Archive of Our Own ^beta

Contrary to popular belief, John is not an easy man to live with.

People often thought Sherlock was the commanding and eccentric half of their team; that the consulting detective was the pickier of the pair. That was partly true, but not entirely. John figured people assumed this because Sherlock was just so damn extreme and unbending all the time that he paled in comparison. Standing beside the aristocratic intelligence of his vicious detective, John appeared quaint and harmless. The doctor was quieter about his preferences, but more demanding that they be met.

Sherlock was inexplicably particular about his routine, habits and hygiene. This was common knowledge and easy to observe, even for people not included in Sherlock’s private life.

He kept his atrociously extravagant brand-name suits dry-cleaned and his hair elegantly tousled with expensive product. His nails were fastidiously trimmed and his face was always cleanly shaven. He clearly cherished his assortment of beakers and test tubes and microscopes but was careless with electronics. His mobile would often get stolen, confiscated or destroyed in the pursuit of criminals thrice a month.

Sherlock was a posh and petulant person, and he never needed to clean up after himself. This irritated John tremendously. Tidying was tedious and boring for the genius, therefore he didn’t lower himself to it. Despite the fact that Sherlock’s bedroom was always spotless he couldn’t seem to be arsed to care about the common areas of 221b Baker Street. John sometimes wondered if it was in fact Ms. Hudson who cleaned his bedroom because he couldn’t imagine Sherlock even making his own bed.

John thought Sherlock was unorganized and constantly griped about the chaos. Yet, to John’s astonishment, Sherlock always knew where everything in the flat was and got very stroppy if John moved anything. Sherlock’s eidetic brain memorized where he’d left each and every single thing in the flat, which was how he instinctively knew if anything was out of order.

The genius knew precisely where a set of old photos of himself and Mycroft were tucked away between pages of a certain book that John would never likely want to read let alone open, and therefore would remain hidden in plain sight (The Backyard Beekeeper, page 28, page 101, page 216). He knew where his notes were on a case from three months ago, the one about the butcher who’d been vivisecting teenagers (grey filing cabinet, second drawer, sixteen files in).

He even knew where the majority of John’s possessions could be found, such as his illegal hand gun (lockbox tucked between left side of his mattress and wall, key in a seam of his lamp shade for easy retrieval) or his Victoria’s Cross medal that he resented and never spoke of (brown shoebox, back top right side of closet, inside empty tin of cough drops).

The military molded John into not only a minimalist but also into a bit of a neat freak. He saw no point in crowding the sink full of dishes when it was always faster to do the washing up right away. John did his laundry far before he was down to his last pair of pants. He’d rather spend a half-hour cleaning once a week than a whole day cleaning once a month.

When he’d lived alone, in that empty and blank time before he’d met Sherlock, his quarters were meticulously kept. Bed made, carpet hoovered, bathroom spotless. He disliked knick-knacks and found clutter intolerable.

Moving into 221b took a lot of getting used to.

Sherlock was not a clean person when it came to his experiments or The Work. Within their first few weeks of acquaintance, he and Sherlock agreed to and penned ground rules for cohabitation. Sherlock’s list included four items:

• The Work always comes first.
• Don’t ask me idiotic & irrelevant questions.
• No sexual conquests in the flat during a case.
• Under no circumstance is Mycroft ever to be cheerfully invited or catered to under this roof.

John’s list was straightforward and much longer:

• No idiotic & irrelevant questions about my service in the military.
• Put plastic wrap under all decomposing experiments (leaking fluids are Not Good).
• Label and date all human remains in the freezer.
• No absconding dishes used for food as containers for experiments.
• Sanitize the kitchen table and countertops after using toxic chemicals or solvents.
• Food is not to be thrown away to make room for human or animal remains.
• Always open the window when experiments are smelly or toxic.
• NO FLAMMABLE EXPERIMENTS or fire or blowtorches allowed.
• Medical kits are for medical purposes.
• No autopsies without express permission.
• All human and animal remains must be properly stored in the fridge, and if they start smelling I will bin them immediately.
• No smoking or drugs in the flat.
• No experiments on my body, possessions or room.
• Girlfriends are not to be deduced under any circumstances.
• Blood, pus and bile are NOT to be poured down the kitchen or bathtub drains (the bits of skin and hair always clog the pipes).
• Only enter my room while I'm in it or in case of extreme emergency. Never while I'm sleeping.
• Etc, etc, etc.

Sherlock griped incessantly about the list, whining that John was trying to change him and manipulate him with endless rules. John retorted that he was allowed to privacy, safety and a modicum of health in his own home since he did pay half the rent. Sherlock ribbed John that he was a germaphobe and high-maintenance. John pointed out that he would be astonished to find someone else as willing to put up with Sherlock’s crap like he did. Sherlock sulked, John won the argument.

The ground rules were posted on the side of their fridge. Within the first year of living with the consulting maniac, John encountered so many different forms of filth he could probably produce a doctorial dissertation on the subject. In between the chemical stains and smoke burns stuck to the ceiling or the dripping people parts contaminating his left over curry in the fridge, John felt like nothing could shock him any more. Sherlock was one of a kind. A morbid person, indeed, but death was a curious puzzle for him and John was his friend.

That didn’t mean Sherlock couldn’t manage to shock him silly on a weekly basis or the fact that it still drove him round the bend and lit a fuse to his already notoriously short temper. Sometimes Sherlock managed to go too far, though.

It was the end of March, the weather still bitterly cold and spring nowhere in sight. John was working more hours at the clinic since one of the doctors was home on maternity leave. The winter had been unnecessarily brutal and frigid with a dramatic increase in broken ankles from slips on the ice and cases of flu and pneumonia. John, as a matter of course, enjoyed his work since it made him feel useful, but that didn’t mean there weren’t bad days. Today was a bad day.

He’d been vomited on within an hour of showing up. Within two he’d a patient who had to be told they possessed three months left from an advanced form of terminal cancer. The clinic was at maximum capacity by noon and by nine at night he wanted to either bash his head against his desk or lose his temper with his next patient. He missed the bus by three minutes. No cash for a cabbie, of course (not that he really trusted riding alone with cabbies anymore, but that wasn’t the point). He walked home sixteen blocks with the wind biting his cheeks and his fingers burning until they were rendered numb.

