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Chapter Text

She tried to tell herself it was the wrong colour. A new one she'd bought from Boots just last week: Passionate. She'd wanted the one marked Luscious instead, but the name alone had made her blush. She just wasn't a luscious kind of person, and she couldn't imagine Sherlock saying the word either without sneering. After dithering in the cosmetics aisle for nearly twenty minutes she'd worked up enough bravery to ask the pharmacy assistant's advice. The girl had insisted that Passionate was the one for Molly Hooper.

For a few moments, Molly almost believed that pharmacy assistant had just been wrong about the colour. After all, could she expect sophistication and taste from a girl of seventeen who drew her eyebrows on?

But it wasn't the wrong colour, or the wrong lipstick, or the lipstick at all. It was her.

Taking refuge in the disabled toilet, Molly scrubbed at her mouth with a paper towel that she'd dipped under the cold water faucet. What was the use in wearing lipstick, anyway? Waste of money. Sherlock didn't like her when she was wearing lipstick, or not wearing lipstick. He didn't think she looked pretty, because her mouth was too small. Sherlock... Sherlock wouldn't think she was pretty if her mouth was bigger, or if she didn't have a mouth at all.

Guilt nipped at her chest. It was wrong of her to monopolise the disabled toilet when she didn't need it.

At least you have your health, Molly Hooper.

But she couldn't bring herself to use the Ladies. People might see. People might see her as she leaned her forehead against the mirror and felt the hard, clammy kiss of glass against her skin, her breath fogging the reflection of her mouth. Her mouth that was too small, even red and swollen as it was from where the paper towel had run roughshod over it.

She screwed the mushy lump of towel in her palm, then threw it in a nearby bin, stood up straight, and practiced her best smile for the benefit of her reflection.

Sherlock wanted a cup of coffee. Black, two sugars. She couldn't make him happy, but she could make him coffee.

Chapter Text

Oh dear. Why did he have to put skulls everywhere?

Mrs Hudson looked around her upstairs flat in something close to despair. Skulls. Everywhere. He'd put a large picture of a skull up on the near wall, no doubt having first punched holes in her lovely chocolate-brown and cream coloured wallpaper to do it. Then there was a big animal skull on the wall between the front windows, with headphones on it. And on the mantelpiece -

Oh no. Sherlock…

"Mrs Hudson!"

The door to the street slammed shut and Sherlock bounded up the staircase, three at a time, like an overexcited puppy. He was ruddy and chilled from running the short distance from the kerb to the door.

"Mrs Hudson, excellent news!" He threw his arms around her, squeezing her out of breath. He didn't smell like those nasty cigarettes he smoked today, and she was glad of it.

"Look at you, Sherlock, what are you all excited about now?" She smiled indulgently at him. "Well, never mind, it'll keep for the moment. Sherlock, we have to talk about -"

"I've got someone coming to look at the flat -"

"Sherlock -"

"Tomorrow evening, seven o'clock."

"Sherlock, dear, these skulls -"

"Met him at Barts today. I knew Mike would oblige me with someone I can work with-"

"… Him? Oh, Sherlock, how lovely, I'm so pleased for you. Well you needn't worry, I can be discreet about it if you'd prefer your brother not know about that. Now Sherlock, about these skulls -"

"Some coffee, Mrs Hudson."

"I'm your landlady, dear, not your housekeeper, and the magic word would go a long way. Just this once. Not your mother either. Now Sherlock, dear, these skulls. I don't mind your picture, though I wish you'd asked before you -"

"We'll need to come to some agreement on the rent, of course -"

"But really, the one on that wall between the windows is quite distasteful -"

"He's a doctor. Or rather, he was one, but doesn't practice these days, and needs a place to live that he can afford on an army pension."

"Army pension? I thought he was a doctor. Now Sherlock, I really don't like you having that one over there on the mantelpiece. Even if it's not real, it's not decent, is it?"

"I regret to inform you that it is real, and who cares about decent, when there's finally someone interesting moving in? Coffee, Mrs Hudson. The kettle finished boiling eleven seconds ago, and I have some science equipment to bring up."

Mrs Hudson smiled after Sherlock as he clattered down the stairs. Like a herd of elephants, he was. Bless him.

He might have been her son.

Chapter Text

Children had been born and raised in the house in Lauriston Gardens, and people had known joy and sorrow there. They had known both love and hate. Brides had adorned themselves there. People had made love under that roof. Wept there. Died there.

Now, nothing ever wandered through those decaying, empty rooms except the wind, and the occasional band of neighbourhood children seeking a place to play out of the cold of a January evening.

The day had been one of white skies and nipping little breezes; it was dying quickly amid the smell of woodfires burning and the sound of children being called in to supper. Things were drab in a Brixton January. Everything was the grey of brooding winter skies and twilight smoke.

The woman that Amber Stricker, Kyle Suter and the three Worsley children found lying face-down in the upper bedroom of number fourteen was neither drab nor grey. She was splendid and pink, like a sunrise. Like a love-heart, or a wrapped sweet, or a lipsticked kiss.

At five minutes to six in the evening, a call was put forward to 999 to report the discovery of a woman's body.

Chapter Text

"I'm not using Kelly's deodorant," she objected when he suggested it. "Isn't it bad enough that I'm doing unspeakable things with her husband on the kitchen floor...? Thanks..." she took his own deodorant from him with a glance over her shoulder, black ringlets bouncing.

Jeffrey Anderson was leaning in the bathroom doorway, watching Sally Donovan put her bra back on. "Bad enough?" he repeated. "It was pretty good for me."

Ugh. He was good for a bit of fun, as long as you didn't let him talk too much afterwards. 

"Hope it was good for you," he conceded politely. And that was the problem, she thought. It bloody was good. "And anyway, Kelly will never know -"

He was cut off when her phone started ringing from where she'd left it on the bedside table.

They looked at each other. He smirked.

"Don't you dare," she said, and she wasn't being coy. "You go for that phone, and I swear I'll break your arm."

