiss, he recognised, he didn't know him anymore at all.

Especially because, he eventually realised, there was another clear, strong image in his head. Among the images of the kiss, there was the one of John pushing Sherlock away. The eyes. Sherlock's eyes. He hadn't looked puzzled or hurt. Just cold. Emotionless. Just as if a veil had fallen on him. A rejected person would have shown sadness, rage, confusion. He had shown nothing. Nothing at all. And that bugged John Watson more than everything else, for he couldn't understand the other man at all. For if he had hurt him, he would have never known.

As always Sherlock Holmes was a deep mystery and John Watson now had to take his final decision. That closeness had to go away. He should go back to professor John Watson and Sherlock should definitively go back to Mr. Holmes. For their sake. For their peace of mind.

John's decision was ideal. He took his mobile phone from his jacket and deleted all Sherlock's messages. Then he deleted his number too. No more Sherlock in his life. Just Mr. Holmes. A brilliant student. A brilliant student like his every other student. That would work. The best decision of his life. Then why that pang in his heart? He shooed it away and decided to go for a long walk. He needed to forget everything. Luckily it was Friday, he had no lessons and no reason to go to the university either. He left his mobile phone at home on purpose.

The white pale light of a foggy London embraced him as soon as he stepped out from the flat. It was a thick, dense, opalescent wall of fog, wrapping him, sucking him, drowning him. He used to hate foggy days, but now he accepted it like a blessing, the fog slowly clouding his brain, the damp air entering his lungs, the sensation of being in another world. Everything in his head started to fade away while he walked aimlessly around the city. There was nothing around him. The shapes of the buildings barely visible in the deepness of that white foggy ocean. The noise of the traffic muffled. People just three steps away from him swallowed, bolted down in the depth of an unknown limbo.

It was what John needed. A non-existent London for a non-existing John Watson. His thoughts flew away with the fog, his mind and his body suspended in animation as he strolled through the nothingness. He lost himself into the city he knew so well, until he couldn't recognise where he was anymore.

He returned home when, at around eleven a.m. the fog started to raise and the sun started to shine again, making it almost impossible for him to bear the sight of a sunny London. He thus crawled back to his flat, even if it immediately brought back memories of last night.

The well-known smell of his pit of a flat was less pungent, softer as if the fog had washed it away too. It had been replaced, though, with a different scent, a scent that he had hoped to have vanished by the time he came back home. Sherlock's scent. This time it wasn't only discernible on the armchair, but filled the entire living room. It engulfed it, filling John's nostrils and body too. It was like an electric shock through John, a shock that switched on his thoughts one more time.

He immediately picked his mobile phone up, looking at the screen. No messages. He had expected a message, despite not wanting one, he had expected it.

The rest of the day passed slowly. John cleaned the house, which, actually, didn't need it that much, since he had already cleaned it three days earlier. But he wanted the scent to go away, he wanted his memories to go away. Yet, almost unconsciously, he continued to check for messages on his mobile every five minutes and didn't clean the armchair. He had lunch and watched some TV in the afternoon. Then read a book, had dinner and went to sleep. He never left his mobile phone. Not for a single second. At midnight, tired and still lost in thoughts, he went to sleep. He brought his mobile with him, placing it on the nightstand beside his bed. He had never done it before, but he didn't notice it.

On Saturday morning still no messages.
On Saturday afternoon still no messages.
On Saturday evening still no messages.
On Saturday night still no messages.

Why he was checking his phone frantically, he didn't know. He just kept on watching the empty screen, waiting for something. Had he been honest with himself, he would've guessed what he was waiting for, but he wasn't being honest with himself and, at some point, heavily annoyed by his perpetual pick-up-the-phone-put-it-down, he switched it off. Only to switch it on again seconds later. No messages.

On Sunday morning no new messages.
On Sunday afternoon no new messages.
On Sunday evening no new messages.

He eventually realised that he was desperately waiting for a message from Sherlock. He realised it while he was cooking dinner. He wasn't just randomly checking the phone to keep himself busy like many other people in the world did, he was expecting, needing a message from Sherlock Holmes. Obviously. Which kind of message he didn't know. An angry one, an apologising one, a normal one, but a message. He obtained silence, instead. The silence that he had wanted by deleting all Sherlock's messages, the silence he had wanted by deleting Sherlock's number too. It was like the young man was still reading his thoughts somehow.

Nevertheless it was insane. He should have felt relieved that he finally had no contact with Holmes. He was relieved. Yes, he was relieved. He was obviously relieved. Still he couldn't quite explain why that 'relief' seemed so feeble.

After dinner he turned on his laptop to check if there were any emails in his personal folder. Nothing. Who would have written to him anyway? He smiled bitterly at his solitude. Then he opened his university mail folder, expecting the usual three-four mails from his students. There were four. He opened the first.

Good morning professor Watson,

I'd wanted to know whether is possible or not to book the chemistry laboratory on next Thursday afternoon from 15.00 to 16.30.

Clara Reddington.

John frowned at the mail. It wasn't the first time a student had mistaken him for the secretary. He kindly answered that he didn't know how to do it and that she should contact the administration. They were at their second year and still didn't know such basic information. He opened the second.

Much esteemed professor Watson,

John almost choked on it. No one had ever called him 'much esteemed'.

I apologise in advance for having disturbed you, but I'm having troubles in downloading the file of which you gave us the link. Could you, please, send it to me directly?

Kindly regards,

Christian Morgenstern

John searched for the file in his computer and sent it to his student. He wasn't the kind of professor that didn't care about his 'pupils'.