And then he got home. Sherlock didn’t have a case on, so he’d expected to find him sulking on the couch in his trademark perch, or perhaps strumming discordant notes from his violin. The first thing that caught his attention outside their door was the thick pungent odor of formaldehyde and bleach. John glared at the latch, trying to determine if he really wanted to go inside because he was already certain he wasn’t like what he would find. Pushing the door open the next thing he observed was that all the furniture in their sitting room was shoved alongside the walls. Sherlock stood in the center, elegantly bent over their kitchen table and examining… John froze, feeling his stomach turn in disgust.

Sherlock was doing an autopsy on what looked to be a small blonde haired child, no older than five. The consulting detective wore latex gloves and a mask over his face, his long slender fingers slicing incisions in the child’s pelvis with steady and practiced ease. Their overhead lamp flickered across the discolored and dead flesh. The small intestines had already been extracted and were spooled together like a sick chord of rope on their tea tray.

John was a soldier and a doctor. He’d seen death, smelled putrefaction, killed the enemy with efficient ease and now he chased serial killers around London with his mad flatmate. Bile, blood, scat, piss- those were bodily fluids and he’d learned to accept and deal with them in his early days of medical school.

But this… it felt wrong.

The small child’s eyes must have been blue in life. They were filmed over with a strange membrane, staring blankly and unseeing towards John. A quarter section of skin and a thin layer of muscle was peeled back over a portion of the dead kid’s forehead and hair line, revealing the pearly white of the temporal and frontal bone on their skull. A tiny hand, no larger than a cricket ball, was curled with finality and rigor mortis near Sherlock’s mobile.

“Oh, John-“ Sherlock started to say, glancing up from his analysis of this child’s reproductive organs.

“What the fuck is this?” John bellowed, his heart thrumming behind his rib cage as he tried to will the disgusting scene to disappear. He dropped his bag in shock, his face twisted with undisguised contempt.

“New case, three diff-“

“Are you fucking serious?" John’s voice went a pitch higher than normal. Sherlock appeared taken aback by the ferocity in the ex-soldiers tone.

The smell of decomposing body was trapped in John’s lungs like glue, vicious and heavy. The bright hair of the child kept catching his eye, it was so blonde it was almost white. Black useless blood slowly dripped down the side of their dining table and pooled on their hardwood floor, each plop loud like a bullet in his ears. This was his fucking sitting room and his freak of a roommate was rifling through somebody's child's corpse.

Sherlock had the gall to roll his eyes as if John's behavior was overly dramatic.

“John, it’s for-“

“No, Sherlock, you promised. You said you wouldn’t bring corpses back to the flat without my express permission. Especially not...”

“Ah,” Sherlock nodding as if he suddenly understood the reason for John’s outburst. “It’s the age of the body which upsets you.”

“Not the goddamn point!” John snapped. He could feel his cheeks turning red with outrage. “I had a shite day and I have to come back to a place that smells like a fuckin’ mortuary and you peering at a child’s decomposing genitalia like it’s the most fascinating thing you’ve ever seen? Are you fucking serious?”

Sherlock blinked, setting his scalpel down, his face morphing into condescending indifference, “Is this a surprise to you?”

“It’s sick,” John spat. “And what would happen if Ms. Hudson came up here, hmmm? Or heaven forbid Lestrade! This is so fucked up on so many levels I can't even...”

John noticed Sherlock’s face, normally so pale, flush a little. His expression gave nothing away but John could tell Sherlock was about to lose his cool and spew vicious words. John pushed his hand through his hair, still cold from the freezing winter wind, and felt his stomach roil.

The ex-soldier counted back from ten in his head.

“Sick?” Sherlock repeated, his voice laced with venom. “I didn’t kill her, John, I've never killed anyone. What hypocrisy coming from a man who has directly had a hand in killing four children and sixteen unarmed civilians during the line of duty, wouldn’t you say?”

A wave of fury and guilt expelled the breath from his lungs. John straightened his shoulders, his eyes flashing and his whole countenance shifting. Sherlock disliked when John did that, because it was his unconscious body language that he was not just angry, but hurt. A regrettable combination. Sentiment.

“I suppose you are right.” John agreed.

He sounded off, Sherlock thought, and that was so very very wrong.

John spun around on his heel and was up the stairs without another word. He closed his door behind him, locked it and flipped on the light. The doctor could still smell the formaldehyde, it burned the inside of his nostrils. His heart was beating a million times a minute, the sound thrumming in his ears.

Sherlock Holmes could be so incredibly, unbelievably cruel.

John never talked about his tours in Afghanistan. Of the unspeakable things he’d been ordered to do and the acts which tainted his sleep and memories which he could never allow himself to forget. PTSD was not the only thing haunting him from the war. And he hadn’t even told Sherlock. The bastard most likely got his brother to send along all the confidential documents which pertained to his service. Sherlock’s eerie eyes probably scanned the photos of what his bullet hole in his shoulder looked like, fresh, devastatingly painful. It was none of Sherlock’s business yet he still used it against him. Just lovely.

He flopped face down on his bed. He was trying to repress the sob which threatened to escape from his lips, but the emotions were tugging barbwire around his whole body, muscles taunt and agonizingly tight. He whimpered, the noise escaping him before he bit down on his fist and stopped it. Sharp indents formed on his skin, red and irritated.

He couldn’t live like this, he thought.

Sherlock was moving around downstairs. John was on his feet a moment later, flinging open his closet and pulling his duffle and several jumpers. Trousers, socks, shirts and pants followed. He grabbed his gun, his bank account book and his cell phone charger. Adrenaline was pumping through his veins, his movements efficient and silent as if they'd been rehearsed. His toiletries were in the bathroom but he couldn’t be arsed to care. He’d buy what he’d need along the way. He had to get out.

John felt like he truly hadn’t asked for much from Sherlock. Previous girlfriends sometimes told him he was hard to live with, partly because of his busy schedule as a doctor but also because he expected to be treated in a certain way. He'd never lived with anyone besides Sherlock after his PTSD, but he hadn't changed his basic nature from prior to his enlistment. John always resented when people tried to walk all over him, even as a little kid. And Sherlock didn’t merely walk, but plowed over him with the sheer force of his personality.