It hadn't been funny when he'd pulled that stunt last month, either. She'd had a hell of a time trying to explain her way out of that one. Still in her bra and skirt, she padded barefoot back into the bedroom and retrieved the phone. He followed her in as she answered it.

Boss. Murder. Another one. Some kids found a dead woman in a house.

She asked Lestrade where. She knew exactly where, but it never hurt to have a good innocent tone in working order. Lestrade had called Anderson's phone less than five minutes ago with the same news.

Even after a year of on-again-off-again, she still called him 'Anderson' to his face. Nobody, so far as she knew, ever called him by his first name. In fact, she'd had him twice and stayed over once before she worked out what his first name even was.

And now he was being an insufferable creep and breathing in her free ear while she tried to write down directions. Why did he have to spoil things? Next he'd probably be bothering her for a kiss.

She told Lestrade she'd be on her way, hung up, and shoved Anderson hard. "I told you to leave me alone when I'm on the phone," she growled at him. "You're not funny. Leave fifteen minutes after me, okay?"

He frowned in confusion. "Why?"

"Because you live ten minutes further away from Brixton than I do." She sighed. How Anderson had managed to get his forensic qualifications was beyond her. The man was a dim-bulb. "And if you smirk at me when we're there, never again and I'll break your arm. Now where the fuck is my coat?"

Chapter Text

Rache.

The dying woman had scratched something into the floor. With her fingernails.

Rachel? Lestrade had been wrong before, and with a fourth victim on his hands, he wasn't prepared to take chances anymore. Down on his heels beside where the corpse lay unfurled like a flower fallen from a bouquet, he pondered for a second, replacing the l with every letter in succession. Rachea? Racheb? Rachec? Rachel was the only one that fit. Rache wasn't a word. At least, not a word in English.

Hadn't been here for long. The dingy upstairs room where she'd been found still reeked of her perfume, and not some sort of funereal, floral scent either. She smelled, Lestrade thought, exactly like the pink sugar mice he and Julie still put into Hayley's Christmas stocking every year.

He'd have preferred her to smell like putrefaction than like a living, breathing woman. A woman who liked the colour pink. Shoes. Nails. Surprising that her hair wasn't pink. Lestrade felt that there was probably something in all of that.

The question was, what?

Luckily, he knew someone who could tell him. Unluckily, that someone was easily the most obnoxious person that Greg Lestrade had ever met. Luckily, he had his number on hand. Unluckily, one of the many obnoxious things Sherlock Holmes did was refuse to answer his phone for days on end.

"Sherlock, for God's sake," Lestrade muttered to the brrrrring line. He'd wandered into the vacant adjourning room to make the call, checking over his shoulder that he hadn't been overheard. There were going to be plenty of unhappy campers from the Met when Sherlock himself showed up. If he did. Wasn't even answering messages on his website this week. Something about him moving flats.

A brief click as the line dropped in, and for a second, his hopes rose. This was premature. He was speaking to a voicemail service.

"Sherlock, answer your bloody phone," he said down the line, then hung up. All those smart-arse, know-it-all texts the day before, and now the man couldn't even be bothered to pick up the line to be, you know, helpful.

"Donovan," he called down to his sergeant as he began to make his way down the stairs. She was in the front hall, talking to a PC in uniform. "I need to leave for a while. You're in charge until I get back. Don't let anyone move her, and keep as many people out as you can."

She was looking at him suspiciously by this time, as well she might when the most senior officer on duty decided to leave a major crime scene and not explain where he was going. "Where-"

"I'll be back."

Oh, well this was going to please Sherlock and his gigantic ego. Sherlock Holmes: the man DI Lestrade literally went to when he needed help. Now where the hell had he moved into? He'd read the address on the website just that morning, and then promptly ignored it. Somewhere in... Baker Street?

Chapter Text

He'd taken the banknote from the ticket machine at the station and folded it carefully into his wallet, snug behind his military ID. Five quid. It had to last three days. That was why he was walking up to Baker Street, even though icicles of sharp pain were already stabbing at the back of his right leg, digging deeper into the muscle every time his foot made contact with the frigid concrete.

It was a five minute walk that had taken him thirteen.

And what was it all for? His heart sank as he arrived at his destination.

John, what the hell were you thinking? This is Central London. You have five quid to your name. Do the maths. You can't afford to live in the middle of the city with a man with an accent like that.

Together we should be able to afford it...

John hated himself for a second. He should have said it yesterday, right there and then: I'm sorry, I don't think I can afford it. How much money did this Sherlock Holmes person think he had? He couldn't afford a place like this split eight ways, let alone two.

Well... maybe he'd at least have a look. Maybe it was a really terrible, tiny flat. Infested with rats or something. Though he couldn't imagine the sharp-dressed Mr. Holmes having his eye on digs like that.

Looking at nice things he couldn't afford to buy was a low-level torture that John couldn't help but indulge in sometimes.

Balancing awkwardly on the step, he clutched the ornate brass knocker in one hand and knocked- noticing at that very moment that he should have just used the doorbell. Dammit.

"Hello."

He turned. Sherlock Holmes was getting out of a cab. Of course he was getting out of a- was that a fifty pound note he handed the driver?

"Ah... Mr. Holmes..." he faltered, suddenly self-conscious about his own accent and diction.

"Sherlock, please."

John shifted his cane from his right hand to his left in flustered embarrassmen t- handshakes always drew attention to the cane. And 'Sherlock' was such an... awkward... name.

But then I won't be using it for very long, will I?

"Well, this is a prime spot... must be expensive..." He heard himself and flinched. How utterly crass. He'd only meant to comment on the nice location, not gripe about the money. But Sherlock smiled tersely.

"The landlady, Mrs Hudson. She's given me a special deal..."

It was years later when John finally understood what the 'special deal' was: whatever Dr. Watson can afford. Tell him he's paying half. Mycroft and I will make up the rest.