The third mail was about another university meeting to discuss some other new administrative procedure. He huffed heavily in annoyance. The memory of how the other meeting had ended appeared vividly in his mind. He shooed it away. No more, he repeated to himself. No more.

He opened the fourth mail. It had been sent on Saturday night. He didn't notice the sender's address and read it directly.

I require an appointment with professor John H. Watson at eight o'clock on Monday morning.

Sherlock Holmes.

John froze for an instant which became an eternity. Reading that name, reading that single line of…coldness made his heart skip more than a beat and made him hold his breath. His fingers slightly trembled when he started to tap the answer on the keyboard. Every letter he pressed almost hurt him physically.

Appointment accepted.

Professor John H. Watson

It was all John had been able to write. His fingers didn't cooperate for anything else. He exhaled deeply and switched off the laptop.

Needless to say, that night he didn't sleep a minute. No matter how many times he rolled into his bed, no matter how tired he was, no matter how he wanted it. The sweet oblivion of the sleep didn't come. He was forced to face his thoughts and his fears.

What would have Sherlock said? What would have John answered? What did they have to discuss about? Should John have made a speech? He didn't want to hurt Sherlock, even if he knew it was unavoidable, for he had to tell him that, no matter what Sherlock had thought, there was nothing at all between them and that he would never accept again to follow him on a case or else. He needed to make it clear that their relationship was a professor-student one. He needed Sherlock to understand that. Yet he didn't quite know with what courage he could do that, expecting Sherlock to break into tears after John's speech. He didn't want to hurt him and he had to. God, how he wanted to go back to when everything was still normal, when Sherlock was just an arrogant prick (he was still arrogant to him, but not a prick anymore).

The whole night was full of these thoughts. At six o'clock, not having slept a single second, he was already getting dressed, nervous and panicking like he was about to go on a date with Queen Elisabeth II. No, wrong. In that case he would've been less anxious than now.

At seven thirty a.m. he was already in his office, pacing to and fro, begging for eight o'clock either to never come or to come fast, to end that endless torture. When the clock on the corridor's wall marked eight, John was quite puzzled to not see anyone coming in. He started questioning himself if had read the email wrong, but the sounds of well-known steps interrupted the thought. He was cold sweating when Sherlock stepped in.

"Good morning, professor Watson.", he said, stretching out his hand to shake John's.

His voice was normal, modulated, quiet. Differently from John, he seemed perfectly at ease. No sweat, no trembling. Just a normal student who was talking with his organic chemistry professor. John couldn't quite believe his eyes, nor his ears.

"Ahem, good morning, Mr. Holmes.", he answered.

Sherlock was upright in front of him, eyes fixed in his, not a single sign of emotions on his face. Another Sherlock. The Sherlock that John had seen on Thursday night wasn't the same man he had in his office right in that moment. Again he had to face that there existed at least two Sherlock Holmes.

"I've requested this appointment to inform you of my decision to withdraw from this university.", he said in a neutral tone.

John fell in a catatonic state. It wasn't what he had expected. He couldn't allow it. Sherlock was the most brilliant man he had ever met. John couldn't be the reason of Sherlock's withdrawal. He spoke lowering his voice, trying to catch words that seemed to escape him:

"Why this decision?", and he lowered his voice some more "Is it about…?"

But he didn't finish the sentence.

"I just thought that my presence makes you uncomfortable, since I never follow your lessons or do the assignments. I'm the professors' nightmare and, considering you are a good teacher, I understand it would be better for you to not have me around.", Sherlock replied dryly, emotionless.

And thus started to walk away. It took John two seconds to reconnect his brain and answer properly to that.

"Sh…Mr. Holmes, please, wait a minute."

Sherlock stopped on the threshold and turned to John again.

"Yes?"

"I understand your…point of view.", his voice came out hesitantly "But I assure you that I don't mind having you in the class, as long as you obviously show some interest in my lesson. I…", and here John ran out of words "…have noticed how brilliant you are in chemistry and other professors have confirmed it. Hence I highly suggest that you shouldn't withdraw your studies. I assure you that your presence doesn't make me uncomfortable either."

And it was the truth, but it had been hard. He felt his heart heavy and his head rather dizzy, as he had run twelve miles and was now trying to catch his breath once again.

Sherlock looked at him with the same emotionless aquamarine eyes, imperceptibly nodding.

"Thank you for your advice, professor.", the young man replied, shaking John's hand one more time.

"You're welcome."

Sherlock exited from the office, leaving John with the deepest sensation of confusion he had ever felt in his life. He should've been the one unaffected by what had happened. Sherlock should've been the one hurt for his rejection. After that short speech, John was persuaded that it was actually the opposite. And now he really didn't know what that kiss had meant anymore. For a glimpse of a second he thought he had imagined it, but the brush of Sherlock's soft lips on his hadn't been a dream. He was still feeling it clearly. He unconsciously licked his lower lip, as if to retrace the other man's scent. Nevertheless, after those awkward (for him and not for Sherlock, apparently) five minutes he was certain that his relationship with him had eventually gone back to the student-professor one.

He should have been happy.

And he wasn't.

Why he wasn't, as usual, he didn't know.

He went to his Monday lesson fearing that Sherlock wouldn't have been there. Yet he was. In his usual place in the last row there still was the black curly head. He wasn't following a single word and was playing with his mobile phone. Nevertheless John sighed in relief. At least he had managed to persuade him to not leave the university. But…what was going on in the young man's head? Had he really wanted to leave the university because John had rejected him (even if he had seemed totally unimpressed by it)? Or were there other reasons John was unaware of?

These thoughts bugged through the whole Monday and the whole Tuesday.

Then on Wednesday Sherlock didn't attend the lessons, neither he did on Thursday.

And John started to worry.