He didn’t feel like it was much to ask that blood not be poured down their kitchen drain. Or that dead child corpses not be dismantled in the sitting room. Sherlock never yielded. He was manipulative and controlling. Sherlock demanded all his time, placed him into incredibly dangerous situations without ever giving him all the facts, forgot about him when it was convenient, and then treated him like… he was a murderer.

Four children. Sixteen civilians. Twenty-nine armed soldiers. He knew all of their names by heart. Fifty in total. He'd burned each and every one of them on the backs of his eyelids like a brand.

Zipping the duffle, John pulled on an extra coat and his warmest boots. His wool muffler followed along with his winter hat and thick gloves.

Sherlock was walking up the stairs when John opened his bedroom door. His light illuminated those impossible cheekbones on Sherlock’s face. He took in John’s appearance and halted, cupid’s bow open but unspeaking. They stood in silence for few seconds before Sherlock cleared his throat.

“Going somewhere?” He inquired softly.

John nodded abruptly and gave a quick, “Yes.”

Sherlock waited for him to say more but when nothing was forthcoming he deflated slightly. “I… apologize for breaking our contract, it won’t happen again.”

“No,” John agreed for the second time that night. “It won’t.”

Sherlock twitched, moving up a step as if he could physically halt the man, “John-“

"Sherlock.” He intoned, even and calm and matter-of-fact. “You make it seem like everything I ask of you is some big concession.”

“This is for The Work, and we agreed-“

“No- we bloody well did not agree-“

“Stop interrupting me!” Sherlock finally snarled, “We agreed that The Work came first. You knew that the very same day you met me, yet you’re suddenly disgusted? We've been around hundreds of corpses together, many in worse shape than this one. I’m not some sick pervert opening up a child’s ribcage for fun. I’m trying to figure out how she was raped to prevent this from occurring to another living human being. Lestrade knows the corpse is here and I have written clearance, Molly lent me the kit because the morgue was full. I've put plastic down and can easily mop up the floor. I’ve already apologized for not telling you about this autopsy in advance."

Sherlock paused, pursing his lips and crossing his arms, "Really, John, I don’t know why you are so angry.”

John flinched like Sherlock slapped him. The detective obviously expected John to fight back or to explain himself. Instead John felt achingly hollow inside. Four children. Sixteen civilians. Twenty-nine armed soldiers. Fifty in total.

He respected Sherlock so terribly much. He would've defended him to the ends of the earth, would've died to protect him from harm. John thought his mind was brilliant and his deductions were incredible and his looks were gorgeous. He thought Sherlock not only tolerated him, but tried to understand how he felt. That they were partners, equals. The genius wasn’t really well-versed in sentiment, but John tried to pretend that Sherlock made an effort for him. Not through words, no, but sometimes John thought that Sherlock's actions betrayed how much he respected him. That what they felt was mutual, at least to some degree.

“You really don’t, do you?” John whispered, voice cracking, his eyes betraying how deeply he was hurting.

Several emotions flashed across Sherlock's face. He was startled, aghast, and finally he just looked confused. Openly and unabashedly confused. The expression would be funny if the situation weren’t so disparaging.

For just a moment, John thought about how he knew and memorized what all of Sherlock’s genuine expressions were, and most of his shammed ones. He knew how the man took his tea and how to get him to eat without noticing and what his favorite composers were. What books he preferred and how isolated he felt most of the time and that his brain never turned off and it had always been that way. John understood from scraps of conversation that Sherlock’s childhood was profoundly unpleasant and marked with people who resented, feared and mocked him for his intelligence. He honestly assumed that Sherlock appreciated him for his praise and unflinching acceptance and assistance on cases.

And, stupidly enough, he thought Sherlock cared about him enough not to throw his military career, that he didn’t even have a right to know about, in his face. To throw his shame at him and then forget he would even find it offensive. John gave Sherlock the barest twitch of the most melancholy smile he could manage. Sherlock jerked away but otherwise remained still as John passed him on the way down the stairs.

Pausing by the front door John half-turned to mutter, “I’ll let you know when I’ll be around for the rest of my stuff.”

And he walked out, he deposited his house keys on the chair in the front entry.

Thankfully Ms. Hudson was nowhere in sight. John rushed outside because she would immediately know something was wrong and would also try to stop him. It was snowing. Still bitterly cold. Shouldering his duffle, he resolutely marched down the sidewalk, away from the flat, knowing if he turned around Sherlock would be watching him from the sitting room window.

A little piece of something that John couldn’t name snapped inside him like a chord that had been drawn too thin for too long. All the affection and fondness and whatever-the-fuck that he felt for Sherlock was whirling around his head, clear and piercing and it felt like he was screaming bloody murder on the inside. He forced his mind quiet and started reciting subway destinations in his head, a technique Sherlock used to concentrate.

Keeping his face purposefully blank and his body language relaxed, he stopped by Tesco to pick up a few toiletries and some snacks for the road. He rang his purchases and thought about how Sherlock always said he wasn’t a good actor. Not an Oscar-winning talent obviously, but he was an army doctor and practiced bedside manners so often in so many extreme situations that he could sham a congenial mood if absolutely necessary.

Catching a taxi once outside he told the cabbie to take him to the nearest train station. He ignored the CCTV which moved towards him as he shut the door. John had no idea of where he was going to go or what he was going to do when he got there but somehow he just knew he’d have to get out of London. Sherlock’s goddamn homeless network was probably tracking him and lord knows Mycroft would find him eventually but where he went and what he did was really none of their fucking business.

John used his credit card to buy the first train to Ilfracombe. Why there? Because he couldn’t remember where that location was on a map, and because that was the last train that ran and the only one which bad weather hadn’t delayed. John knew that using his card would mean Sherlock could easily track him, but what did that even matter? He wouldn’t come after him, that wasn’t in Sherlock’s nature.

Sherlock was selfish and absorbed and callous and- lonely, his mind supplied.