Chapter Text

The man beside him in the cab- the former army doctor with the second-hand phone and all of five pounds to his name, if Sherlock's observations were correct- was silent for a few seconds. Sherlock held his breath, waiting for the sledgehammer: piss off, Freak.

"That," he said slowly, "was amazing."

Amazing : A-ma-zing: adj. Causing great surprise or sudden wonder.

Sherlock ventured to release the breath he'd been holding. Well, that was... unexpected. "You think so...?" he ventured.

"Of course it was. It was extraordinary... it was quite extraordinary."

Extraordinary : Ex-traor-din-ary: adj.

1. Beyond what is usual, ordinary, regular or established.

2. Exception in character, amount, extent, degree, etc.; noteworthy; remarkable.

3. (of an official, employee, etc.) outside or additional to the ordinary staff; having a special, often temporary task or responsibility.

Clearly, Dr. John Watson didn't mean the last of these three possible meanings for "extraordinary." And combining both possibilities of what the man did mean with the definition of a-ma-zing brought a chastened sort of silence over the self-proclaimed consulting detective, even if it was only for a moment.

The man wasn't being sarcastic.

Maybe he wasn't trying to insult me when he said the police don't consult amateurs.

Maybe... maybe I attacked him with those deductions. I called his brother a 'drunk.'

He called me 'amazing'. He called me 'extraordinary'.

"... That's not what people normally say..." Sherlock faltered.

"What do people normally say?"

And now this John Watson cared what people normally said to him. Sherlock hesitated for a second.

"'Piss off,'" he confessed, with a sort of wry smile.

John Watson smiled, too- the first real smile Sherlock Holmes had seen from him. But the truth of the matter was that piss off was not what people normally said. It was what they always said... when they weren't using stronger terms than that. Sherlock leaned back into his seat. He was staring at the lighted shops flashing past the cab windows, but he was thinking about the man sitting beside him.

Amazing. Extraordinary.

Chapter Text

Nineteen months ago, Captain John Watson had thrown a 6', 110kg fellow soldier over his shoulder and run him to cover. During a training exercise.

Thirteen months ago, Captain John Watson had kicked down a solid-hinged door and been first into a house in Kandahar identified as a possible hot-bed of insurgents. And been disappointed when it hadn't been.

Ten months ago, Captain John Watson had helped two others lift an overturned jeep off a young corporal after an offroad accident in Helmand Province, and spent a freezing night in the desert alone with the injured boy, awaiting backup from the R.A.M.C.

Seven months ago, Captain John Watson had been a major player in the successful seven-hour-long operation to restore Major Lance Gilbert's left leg, severed in yet another jeep accident.

Six months ago, Captain John Watson had broke cover and gone out under heavy fire to a boy named Josh Harris. Harris had come home in a coffin, and John had come home in a coma.

And now, on this January night, he was trying to explain to a police sergeant that he was stranded in Brixton with five pounds to his name and no way of walking home because of his bloody leg.

Try the main road.

Well, thank you for that insight, Sergeant Donovan.

Limping off toward the main road, he paused for a second. Surely... if he asked her to call a cab... He couldn't pay for it, of course. But weren't the police supposed to help...?

He shook his head. He neither liked nor trusted Sergeant Donovan; that smirk of hers had been directed mostly at Sherlock Holmes, but had she been... delighted, when she realised Sherlock had left without him? She'd be all-too-happy to rub that in, even if she was prepared to help.

John thought briefly of DI Lestrade... he seemed an affable, tolerant, efficient kind of person. Maybe he'd be able to help without turning this into Pity-John-Watson hour.

John, what the hell are you thinking? He's a homicide detective at a major crime scene, he's got other things on his mind than worrying how you get home.

Maybe he should call Sherlock... see if he was okay? After all, surely he hadn't run off like that on purpose. But then he remembered, too late, that he'd never asked for the man's phone number.

Dammit.

He fumbled to check that he still had his wallet on him. Maybe there'd be a late night bus...? He wasn't sure how far five pounds was going to get him, but what other choice was there but to try?

He grit his teeth. This was going to hurt.

Chapter Text

Sherlock hauled the pink case onto the chair in self-satisfied triumph. Relatively clean, even... considering that it had been in a skip for at least two hours before he'd found it. Fumbling at the zipper- gloves were awkward but necessary- he opened it and surveyed the contents.

Change of clothes, underwear. Toiletries bag (this very large.) Hideous romance novel.

No phone.

"John," he said over his shoulder, "What do you notice..."

He stopped. His voice had met only the emptiness of the flat behind him. Rocking back on his heels, he closed his eyes and remembered that the last time he'd seen John Watson had been at the crime scene. He hadn't been with him when he'd found the case.

He had no idea where John was now.

An odd feeling plucked at his chest... one he so rarely felt that he had to simply stop and use a process of elimination to work out what it was. Not pathological. He wasn't ill. Emotional, then? Why emotional? Nothing had happened to him that night to provoke it.

No, not to him. But the more Sherlock thought about it, the more convinced he was that it had to do with something outside of himself. With John Watson, in fact, who was more than likely stranded on the other side of London on a cold winter night with psychosomatic leg pain and five pounds to his name.

Sherlock covered his mouth thoughtfully and considered for a few seconds. It was unthinkable for him to... say he was sorry. No, well, it wasn't his fault that John couldn't and didn't keep up, why should he be sorry? All the same, perhaps... maybe he should give John something to do. Get him to...

Sherlock glanced at his own mobile phone, sitting innocently on the coffee table.

Get him to send a text. Some nonsense about using his own phone being too dangerous... The ex-army adrenaline junkie would lap that right up, no doubt. He was used to giving orders- and taking them. He'd be unlikely to ask too many questions.

He looked back across at the pink case. Yes, he could definitely get John to text the dead woman's phone... and then an exciting stakeout might make up for being marooned in the same street as Sally Donovan. A dose of unnecessary drama might do wonders for that leg pain of his, too... Sherlock was thinking in reams by this time.

