Two weeks had turned into two months rather quickly.

John was more interesting than Sherlock had previously imagined. There were so many contradictions in his behavior, it was difficult to piece them all together. The first morning in the flat, Sherlock woke to find him sitting at the kitchen table with a freshly poured cup of tea, the paper propped up against the back of the microscope so it could be read without hands, and John's gun field stripped and being thoroughly cleaned by the man himself. Sherlock hovered in the doorway, his robe half falling off his shoulders, hair a disaster, and could only watch as the cleaning brush swept in and out of the barrel, liberally coating it with oil, before John moved on to the next piece. That gun probably felt the same way people did when they came under Sherlock's scrutiny- exposed, bare, naked...

"I made a pot of tea. There's plenty there for you to have a cup or two as well."

Sherlock went to respond but realized that you actually need air in your lungs in order to make your vocal cords work. He cleared his throat to hide the sharp inhalation.

"Thank you."

"And I tried to find something for breakfast, but there were fingers where the butter's usually kept and the bread looks like it may as well be an experiment of yours at this point. I wanted to wait until you were up before I headed out to Tesco to pick up some things. Anything specific you want?"

"Doesn't matter. I hardly eat."

"I know. Just figured I'd ask."

Sherlock hesitated before bringing the tea to his lips. "No lecture about proper eating habits then?"

"I've known you for two days. Would you honestly listen to me?"

The response was a faint hum that John took to confirm his suspicions. He clicked the slide back into place, Sherlock following his movements carefully.

"How often did you have to use a gun while you were in Afghanistan?"

"Often enough."

"Often enough to lead to you having night terrors? Or are they just from when you were shot?"

The change was subtle, but Sherlock noted it all the same. John's shoulders squared off, he sat up straighter, his hands clenched into fists for half a second before he released them. He didn't look up at Sherlock, choosing instead to focus on repacking his cleaning kit while he asked, "I'm sorry if they disturbed your sleep last night. I was so exhausted, I didn't think to warn you."

"With a psychosomatic limp and a therapist who claimed you had PTSD, you were bound to come with night terrors."

He nodded and stood, closing the newspaper before bringing his now empty mug to the sink and rinsing it out. Sherlock watched the way he held the gun when he was just transporting it, gently, as though it weren't something dangerous and misunderstood.

He had done the shopping, brought over two boxes and a bag of his things from his own apartment before settling himself in to the room upstairs. Sherlock grew used to his daily routine, soon found himself dragging John along on all his cases, happy to find that John was more than willing to skip off a few minutes early from the clinic where he started working or escape from a night out on the town to hunt down some criminal or another. The Yard had gotten used to seeing the doctor tagging along. Donovan still berated him with snide remarks about being a sidekick and/or being just as insane as Sherlock was. Anderson didn't like another medical professional encroaching on his territory.

Lestrade, however, was more than welcoming to John. They discussed football, women, cars, different pubs around the city. Sherlock often found himself distracted by their interactions and would end up calling John over just so he could prove all John's theories wrong or- very rarely- add his own expertise and theories to the mix. He was usually wrong, but he would sometimes help Sherlock down the right path.

One day, though, he didn't come over. He asked Sherlock to wait.

"Sherlock, I know it's not important. You're just going to tell me I'm wrong anyway, so let me finish up this chat. Just a minute or two, yeah?"

It took Sherlock half a minute to close his mouth properly. Why did the body do that? Drop the mouth open when you were in shock. How ridiculous of a reaction?

How did a man like John, small, unassuming John, with his jumpers and laugh lines, stand up to Sherlock Holmes?

He watched the interaction between John and Lestrade carefully. It was a conversation about women. That wasn't important at all. There was a dead body lying in the middle of the floor and they were talking about tips on how to get over a woman who broke your heart.

"John." Sherlock winced at the whine in his own voice. John ignored him. "John," he tried again.

"Oh, for fuck's sake, Sherlock," John said before turning back to Lestrade. "Tomorrow night, we'll meet at the pub, yeah? I know tonight's going to be all this case, but tomorrow we can sit and talk. I'll buy you a pint."