Closing himself into the third class car he’d purchased, John locked the door and drew the curtains. His duffle was abandoned on the floor. The train started moving shortly after, slow at first out of the station then into the dark white abyss of winter. After pulling a blanket from the cubbies above, John flipped the car light off, made sure the door was locked again, and propped himself up by the window. Without the light on he couldn't see much of anything. The snow was white but also black and there was no moon hung up in the sky to light their way. If he focused for a moment, under the dew and frost of the window, he could see a few stars. Hateful things, stars, John mused. The solar system really was a useless thing to learn. Sherlock was right yet again.

John leaned forward and slowly pulled his gun out of his duffle, checked the ammo, and tucked the weapon under his winter coat and shirt. The metal was alarmingly chilly against the small of his back, giving him goosebumps.

He closed his eyes and thought about the corpse of the child who was likely still dismembered on the kitchen table of 221b Baker Street. He thought of why he helped Sherlock fight crime, if that made it okay or moral or even sane. He thought about killing that cabbie that first night, somehow knowing it was the right thing to do and not hesitating.

Four children. Sixteen civilians. Twenty-nine armed soldiers. One cabbie.

“I didn’t kill her, John," Sherlock's solemn voice echoed. "I've never killed anyone."

He'd killed fifty people in his lifetime and he wasn't even fifty years old yet.

Then John thought of the children who died by his hands and the mission in Kunduz where his fellow soldiers were slaughtered like cattle and the smell of gunpowder and oil was overwhelmingly noxious and sand kept blowing into his eyes and making them water… John finally emitted the quiet whimper he’d held in all evening. His forehead pressed against the freezing window, his eyes squeezing shut.

The noise he made didn’t sound human. His shoulders quaked as his breathing became unsteady, tears involuntarily rolling down his cheeks. In his head he could hear the arabic being spoken, his Commander telling them to move out, the look on the civilians faces when his platoon burst in their house. He remembered his hand being steady as he flung a grenade down the hallway, the sound of its detonation when he ducked around the corner, the wisps of smoke before a set of two burning young women in hajibs had rushed out, their screams of agony echoing across endless desert as they tried to thrash around on the sand to no avail.

"What hypocrisy coming from a man who has directly had a hand in killing four children and sixteen unarmed civilians during the line of duty, wouldn’t you say?”

Sherlock’s mocking taunt and-

“Really, John, I don’t know why you are so angry.”

John’s hands covered his wet face and he sobbed like a broken soldier does. He'd thought Sherlock was his friend. He supposed, with a twisted smile splitting across his face, the salt tears leaking into his mouth, that he deserved it. He'd always been a difficult man to love.

His parents hadn't, Harry certainly didn't, and his string of lovers stretching across three continents were never serious affairs. Did he hope Sherlock would love him? Of course he did. It was always going to be his most shameful and silly secret.

Which is why he deserved this. Sherlock was never going to change who he was, not for someone else. That was always an aspect of the detective which John envied. Thoughts kept racing through his head, a kilometer a minute, his cheeks still wet and stained with tears. Sherlock didn't need him, he really didn't. He'd made a load of money off the most recent plane hijacking case, and since John often did their finances (Sherlock couldn't be arsed to) he knew that he could easily afford the flat alone now. And with John gone, there would be no one to make him feel guilty about finding the cause of death of a dead kid's corpse, which was his job, his life. The Work.

By this point, to John's disgust, he knew that he’d hurt Sherlock with his words tonight, and felt bad about it. Which was stupid, John chided himself. But also really wasn't, because he never wanted to voluntarily hurt him. John leaned back against the chair, musing. A few moments later, a loud vibration echoed from his duffle. It was his mobile.

Pulling the device from his bag he flipped it open. Four missed messages.

9:58 PM

Body removed

and blood cleared away.

Not in the drain.

SH

10:04 PM

You left your keys downstairs.

SH 

11:32 PM

I promise not to do anything

that we agreed about on the

list, ever again. I am not

apologizing for the autopsy,

since it was necessary to

collect DNA however I will

not bring them to the flat.

SH

11:39 AM

At the very least tell me

where you are staying tonight.

SH

John sighed, his head starting to pound. Pushing the power button on the side of his phone, he switched the device off and took the battery out. He then used his fingernail to slip the GPS device from his mobile, as Sherlock taught him. Locating his laptop he did the same to that device. Cracking the window in the train car was difficult since it was pretty frozen shut, but John managed to wedge the two chips out the window. They flew away into the snowy landscape. The train ride only lasted four hours, and John refused to sleep despite how exhausted he was. 

Before he'd left the flat, he'd grabbed his envelope of cash that he always kept in case of emergency. This was one such an emergency. Dragging his duffle behind him, he headed out into a mostly empty train station. Checking his watch, it was almost three in the morning. Since his phone was shut off, he meandered along the small harbor of the city until he found an inn. Thankfully the town was small. He was glad he bundled up in extra layers, but the biting cold was equally and oddly comforting. The inn he found contained one sleepy teenager manning the front desk, absently playing Facebook games. Shocking red hair and thick glasses blinked up at John when he approached.

"You get lost?” She queried in an accent he'd never heard before.

John nodded in affirmation, feeling stiff from the cold, "Yes, I've been wandering for a while. Any rooms for rent? Unfortunately, I only have cash on me."

"Wandering? Oh dear, it's below freezing out there!" The teenager fretted, typing at the computer to check something before turning around. "We don't except cash. But, um, we're the only inn open in town at this hour."

Glancing out the window, it was beginning to snow again. The teenager pursed her lips. "Check out is at noon sharp, I'll still be working and, um-" she smiled sheepishly, John was slightly charmed, "I believe in this somewhat bullshit philosophy of paying it forward. From a stupid American film, but anyway- could you not tell my bosses about this? Could you just drop off the key to me? I clean the rooms anyway and there is no way I'm going to let you freeze to death."

John finally grinned, feeling as if some strange weight was taken off his shoulders, "That is an incredibly kind thing to do, Miss-?"

"I'm Tessa. You're in room 202." The teenager grinned with adorable dimples and handed over a keycard "Pay it forward."

His room was small, one single bed, an outdated telly and really bad wallpaper. Opening the curtains he stared at the snow falling and then at the digital clock on the bedside. It was 4:02 AM. Setting his duffle on the comforter, he pulled his mobile from his jacket pocket and switched the device back on. Five text messages awaited him.