It's nine o'clock.

He's probably hungry.

He's broke... and a man as stubborn as that would prefer to starve than take my money.

Sherlock shut his eyes. Angelo's, where he'd been eating on-the-house for the past six months, had a nice view of 22 Northumberland Street from the front windows.

He picked up the phone. Table for two this time, Angelo.

Chapter Text

The test had been passed. Now the only thing to be done was to make sure Dr. John Watson didn't end up a waterlogged corpse in the Thames.

Standing in the damp, fluorescent-patched shadows of the chilly warehouse and awaiting the arrival of his own car home, Mycroft was thinking hard about the man who'd just dismissed himself from his presence.

Few people had ever successfully run the gauntlet of Mycroft's watchful eye over his little brother. He had offered money to "ease the way" of everyone who came close to Sherlock. Most had been stupid enough to accept it. Generally, they disappeared from Sherlock's life when that happened.

Some of them disappeared altogether.

There were a few notable exceptions to the pattern, of course. That Lestrade fellow from Scotland Yard had told Mycroft exactly what he could do with his money, in even stronger terms than John Watson had. I don't take bribes. Martha Hudson had been angry, and told Mycroft he should be ashamed of himself and if he were her son, she'd put him over her knee well-and-proper. And then there had been Miss Hooper, that timid little pathologist from the hospital. She'd staunchly shook her head- and then burst into such a violent fit of crying that he'd offered her a sour but well-meant, "well, there's no need to cry about it," and told her who he really was.

Remarkable reactions, really, from some very ordinary people.

And now, Dr. John Watson. Born in Chelmsford, Essex. Twin sister named Harriet. Studied at King's College, Cambridge. Formerly of the Fifth Northumberland Fusiliers, and had nearly made out an entire second year of duty in Afghanistan before being wounded and sent home. PTSD. Had a very pliable therapist. A pleasant-looking, though noticably small man, in a profession where such things mattered.

And he had not yielded one inch to Mycroft Holmes.

Very loyal, very quickly.

Sherlock had taken him to a crime scene that night- Sherlock, who did not play nicely with others and preferred to work alone. Sherlock, who had promptly left Dr. Watson at the crime scene and given him every reason in the world to divulge discreet details to the first rich, well-dressed, vaguely threatening personage who kidnapped him, took him out to a warehouse in Bermondsey and offered him a guaranteed month of food and rent.

Dr. Watson was a person of importance to Sherlock Holmes, so much was clear. And it therefore followed that he was now a person of interest to Mycroft Holmes.

Mycroft's phone bleeped out a text alert. Fishing into the pocket of his suit and drawing it out, he saw that it was from the girl he'd named Anthea, and whose real name he couldn't be bothered to remember.

He asked to be taken to Baker Street.

Thumbing the keypad a little awkwardly, Mycroft sent the response.

Take him. Make sure he arrives safely.

Chapter Text

Well, he hasn't got a girlfriend, anyway.

Harry had come out of the closet when she and her brother were nineteen- and had almost instantly turned and scrabbled madly at the closet handle, trying to get back in. She'd blamed John for that. It'll be fine, you said. It's the nineties, not the nineteenth century. Nobody will think badly of you, you said. Thanks so much for that, John.

It was true that John had said those things. He'd also said other things Harry never spoke of, like why should your whole life be a lie? Because you're scared of a few bigots?

She'd started drinking heavily after she came out.

To be fair about things, most people were pretty okay with it. But then, most people had assumed Harry was just "going through a rebellious phase" after losing her mother to cancer two years before. She was just... pretending to be gay? John had never understood it. Why would anyone in their right mind do that?

It was partly why he'd been adamant that she should stop pretending to be straight.

Only weeks later, she'd been mysteriously fired from a job she'd always hated. Probably the drinking, not the fact that she was gay. Six months after that, John had punched some lout on campus who'd called her a dyke and spent a few hours in a holding cell over it. No regrets, even though he'd knocked the guy unconscious and had come perilously close to losing his scholarship over that.

Much later, there'd been all that drama with Clara, of course... when John had encouraged his sister to come out, he hadn't expected his then-girlfriend to fall in love with her and end up the sister-in-law for seven years. But on the whole, Harriet Anne Watson came out as a lesbian and the world still turned.

So if Sherlock Holmes was gay, the world was still going to turn. John could live with that- and live with him. Why not? They were going to be sharing a flat, not a bloody bed.

His landlady assumes he's gay. The guy I met earlier in the warehouse was a complete arse about it. Then that Angelo guy...

Sherlock probably thinks if he tells me he's gay, I'll run for the hills.

Well, this is awkward. I don't even know him. Still, should probably say something. If he's gay and too scared to just tell me... I guess he just needs to me to let him know it's fine.

Chapter Text

"It's fine, let me do it."

John had been halfway through a plate of Five-spice Chicken when he'd realised that the powder burns on his fingers were... well, burns. They hurt. While he was sure that running them under cold water was much too little and too late, he'd gone to the men's and done it anyway. What he hadn't expected was that Sherlock was going to come with him and stand over his shoulder curiously while he did it, giving a running commentary on what he should do and how he should do it.

It was weeks - months - later when John looked back and saw this gesture for what it was.

"It's no use trying to wash it off," Sherlock told him in that annoying know-it-all way he had. "You're going to need to-"

"Yes, I know." John spoke through grit teeth. "I've done this before."

"When?"

It was a few seconds before John registered the question; when he did, he shook himself slightly. "Sorry, what?"

"When have you done this before?"

At this, John twisted the faucet off, reached out for a paper towel, and turned to face him. But there was no malice in Sherlock's grey eyes - only a childlike curiosity. He thought back to earlier that night, and the look on his face when he realised that loudly wondering why a woman would "still be upset" about her stillborn child was A Bit Not Good.

He wasn't trying to be rude. Sherlock just didn't have much of a grasp on basic social interactions.