"Thanks, mate. I appreciate it. Go see what he wants."

The roll of his eyes, even though John's head was turned away from him, was practically flashing in neon colors to Sherlock.

"What are your thoughts on the way she was bound?"

"Her own stockings. Not unusual. No defensive wounds, though, so how would he have gotten them off of her...? They don't seem to be torn or anything... Perhaps he grabbed them out of her dresser? But no... She's dressed in work attire, but it's a dress so she would have felt it necessary to wear stockings..."

Sherlock's mouth was doing that thing where it opened itself in shock again because everything John was saying was true.

"This is the only one like this, right? We're just here because she's a high profile victim, right?" Lestrade nodded in response to John's question. "It was her boyfriend then, or her lover. One or the other because I'm pretty sure she's trailing along two blokes. Started out as consensual, got aggressive. Lover could have asked her to leave the boyfriend and she refused. Or the boyfriend could have taken advantage of the situation-. No. Time of death. Just a few hours ago. Lover then, while the boyfriend was still at work."

He looked up at Sherlock. "So, how wrong was I?"

Sherlock didn't speak.

"Sherlock? Are you alright?"

"You weren't wrong."

"About anything?"

"Correct."

"Really?"

"Don't make me repeat myself, John, it's dull."

So Sherlock launched into a complete detail of all the evidence he had seen and gathered. It took only a few minutes for him to go through the victims contact list and find the lover. Lestrade dispatched some officers, the coroner took over, and that was the end of that. Sherlock was contemplating which restaurant they should order from. It wasn't a particularly interesting case, so maybe just the Chinese place. Indian was for mildly interesting cases, Angelo's was for very interesting cases, and Chinese was for the not so interesting ones. Maybe he should ask John what he'd prefer.

"Well, mate, looks like we can go to the pub tonight if you'd like. Nothing left to do here. Open and shut," John was saying to Lestrade.

"Sure, yeah. Once the arrest comes through, I'll be about an hour with the paper work. Say Sullivan's at 7:00?"

"Great. I'm already looking forward to the crisps."

"Thanks. I do appreciate this. I don't wanna be drinking alone. That's just not a good road to start down."

"Anytime, Greg. Well, Sherlock, are you coming? We should clear out so they can finish up here."

They make their way off the scene and into a cab back to Baker Street.

"We always get take away after a case ends."

Sherlock's not sure why there wasn't any preamble to that, but there it was anyway.

"Oh. Sorry. Greg's going through a bit of a rough time-."

"First name basis with him already? I don't even call him Greg."

"Haven't you noticed? He and I hit it off pretty well. We're just going out for a drink and some bar food. Talk, chat, watch the game. His wife's leaving him, you know. I'm just being a friend. I would have invited you along but-." Sherlock felt the look of distaste and mild horror cross his face and John laughed. "Precisely. So, you can handle take away without me, right? Or I can pick something up on my way back from the pub for you if you'd prefer."

"Forget about it."

"Sherlock-."

"It's fine, John. No worries."

The rest of the taxi ride passes in slightly awkward silence. Sherlock's aware of John's furtive glances, the slight tremble in his left hand, the worry lines on his forehead, but he can't find any words to explain why it's not actually fine. They had a routine, that's all. John was messing it up. It was an inconvenience. It didn't actually hurt.

But that night, Sherlock stared at the ceiling in his usual thinking pose, trying to sort through what exactly his problem was. He stayed there until he heard John's footsteps on the stairs, slightly heavier with the alcohol blurring some of his usual care. The door to the flat opened and the smell of food and the smoke from the bar hit Sherlock immediately.

"I picked up Chinese on the way back. Dumplings, just like you like, and some friend rice. Figured you wouldn't have gotten anything for yourself."

It was almost impossible to keep the smile suppressed as John spoke.

"Damn it, Sherlock, move yourself over. I got myself some food too, and I'd like to be able to use the coffee table too, you know."

Sherlock swung his legs around and saw that John was taking the food out and laying it out on the table already. It smelled delicious.

Chinese food and John after a case. This was how it was supposed to be.

Then it hit him, what he had been feeling earlier.

Jealously.

How disgusting.