11:45 PM

Really, John, as if you could

run away unnoticed.

You have never seen

my brother give chase.

MH

12:01 AM

I didn't intend to offend you

by bringing your military career

into question.

SH

12:05 AM

It was not my place to

intrude upon your privacy.

However, I did read those

documents before the list

was even considered.

SH

12:30 AM

I lied to you.

I may not have killed anyone

using my own hand

but I have brought 83 humans

to their end.

SH

1:02 AM

Why Ilfracombe?

SH

John sighed as he turned the mobile off. Of course Sherlock knew where he was, that probably took him five minutes to ascertain. Feeling too drained to really care, or to run any farther, he curled in the fetal position atop the comforter on the bed and let out a long sigh. His body was aching from the long walk in the snow. John hadn’t slept in at least fifteen hours. 

He possessed no desire to confront Sherlock, no desire to go back or explain himself. No desire to be Sherlock's only outlet of aggression or an easy target for his boredom. He didn't want to tell the man that he loved him so much it often hurt to breathe and that he can't stomach corpses of children in his sitting room. Was it love? He wondered. It felt like love. Like a twisted masochistic mockery of that emotion which poets lauded and playwrights exploited.

His eyes shut and exhaustion sank in. He fell into a listless sleep minutes later. For once he didn’t dream, he slept the sleep of the exceptionally exhausted.

When he awoke, the sun was overwhelmingly bright across eyelids. He was still above the covers. He flopped his arm over his head, turned on his neck and groaned. The clock beside the bed said it was still before noon. He rubbed his hand through dishwater hair and stood up glancing around the room. Nothing was out of place, gun still cradled against the small of his back. Glancing out the window suspiciously, as if Sherlock might be looming, he simply saw the expanse of a harbor and the small town that surrounded it. It was a disgustingly pretty day, cerulean sky cloudless and sun gleaming across snowdrifts.

John took a scalding shower, folded the towel, put on new clothes and finally glanced over at his mobile. He powered it up and was surprised to find his inbox empty. Frowning, he flipped the device shut and slipped it in his front pocket. Right after he had his jacket on and was tugging his duffle off the bed, there was a sharp knock at the door. John sighed, walked over to the door, opened it.

Sherlock Holmes stood on the other side in his Belstaff, pale and beautiful and expression unreadable. He looked tired, John thought absently, his own body tensing automatically as he squared his shoulders.

"We need to talk," the detective sounded like he was requesting an audience as he stared down towards the ugly carpeting with a petulant frown.

"Solve the case, then?" John remarked, neutral territory.

Sherlock admitted after a long beat of silence, "…No,"

"Then why are you here? You certainly didn’t need to stalk me across the country.” he sniped, crossing his arms and walking back into the room. He dropped his duffle back on the bed. Sherlock followed, the door quietly shutting behind him. The atmosphere in the room suddenly felt oppressive.

"I don't want you to leave Baker Street." Sherlock confessed, voice still quiet and muted. That was a surprisingly sentimental admission for him.

John rolled his eyes despite himself, sitting on the bed by his bag and glaring into the sunny day outside his window. He carefully parsed out the words he wanted to say in his head before speaking them aloud.

"You were right of course, earlier. You always are.” John intoned, hand clenching as he spoke. What ought to be praise turned into a bitter admonishment. Sherlock stood stock-still against the wall by the door. "I've killed fifty people by my own hand. I've seen women burned alive, children murdered by tanks, and every other act of pure cruelty that humans can do to one another. The things I've seen are going to burden me for the rest of my life. And the last thing I want to do when I get home is see a naked, cut open child on our kitchen table in our sitting room with her intestines on our tea trey."

Sherlock was gazing off into space, so John continued. "The thing is, you don't even deserve to know any of this. I didn’t tell you any of it."

Sherlock flinched, glancing at John again. His eyes, more grey than green today, were sharp and John could see the cogs in his massive brain cranking at warp speed.

"It is none of your business to know my military record, let alone throw it in my face to prove a point." Silence rang true for a long minute, John frowning at the window again and Sherlock glaring balefully at his shoes. He obviously hadn’t thought of that.

"I know I'm a hard person to be around," Sherlock’s words were careful and considering, his tenor voice low and melancholy. "Let alone a hard person to be flatmates and friends with."

"Do you really consider me a friend?" John asked, honestly wanting to know the answer. “Or am I simply convenient to have around?”

Sherlock flinched, hunching over a little, hand shoved deep in his coat pockets, "You are the only one I've ever trusted."

John shook his head in negation. Maybe those words would have healed him before but he just felt so unhappy. "Please, Sherlock, just leave me alone."

"But I can’t.”

"What does that even mean?"

"Because… You make tea exactly how I prefer it. You enjoy the works of Bach, Haydn and Kreisler without even knowing. I know that you hate to feel vulnerable so you wear your jumpers and your jeans to blend in and appear complacent. I know that you are one hell of a crack shot. I know that every variation of your internet passwords are small towns you've visited abroad and that you prefer your toast with jam and not marmalade. I know that you wanted to become a doctor because you care about feeling useful and that you are noble and would never end a life if it wasn't a very extreme situation."

John's eyes were closed, his clenched hands resting on his knees.

"I know that the dead bodies annoy you and that you are a bit of a neat freak yet you deal with my clutter and accept me for all my nearly unbearable eccentricities. I know that you are the only person I listen to anymore and that I trust you with my life. I respect you and I know that I work better when your around but what I don’t know is if I can go back to living alone anymore. I didn’t even know I needed this, you, around, but I do and-“

Sherlock's lips made a deep line as he quieted, the end of his rant sounding pinched and frustrated. He was stepping towards the doctor and nearly towering over him. John finally cracked open his eyes, staring up into the genuinely sincere face of the world's most cynical and only consulting detective. His chest felt very tight at that moment, scanning the different spectrum of colors in that man's inimitable gaze.

“I’m not going to be your punching bag, Sherlock,” John replied softly. “You just never budge from anything. I don’t think the things I’ve asked for in the flat are that much considering the general what-the-fuck of our daily lives, but you’ve still broken every single rule on my list, and until last night I’ve never broken any on yours.”