"I don't think I want to be talking about this with you in the men's at a restaurant," John finally said, a little stiffly. "You really shouldn't have come in here with me anyway."

"Why not?"

"Because you... just don't do things like that..." John decided to give up for the time being. It had been too crazy a day for him to explain to someone - a grown man, a genius, and someone he'd met yesterday - why you shouldn't hover over people in a public toilet. Even if they only happened to be making a half-arsed effort to treat powder burns in their fingers after they'd shot someone dead...

"That's your phone," Sherlock said as a high-pitched trilling sound emanated from John's left jeans pocket.

"Yeah, I know." John flicked the crumpled paper towel into the waste-paper basket beside him.

"It's your sister," Sherlock prompted him impatiently. "Are you not going to answer it?"

"Not if it actually is Harry, no. And how would you know who it is?" John pulled his phone out of his pocket, sliding the cover up and checking the incoming number.

Harry.

"John, do try to keep up." Sherlock sounded disappointed. He hoisted himself up on the countertop next to the sink, legs dangling cheerfully, as if he was the world's tallest six-year-old. "It's just past one a.m. Four different television channels have a brief five-minute news bulletin at that hour. The story of the dead cabbie has just broken out, and your sister's now convinced you're lying dead on the linoleum in one of the classrooms back at the college."

"Yeah, well, that'd serve her right for not listening to the news properly," John muttered. "She'll live. I'll call her tomorrow."

The phone rang out; there was a short silence and then the muffled ping of a voicemail alert. Sherlock looked briefly disappointed.

"Oh, don't." John smiled wryly. "Don't start lecturing me about Harry."

"I wasn't going to lecture you." Sherlock sounded vaguely offended.

"Everybody else does."

Sherlock snorted in contempt. "I," he said haughtily, "am not everybody else."

No. No, you're certainly not, I think we can agree on that.

"Well good, 'cause you're not in a position to talk about playing nice with family. I've already heard about Christmas dinners with your brother," he teased.

"And I suppose," Sherlock huffed, crossing his arms defensively, "Saint Mycroft wants recognition from the Vatican for tolerating me. You've met him. How pleasant do you think he makes Christmas?"

"I'll bet it's never boring." John looked down at his hands again. So far as he could tell, both of them had been perfectly steady since he'd first met Mycroft. And a good thing too. I don't think Sherlock realises how close that bullet came to his own shoulder... "Anyway," he said. "It's getting late."

Sherlock shrugged, as if the idea of quarter-past-one in the morning being 'late' had only just occurred to him. "Yes," he said blandly, sliding off the countertop. "Yes, I quite agree. Let's go home, then."

Perhaps it had been quite early that night- before the chase after the cab. Maybe it had been during the drugs bust. John was never sure later; but it didn't really matter. What mattered was that at some point during that night, he'd come to realise that Sherlock Holmes was his flatmate and that 221B Baker Street was home.

Chapter Text

"How's your leg?"

John frowned, looking across the desk at Detective Inspector Lestrade in confusion. He and Sherlock had come to New Scotland Yard that afternoon to speak with Lestrade about the events of the evening before; Sherlock had spoken privately with him first and had now flounced off somewhere, and John, to his surprise, had also been called in to be interviewed.

Though Lestrade, slumped tiredly in the office chair across the cluttered desk from him, didn't seem in a hurry to move off the small talk.

"'S fine," John said at last. "Why?"

"Well, 'cause it's just that you were using a cane for half of yesterday, really bad limp, but you seemed to get over it pretty quick."

John felt a brief flare of anger. DI Lestrade wasn't the first person he'd known to act like having a good day with his leg was the same thing as faking a bad day. The reward for getting one damn day without pain when you rested your leg and agony when you walked on it was always some smug bastard accusing you of faking it for fun.

Though so far, this was far better than the best good day he'd had with his leg; no pain in it at all, even when he walked.

"Comes and goes," he muttered. "Psychosomatic."

"Okay." Lestrade shrugged and leaned back in his chair thoughtfully for a few seconds. "So I won't keep you long, Dr. Watson-"

"It's John," he interjected.

Lestrade paused in surprise, as if nobody had ever asked him what his name was before. "Greg," he finally offered. "Don't wear it out in front of the team. Anyway, John, I won't keep you long. I've just got something to show you, if I could."

He beckoned John over to his open laptop. John, getting up and edging past the desk, saw the page open at his own blog, and felt a sudden self-conscious twinge in his chest as Lestrade highlighted a line of text with the mouse.

"This is your blog, then?" he asked casually.

"Uh, yes."

"Didn't take you very long to write up what happened."

"It's been a while since I had something to write about," John said. "My-"

He cut himself off cleanly before he could say it: my therapist wants me to write in it every day.

"Entertaining stuff," Lestrade remarked. "Read that bit out for me, will you?"

I could see he was about to take one of the pills...

"See, that's awfully good eyesight you've got, John Watson, if you were really standing in the front courtyard the whole time waiting for us to get there, like you said in your statement to Donovan last night."

John swallowed. "Yeah, well, um..."

Lying had never been John's forte.

"I'm not stupid, despite what Sherlock thinks," Lestrade said. "The only place you could have seen all that happen is from the window the shot was fired from. And let me say, damn good shot it was, too."

"I... um."

"But it burned your fingers a bit." Lestrade glanced at John's right hand. "Fired it off in a hurry, I bet."

There was a sudden silence.

"What are you going to do?" John finally asked.

"We had the pills tested this morning," Lestrade said, as if he hadn't heard. "They were both poisoned. Cyanide. You saved Sherlock's life. God only knows why, but I'm glad you did." He closed the laptop and stood up slowly. "John, if I ever catch you admitting to a serious crime on your blog again, God help you," he said in a low voice. "'Cause I certainly won't. I've got no more questions."

Chapter Text

You're not haunted by the war, Dr. Watson. You miss it.

John wore Mycroft Holmes's diagnosis like a medal pinned to his chest, close to his heart. On that first drowsy morning, he picked the cane up often, craving the hard chill under his palm. A ruthless constant in a world now flooded with Chinese meals eaten in the dark and violins at midnight. That night, he propped it up in the shadows at the foot of his bed. It gleamed, bleached by the cold light of the streetlights. Silent and still. An old soldier on sentry duty.

Chapter Text

It was a name nobody spoke, a name Sherlock was not meant to know in this lifetime.

But Sherlock had spoken that name. Casually. Thoughtfully. Restlessly.

The third morning at Baker Street was tinted the colour of ashes. John blundered down the narrow, dark stairs in his pyjamas, seeking out coffee, and found the kitchen in dim, silent repose. Sherlock had scrawled four words onto an envelope and tacked it on the fridge.

Moriarty.

Mori art ti.

In a rush, John understood. Moriarty was more than a man. He was a creed.

Mori art ti.

To die is an art.

Chapter Text

Sherlock looks up from behind his fortress of books at the table.

"Dinner." John's head is tilted slightly, like a question mark. "Want some?"

"... Dinner. Yes. Fine."

Fried rice swiftly appears in front of Sherlock, a savour of garlic under soy and onions and new plastic chopsticks. John clatters around the kitchen, cleaning the wok while his own meal sits meekly growing cold next to the kettle.

"You made this?"

"Yeah. Don't you like it?"

Sherlock grunts and pokes rice into his mouth, embarrassed. He's never before eaten fried rice that didn't come from a restaurant.

Chapter Text

Sherlock slithers onto the living room sofa, feet bare, eyes vacant, flicking his dressing gown up over his knees. Looking across at him, John sees what he expects by now: a beige nicotine patch peeking out from beneath his sleeve.

It occurs to him, as it has many times over his first fortnight at Baker Street, that he's never seen Sherlock actually putting a patch on.

And even three patches wouldn't give you that much of a buzz.

John gets up, slapping the newspaper down on the arm of his chair and not at all surprised when Sherlock doesn't even blink. Nor does he seem to realise what John is up to, until he's crossed the floor and ripped the patch off his wrist.

Sherlock yelps, affronted, and tucks his hand under the other elbow. But it's too late. John yanks it back out again, turning his hand palm-side up and surveying the new syringe prick and faded, bluish scribbles on the inside of his arm.

"Yep," he says. "I bloody thought that's what the patches were for. Where's the rest of it?"

"Where's the rest of what?" Sherlock demands peevishly, pulling his arm back and rubbing his pink, stinging wrist.

"Whatever it is you're shooting up. Go and get it. Jesus Christ, Sherlock!"

Sherlock sits up, a little unsteadily. More than anything, he seems hurt.

"I can't live here when you've got drugs in the flat," John continues, calmly but with a little tremor underneath. An adapted kind of parade rest, arms folded, as he tries to decide how to react.

Sherlock looks up at him sulkily, waiting out the lecture. It takes John by surprise a bit—Harry always gives him hell when he catches her out booze-handed. "I could lose my medical license for this," he says. "And we could both go to prison. Get whatever you're hiding right now, or I'm going to find it myself."

"Lestrade couldn't," Sherlock says, smirking in a way that clenches John's right fist.

"Your brother could, I bet. How about I ring him up and ask?"

It's only when John actually picks up the landline handset from beside his chair that Sherlock gets to his feet and disappears down the corridor.

John doesn't follow. He waits until Sherlock emerges again with what seems like an entire bloody pharmacy full of syringes and vials and powders and pills.

"Right." John surveys the stash and swallows more anger. Has this idiot got any idea what street drugs do to people? "Now you're going to destroy this stuff. All of it."

"Or what?" Sherlock snarls back.

"Or I'm packing up right now and moving out this afternoon."

Sherlock looks at him, astonished, trying to decide if he really means it. "But I need it," he finally mumbles into his palms.

"Then keep it," John says with a shrug. "But I can't live with you, Sherlock. Not when you're like this. Not when you're shooting up in the flat."

The hypodermics end up in John's medical kit. It takes Sherlock half an hour in the bathroom to bring himself to flush the rest.

Chapter Text

"ATM." Sherlock points to it, gleaming among stainless steel and plate glass, as they leave Shad Sanderson. "Don't ask me what the PIN is."

John approaches as if it were an IED; abjectly punches in the numbers. Sherlock stands behind, keeping an eye on the street.

Do you want a receipt?

No. John stabs at the button. He might be scrounging Sherlock's money, but he's not going to find out how much he has.

Twenty quid less, now, he thinks bitterly, with a vicious swipe at the cash poking out of the slot; a paper tongue from a metal mouth.

Chapter Text

John folded the cheque carefully and tucked it into his wallet, behind his Military ID and impotent key card. "So," he said. "An incentive…"

Sebastian Wilkes raised his eyebrows. "I'm sorry?"

"Just something Sherlock said the other day." John glanced through the open door to his left. Sherlock was nowhere in sight, but he could hear him… was Sherlock Holmes laughing? Now that didn't exactly happen every day. "He told you that he didn't need an incentive," he went on. "What'd he mean by that?"

Sebastian reflected on this for a couple of seconds, then chuckled. "Oh," he said. "You know, I wondered if he was still gnawing on that old bone. I suppose he's still not over that whole thing with his brother."

"And what's that?" John wasn't in the least surprised at the reference to Mycroft. It had already become clear to John that Sherlock's brother was the most well-connected man in Britain; people who didn't know him knew of him.

"Second year of university," Sebastian said, narrowing his eyes in a way he clearly thought made him look shrewd. "Everybody in the faculty hated him by then… he was practically a recluse. So his brother decided to buy him a friend."

"You."

Sebastian nodded in self-satisfaction. "I bunked with him for eight months, until he had a heroin overdose, or something, and spent six months in a loony bin somewhere. By the time he came back he was a year behind the rest of us and didn't have a thing to say to me, so he must have found out Mycroft was paying me." He shrugged. "I did what I was asked to do, so I earned the money fair and square. Even took him on a few double-dates – not that he was anything other than embarrassing. I was lucky to get any at all with him hanging around with that tombstone face of his."