“You’re seriously saying I don’t try to accommodate you?” Sherlock snarled resentfully, throwing his hands up. “I’ve changed so much about my living habits! I eat when you ask me to, I sleep when you ask me to, I don’t experiment on my body anymore, I always put plastic down and I never use the bathroom for experiments! What more can you possibly want? I’ve never changed my behavior so much for anyone in my entire life, surely you see that.”

John sighed, “I guess we are two exceptionally difficult people to live with.”

“We? I know I can be… onerous. However, I don’t find living with you to be difficult in the slightest.”

“Of course you do,” John snorted at what he perceived to be a lie. “You just went on about how much I try to change you.”

The cupid’s bow mouth was teased between teeth, “That’s not you trying to change me, that’s me trying to accommodate you.”

John mulled what Sherlock said over in his head. He glanced at the clock, it was almost noon and he’d promised the teenager at the front desk that he would return the key. 

“Look, let’s just get out of here. I need to check-out of this room and I… just need some time to think. Let’s go walk or something.”

Sherlock followed him like a trailing puppy down the hallway and stairs. John paused before they reached the main lobby, glancing up at the detective.

“How did you know what room I was in? I didn’t use my card.”

“I told the girl at the front desk my friend was lost and I was here to retrieve him. She remembered you from last night, or rather, early this morning.”

“Ah,”

The teenager, Tessa, did remember him and grinned cheerfully as he passed the keycard over to her. “Sleep well?”

“Yes, thank you,” John demurred.

Tessa’s eyes trailed to Sherlock, “Good that you found your partner, then?”

Sherlock gave a sharp nod. “Indeed.”

“The trains started up a few hours ago, do you remember how to find them?”

“Yes, I do. Is there a nice place to go walking around here?” John asked.

“There’s a path along the harbour, it’s pretty popular. Follow High Street that way,” she pointed.

“Again, thanks for your help Tessa. You’re a lifesaver.”

“Good luck getting back home,” she winked. “Pay it forward.” 

Sherlock opened the door for him and turned his collar up away from the wind. It was still bitterly cold however the sun was shining so it didn’t matter to John. They wordlessly meandered down the cobble-lined sidewalks, taking in fairy lights left over from the holiday and small home-owned shops. This was the kind of small town where nothing happened. People grew up, had kids and died without ever leaving its perimeter. 

They didn’t speak for almost an hour.

The harbour was beautiful and still, frozen over and devoid of life. The waves lapped in areas of open ice, John watched smoke rise from chimneys atop cheerful brick facades. His cheeks were red as they wandered onward, up a steep hill and towards a set of rock sculptures. Sherlock looked slightly miserable in the cold, his hands shoved deep in his pockets and his brow scrunched tight, but he didn’t dare complain. He burrowed into his scarf, letting moist breath trap itself between his mouth and the cotton.

Sherlock spent the long expanse of silence doing what he did best: thinking. He thought how naive he was to disregard his careless words about John’s military history as if it wouldn’t be a painful and touchy subject. He felt guilt roil through him as he recalled finding John’s house keys on the front chair, remembering the doctor’s words about grabbing his stuff and almost dropping them in realization: that John might never come back to Baker Street. He might be alone again. He’d lived like that for so many years and he felt the poignant stab of recognition. He didn’t want to be alone anymore.

Finding John’s location was as simple as a text to Mycroft, and he hadn’t bothered to pack anything. He’d cleaned the kitchen and sitting room thoroughly before he left, texted the morgue to drop by with a car to collect the corpse of the child. Then Sherlock got a taxi and took a bus to this spit of a town on the other side of the country that he’d never been to nor cared about, just to find John.

Sherlock’s insatiable curiously, his quest for knowledge that he so prided himself upon never helped him understand that sometimes people’s secrets weren’t open for his perusal. It’d slipped his mind more than once that John refused to speak of his service for a reason. The violent deaths John saw during war were memories he was ashamed of. The child’s corpse was a trigger, probably gave the ex-soldier a vivid flashback, and Sherlock rubbed salt in those wounds with his harsh rebuke. 

Sherlock's performed experiments on thousands of different types of putrified flesh before. Death was a constant companion for him since childhood. He’s examined corpses tortured barbarically through the cool detached lens of science. The people he experimented on stopped being people, and started being cases. He found it helped to think of them like that and remain objective.

Which was one of the numerous reasons why others thought him a psychopath. They saw the corpses and victims and loved ones of the families. Their sentiment clouded their logical reasoning skills but they seemed to think his way of viewing the world was abnormal and lacking empathy. That’s why extracting DNA from a child’s corpse didn’t bother him while John viewed the act as abominable and cruel.

Sherlock played with different ways of telling John this, but they all sounded trite and lacking. So he remained silent. Sherlock’s feet were completely numb and his fingers were burning from the cold. John was steering them finally, at last, to the train station. He bought two tickets back to London, studiously ignoring Sherlock’s presence at his side until he handed over the ticket.

They boarded the train and Sherlock was never more thankful for heat. Their car was towards the rear and they took spots on either side after closing the door and pulling the shades. Sherlock rubbed his hands together dryly, creating friction to warm them. John gazed out the window. Sherlock wondered what was going to happen next, different disparaging scenarios of John leaving him playing on repeat like a bad film.

Sherlock cleared his throat tentatively, “Are you returning to Baker Street?”

John’s blue eyes flashed towards him quickly then darted away. He sighed, pulling off his hat and running his fingers through his hair a few times. Lowering his elbows to his thighs, he twined his hands together and gave Sherlock a long assessing stare. Sherlock didn’t budge and returned the eye contact.

“Why do you think I was upset?”

“Because I broke my agreement and therefore my promise, again, making what was already a bad day for you exponentially worse. Then,” Sherlock jerked, “I ignored your… feelings…” the word was almost choked out of him. “And brought up information I have no business knowing.”

The lines around John's mouth were strained as he frowned deeply, “If you get it now, why didn’t you get it then?”

“This is not really my area.”

“Bit of an understatement, that.”

“Yes, well.”

“Tell me about the case.” John changed the subject.

“Three children between the ages of four and nine. Taken from highly populated areas, a mall, a park and a rugby match. They were found within a nine kilometer radius of one another, wrapped in inexpensive twine and deposited by the Thames. All murders occurred last week, one on Monday,Thursday then Friday. The three victims were sexually assaulted before they were murdered, though they would have been unconscious according to the tox screen and their white cell count. Method of incapacitation was an injection of Propofol and Ketamine, the sites on their arms for an easy reach. We know the suspect is male, in his late twenties to mid thirties, probably with facial hair and a substantial criminal record. Unsatisfactory job, probably related to the river, and likely a hypochondriac.”

Sherlock tapped his hands on his knee, wetting his tongue before continuing, “The suspects methods of killing the victims were detached but firm and fast. Strangulation, chloroform and blunt trauma to the skull. Primary motive sexually related. The children and their families have nothing in common with one another, not at least from what we can find. The autopsy I completed last night told me that the victim was murdered in a location with sandstone dirt patches, most likely a factory for tiles or flooring. Lestrade is checking a few of the locations that match my description and completing background checks on immediate family members though I doubt he'll find anything. The suspect is likely a stranger to the families. ”

“Would the suspect have a history of violence?”

“Very likely. I’ve also asked Lestrade to look into past murders that may have seemed to be a single case but could in fact be linked. The professionalism and haste with which the suspect killed these children leads me to conclude these were not his first three victims.”

“Professionalism?”

“No prints on any of the bodies, no footage on any security systems. The suspect was quick, methodical, rehearsed.”

“But you found the suspects DNA in the victim.”

Sherlock gave an almost feral grin, menacing and burning with intelligence, “Even the best make mistakes. And if they make them, I find them. The suspect used double layers of condom while violating the victims, probably to ensure no contact of bodily fluids. Our suspect wasn’t anticipating that a child’s blunt nails are quite capable of creating a tear through latex.”

“The kids were… alive when they were raped?”

“Affirmative. But as I have said, they were unconscious. And I wouldn’t totally rule out necrophilia on the second victim.”

“If the kid was unconscious, how did they fight back?”

“I’m not sure yet.”

“So what’s the plan?”

Sherlock hesitated, “I haven’t one.”

John was startled, “Of course you do! You always do.”

“Lestrade will assuredly text me once he gets more information.”

John nodded in grim understanding, “That or another victim will pop up.”

The ex-soldier took a huge breath. “I wasn’t really being fair to you last night, Sherlock, and I’m sorry for that. You needed to complete the autopsy, couldn’t at Bart's, it’s important to the investigation and the case. I know that you aren’t a… sicko pedophile or any nonsense like that. I know that you're just doing it to prevent future murders. And even if it's altruism, which it isn't, even if it's just a hobby to keep your big bloody brain from turning towards self-destruction… you help people. I forget that sometimes.”

“So will you come home?” Sherlock asked again, attempting to sound nonchalant but instead his voice was remarkably hopeful.

His eyes were bright and inquisitive, his lips puckered and anxious. John couldn’t remember if anyone ever asked him that before and meant it so wholeheartedly. If anyone else he’d ever known would worry so much about him running off that they would travel across the country in the darkest hours of morning just to explain themselves and retrieve him.

Sherlock said he needed John. Not only that they were friends but that he didn’t want to go back to what life was like before they’d met. John felt the same. The days after Afghanistan and prior to Sherlock were some of the most depressingly empty hours of his existence. He’d filled up the time between staring out the window and staring at his gun, wondering if it really was cowardly to put a bullet through his own skull. If that counted as a cop out.

John stood up from his side of the car and move to sit beside Sherlock on the narrow bench away from the window. Sherlock angled his body towards John. They were so close John could smell Sherlock’s aftershave and it made him dizzy but also oddly relieved.

“I’ll come home. On one condition,”

“Anything," Sherlock assured him instantly. "And I vow to you: I won’t break that condition.”

John gazed into Sherlock’s face as if measuring his sincerity, taking in his pale skin and his enviable cheekbones and his impossible lips.

“I want to tell you about the war. And I want you to listen, and not interrupt.”

Sherlock was taken aback, and could only manage a weak, “Alright, of course…”

With a quick glance to his watch he knew that there were three and a half hours left before returning to London. He’d never spoken about this to anyone, not even to his therapist, but he somehow felt like Sherlock needed to understand this side of him and it would help them both clear the air. It was like preparing to give a last confession.

Because reading a file about war was very different than talking to a soldier about combat.

“I’ve killed four children, sixteen civilians. Twenty-nine armed soldiers. One cabbie. The first time I killed a child was in a small providence outside of Herat.”

So, John talked and talked and talked. He spun each memory like a story for his blog, listing each and every single human that he’d taken life away from. Sherlock, true to his word, didn’t interrupt. The detective listened, engaged and a bit awed by the tales. He stared at the doctor the entire time, mentally burning the details onto his hard drive. He’d known that John hadn’t just been a regular, run-of-the-mill army doctor. John participated in many special OPs mission that were highly confidential. It didn’t matter if John told him since Sherlock already read the files himself. By the time the words ran out and there was nothing left to say, John’s voice was hoarse and his head was pounding but his heart felt a thousand times lighter.

“Fifty people…” John paused, feeling oddly poetic as he added, “You can attempt to carve out a place for yourself after war, but it always seems like a futile endeavor. You can slowly take back all the minutes, hours and years you devoted to your country but it will never balance the scales. You can close your hands tight on the embers of your guilt, starve them of oxygen and watch them die- but the ash of your memories and the nightmares will stain dark on skin and if you touch too quickly it will burn your heart away.”

“I will burn your heart,” James Moriarty told Sherlock Holmes, as if it was promise. “I’ve been reliably informed that I don’t have one.”

But they both knew that was a lie, a fabrication, no longer reality.

The ex-soldier, the doctor, the civilian, his partner, his friend, Sherlock mused swaying slightly to lean with his shoulder resting against John’s. This brave and heroic and somewhat stupidly loyal man. His moral compass and his protector, his teacher of sentiment and his nagging companion. John was the embodiment of his heart, as much as he’d ever have one anyway. Sherlock wondered if John knew that and figured he didn’t.