John reflected that yes, Sebastian Wilkes was lucky to have "got any at all" at university, but it was more likely his own smug face and slimy personality that had scuppered his chances at dating, not a "friendship" with Sherlock Holmes.

"Though he was useful in some ways. He could always pick out the girls who were dirty, if you know what I mean." Sebastian clasped his palms behind his head and swung slightly on his padded leather chair.

"Yeah, I bet he could." Sherlock had already informed John just the night before of how many sexual partners Sarah had had, and how recently. "Anyway, I should probably go find him…"

He wandered out of the office, leaving awkward silence behind him; he'd originally meant to thank Sebastian for the cheque and tell him that it was a pleasure doing business with him.

Sherlock kept up a constant stream of one-sided conversation all the way out of the building, mainly about Ming dynasty pottery and how to tell a fake piece of white porcelain from the genuine article, just by sight. They finally stopped at the kerb, where Sherlock held his hand out to hail a cab; John abruptly pulled the cheque back out of his wallet and held it out to him between two fingers.

Sherlock frowned at him, confused.

"Mycroft doesn't have to pay me to keep me around, Sherlock," he said. "And neither do you."

Just for a second, John saw a flash of understanding cross Sherlock's face; then he cleared his throat and returned his attention to the busy road in front of them. A cab had just slowed down and slid into the stopping lane; John gave the driver a quick glance, though he'd no idea how a person could tell their cabbie was a serial killer just by glancing at them.

"Given what happened when a cheque in my name was discovered in your wallet," Sherlock remarked as they got in, "that's demonstrably untrue."

John felt his face twitch. Two English smugglers, one Tong henchman and a young girl were dead. He himself still had a whacking great headache from the concussion he'd sustained the night before last, Sherlock's neck was criss-crossed with two sets of strangulation marks, and the whole case had given poor Dr. Sarah Sawyer enough trauma to last her a lifetime.

So why the hell couldn't he stop smiling?

Chapter Text

"That's impossible!" Sherlock exclaimed, leaping out of his seat.

John, nestled into the armchair in his bare socks, grinned and sipped his lukewarm coffee. "No it isn't," he said. 'Made sense at the end, didn't it?"

"Michael Clowes was the killer. There's no other person it could be. Clowes had the stronger motive. He had an opportunity. He had a history of violence. He had no alibi, John. Sarah Thomas? I'm expected to believe that that mewling old—"

John sighed and got out of his seat, pointing to the aging woman sobbing her dramatic confession out on the television screen. "That," he said, "is Jane Asher, Sherlock."

"Who's Jane Asher?"

John dropped back into his chair. "She's an actress."

"Oh, very clever."

"She's mainly known for shagging Paul McCartney for most of the Sixties. If you ask me who Paul McCartney is—"

"Yes, I'm familiar with The Beatles," Sherlock said haughtily.

"… So you are human?" John curled his mouth sarcastically, then smiled. "Anyway, so she's worth a fair quid more to hire than these other nobody actors, right? So when she didn't end up dead, it was obvious she was the killer, somehow. I mean, her alibi was okay until you started thinking about it—it wasn't exactly set in stone. Easy."

"But," Sherlock said, "but it doesn't make sense for her to be the killer. There wasn't enough time for her to travel from the village fair, reach the vicarage, bludgeon Phillip Maher over the head, cleanse herself of any traces of blood, and make it back to the green in time to be there in front of half the village to accept a prize for her roses. And when Clowes was revealed to have no alibi whatsoever—"

John shrugged, tilting his head back to better see how Sherlock was taking things. He was just in time to see him disappear into the hall. "Bad writing," he said. "You're overthinking it, Sherlock, as usual. It's just a show."

"Never." Sherlock slammed the bathroom door behind himself by way of punctuation. As the shower started to run, the rest of his words floated out, blunted by the tiles around him. "I am never watching one of these stupid programs ever again."

"Yeah, you are." John went to the whiteboard on the refrigerator and picked up a thick black marker, making a fifth strike underneath his own name. There were two under Sherlock's. "Inspector Morse is on tomorrow night. You did get one of those before I did… once."

Chapter Text

Half-past midnight after clearing customs. Sharp arrows of sleet bear down on Sherlock as he stands vacillating on the kerb, the icy car door burning through his gloves.

"Sadit'sya." The cab driver's gaze strays to his right-hand pocket.

A squelch of leather as Sherlock crawls into the back seat, gathering his soaking coat around his knees. The dull glow of his phone screen displays 7% battery power and no signal.

He chases away, again, the phantasm he has brought to Belarus: Sarah's toes peeping out from under an army blanket, pink and soft, like a row of timid nestlings.

Chapter Text

"He's in Belarus," John explained when he opened the door and gestured Lestrade inside. Invited into Sherlock's Chamber of Horrors. That didn't happen often. "Dunno when he'll be back yet."

"Oh." Lestrade scratched the back of his head. Well, I'm out. You got any ideas? "He didn't say."

"I'm not surprised," John said over his shoulder on his way to the kitchen. "Nothing I can help with?"

"Nah. The victim's long past needing a doctor. Thanks anyway."

John leaned across to flick the kettle on. "How do you take your coffee?"

"Mainlined." Lestrade sank onto the sofa. Thank God Sherlock's flatmate understood that a sixteen-hour shift was hell.

Chapter Text

Sherlock struggled onto his elbows. His knees. He heard only shrill whine, like rabbit-ears antennae being adjusted. The building roared soundlessly as he lurched for the door. Mrs. Hudson!

She was huddled on the landing, handbag tangled around her ankles, green shopping bag drawn across her face.

"Mrs Hudson…" Sherlock pulled it away, seeking her injuries.

No blood. No bruising. Wasn't even crying, though in the shattered street outside, a woman had set up an eerie howl, competing with a dozen car alarms. Her withered hands shook in his.

"Sherlock… what happened? What…?"

He pulled her close and exhaled.

Chapter Text

"Where?" Mycroft, sitting up in bed, rubs his eyes and reaches for the pen and paper he keeps on his bedside table. It's protocol that every incident that could be a terrorist attack is reported to him immediately. All the same, he's sorely tempted to chew out the lackey from Intelligence on the other end of the line. Half-past midnight is an intolerable hour to call a man who wakes at five.

"212 Baker Street, sir."

He drops the pen.

"… Sir?"

"Yes." Mycroft scrabbles among his blankets for the pen, swallowing heavily. "Casualties?"

"Five, sir. Four injuries requiring hospital treatment, and an old woman out walking her dog took the brunt of the blast and died at the scene."

Old woman? Mycroft considers this for a second, then exhales. Mrs Hudson doesn't have a dog. On the balance of probabilities, she was not walking someone else's after dark.

"The anti-terrorism unit are already on the scene, and so far they've indicated that the likely cause is a gas leak, not a bomb," the agent continues. "Still…"

"Yes," Mycroft says again, swiping the ball of his hand across his forehead. "Thank you. I'll follow it up in the morning."

"Sir."

For a few seconds after hanging up, Mycroft stares at the phone in his hand. Then he thumbs in Sherlock's number, taking advantage of the purring line to exhale again. That's twice in two minutes that he's had to remind himself of a basic physiological impulse. Rather worrying.

"Oh, for God's sake, Mycroft, I'm fine." Sherlock sounds slightly more irritated than usual, but otherwise himself. No indication that he was sleeping before the call came in, but none that he's shaken or otherwise in distress. No mention of John Watson's welfare— John's not home, then. Mycroft can hear sirens in the background of the call.

"Such a pleasant way of answering the phone," he makes himself say. No trouble breathing now. Getting up, he takes the phone into his study, turning the light on and blinking in the sudden glare as he makes his way over to the desk and pulls a drawer out. "I'm calling on a matter of national importance, if you really must know."

Surely I've got something to ask him to investigate…

"What?"

"You'll see when I get there in the morning." Mycroft slams the drawer closed. A few hours will give him time to find a case for Sherlock to solve. "I expect you to be home. And do try to be adequately dressed."

Chapter Text

Strictly speaking, John didn't need to piss just then. But he'd been tossing and turning on the sofa for half an hour. Time to get up and do something. At home, he'd have raided the fridge or turned on the telly. But Sarah slept so lightly that on his way back past her bedroom door he heard her mutter, thick-tongued with sleep, and roll over.

Well, Sherlock is spectacularly ignorant about some things...

And, John thought as he bundled up on the sofa again, it was just possible that that made two of them.

Chapter Text

It's nothing, really. Just a dropped wallet, an excuse for Sherlock to avoid paying yet another cab fare. He stoops to retrieve it from the gutter outside New Scotland Yard headquarters, muttering the inevitable: "John, will you get that?"

John will not, in fact, be getting that. He grabs the fallen wallet before Sherlock can, passing it to him, his thumb brushing against Sherlock's fingers. They tremble like fire, the blood thrumming under his skin. And John remembers the glass-strewn sitting room back at 221b; the violin held, not played.

Perhaps, he thinks, not all hand tremors are psychosomatic.

Chapter Text

Sherlock did not say a word as they made their way out of Barts and down to the street to wait for a cab. The afternoon was freezing, and even Sherlock, always so desperate to pretend the sensory limitations of being human did not apply to him, was visibly shrugging himself into his coat, as if he could disappear into it. Obviously not a good time for idle chit-chat. It was only when they were in the cab and well on their way back to Baker Street that Sherlock finally asked, "Why wasn't it kinder?"

John scrambled his thoughts together. What wasn't kinder? Oh. That performance he'd put on back at the lab. Poor Molly. Nothing ever went right for her. "Are you seriously asking me why what you just did to Molly wasn't okay?"

"No, I'm asking you why it wasn't kinder." Nobody, John thought, made a better job of haughtiness than Sherlock—unless it was Mycroft. Since he knew better than to interject, Sherlock went on, "Molly's new boyfriend is fundamentally uninterested in her. His appearance, his personal grooming, and most importantly, the fact that he left me his phone number indicates he's well aware of his own preferences, which rules out self-delusion as a motive for a relationship her."

"Maybe he's bi."

Sherlock apparently did not hear this remark. "Now, for example," he went on, "if a man is in a relationship with a woman for six months, only to find out she's not even sexually attracted to men, let alone him specifically, and was just using him as a way of gaining access to the woman she was genuinely attracted to, how would it be a kindness to him to not tell him as soon as possible?"

John cleared his throat, one fist to his mouth, trying to keep a grip on his temper. He doesn't know any better. And an innocent woman had six hours to live unless Sherlock was able to solve the mystery behind the trainers left in 221C. This was hardly the time to get into an argument with him about what was, after all, over and done with. "Let's get one thing straight," he said finally. "We don't talk about Clara, right? Ever."

Sherlock opened his mouth to make some smart remark, then, seeing John's expression, shut it again, gazing out the window in obedient silence.

Does he even know any better? Almost three months of being flatmates, and John hadn't yet decided how much of Sherlock's rudeness was deliberate cruelty and how much was a kind of childlike literalness. While he was impervious to most attempts to get him to behave like a human being, occasionally he overreacted to being corrected, and then John felt like he'd slapped a toddler for touching a pretty toy or chasing after a puppy.

Finally, after the silence had become too uncomfortable to bear, John said, "Can we talk about the case now? You kind of forgot to tell me who Carl Powers is."

Sherlock was still looking out the window and appeared not to hear the question. Just as John was on the verge of reminding him that there was a terrified hostage who needed him to stop being so bloody childish, he snapped out of his reverie and said, "1989. A young kid, champion swimmer, came up from Brighton for a school sports tournament, drowned in the pool…"