It made Sherlock want to bare his soul, share his own well-harvested secrets. Sherlock wanted to tell John about all the pain carved on his life because maybe then it would finally scab over and begin the slow process of healing. He wanted to explain why he resented Mycroft, wanted to justify his drug use and he desired for John to look right inside his brain and declare what he found there to be brilliant and amazing.

Instead Sherlock rested beside him, silent, processing. Amiable company. Their shoulders warming one another, hesitant and touch-starved.

The conductor announced they’d arrived back in London. John hadn’t even been gone for a full day. It seemed that he was rather crap at running away. Or maybe that it was just nice to be found again. They walked out of St. Pancras Train Station and into the bustling streets of London. It was late in the afternoon, and John’s stomach was rumbling. He hadn’t eaten a decent meal in over two days. Sherlock tugged at his sleeve and John followed, ducking into a small Indian restaurant that smelled like bliss.

Sherlock didn’t eat, which wasn’t unusual, and John didn’t point out when he nicked food off his plate, which also wasn’t unusual. If John closed his eyes he could almost pretend that the last twenty-four hour hadn’t happened. That his emotional roller coaster was a figment of his own overly active imagination.

“Tell me something that no one else knows about you,” He requested between mouthfuls of food, feeling selfish to know Sherlock's secrets for some reason.

The consulting detective hummed in thought. Normally he would disregard John’s inquiry, scoff at him for prying (and thereby breaking rule number one on their cohabitation list), but he knew that he’d nothing to hide anymore, especially from this ex-soldier who had already bared his soul.

“When I was a child I wanted nothing more than to run away and become a pirate.”

John bit his lip, “Why a pirate?”

He shrugged, “Independence on the high seas, no one to tell you what to do, crime, adventure, treasure. The usual reasons children enjoy fantasies.”

John smiled at the thought of a small Sherlock, face rounder and countenance innocent, wearing a red pirates coat and a patch over one eye with his curly black mop disheveled as he stared longingly towards the sea. 

“I always wanted to be an astronaut.” John remarked. "Land on the moon." 

“I’d have assumed you were the firefighter sort,”

“Since I’m a doctor or because I was a soldier?”

“No, because of your innate desire to assist those in need, take action, fight impossible battles. An astronaut does none of those things.”

“Maybe that’s why I went into medicine. Becoming a space cowboy sounded dull, almost tediously easy.” John grinned, the expression splitting across his face without his knowledge. "The solar system is so boring." 

Sherlock smiled back, genuinely and boyishly. “Well, does ‘Consulting Doctor’ make the cut?”

“I’ll have to think on it,” John teased. “Chasing suspects across London rooftops, getting trapped in skips, sewage drains and freezers while being shot at, solving puzzles and crimes… It's all very questionable.”

“It passes the time.” Sherlock affirmed. Then he hesitated a moment before adding, “I won’t break any rules on the list ever again, John, or at the very least I will do my utmost to try and avoid doing such.”

“Sherlock, it was never really about you not telling me you were going to perform the autopsy ahead of time. Anyway, I’m over it. I forgive you.”

He opened his mouth to add something but Sherlock’s mobile buzzed on the table between them. Pulling it out he glanced at the text.

“Another body, this one found in Brixton. You coming?”

John threw his napkin on the table, tugged a few bills from his pocket, then gave Sherlock his most affectionately fond grin. John was trying to push the point that everything was forgiven, at least for now. This particular grin was the one that made the detective never want to see that expression on John’s face for anyone else besides him, ever again. That grin always gave him an ugly possessive feeling of want.

It gave Sherlock the urge to do something he’d never desired before; to kiss the grin right off of his face and replace it with a vastly different array of expressions.

“Always,” John told him.

New Scotland Yard was a short taxi ride away. John still had his duffle with him, wrapped around his back, and the heavy winter clothes he wore were cumbersome. They strut into the yard like they owned the place, Sherlock with a bit more flare and John with a bit less finesse.

Lestrade met them in his office and glanced up from his computer, “Where the hell were you, mate?”

John wasn’t sure if the Detective Inspector was addressing him or Sherlock.

“I made a quick trip to Ilfracombe to retrieve something that belongs to me.” Sherlock said breezily, making John nearly choke on his spit.

“Ilfracombe, like on the other side of the UK?” Lestrade repeated warily, looking between the two of them like they’d grown an extra head apiece. John was trying very unsuccessfully not to blush slightly. 

“Irrelevant.” Sherlock insisted.

“Alright, I'll put that firmly in the realm of I really don’t want to know,” Lestrade said mostly to himself. “The body was found in a skip outside Brixton, 6AM, by a jogger. This time the kid was three blocks away from the Thames, no twine, more obvious signs of struggle.”

“A deliberate change in pattern.”

“Or a mistake.” The Detective Inspector confirmed, “ID confirms eight-year-old Hannah Alberton, she was on a class trip and disappeared around the Brixton Market. The body is already in the morgue-“

“You removed the body from the crime scene before I could look at it?” Sherlock snapped, irritated.

“Well, forgive me,” Lestrade snorted sarcastically. “The body was called in at 6AM and you were nowhere to be found and not answering your texts. We couldn’t just keep her there for the better of the afternoon waiting for whenever you would deem us worthy to grace us with your presence. Body’s in the morgue. Crime scene photos and paperwork on my server. Get out of my office.”

John and Sherlock traveled on the elevator down to the Scotland Yard morgue. John felt slightly guilty and a little overwhelmed over the fact and knowledge that for possibly the first time in his life, Sherlock put The Work on the back burner and instead went to find him. The doctor felt something akin to pride. 

This morgue was a forth the size of the one at Barts and less high tech. The low lighting and counters made the space appear expertly sterilized and professional. The child was stored inside a standard issue body bag, a tiny lump in a giant black shroud. Sherlock pulled gloves on and opened the zipper down to its base, peering at the body.

She was less than four feet tall, brown hair, fair skin. Her clothes, a yellow jumper and blue jeans, were filthy and torn. No shoes. She had red marks on her fingers, a sure sign of struggle. Her lips were also bruised and cut. Sherlock examined her teeth. Traces of blood.

"She got one last good chomp," John murmured.

Sherlock slowly examined her entire body, peering at abrasions on her arm beneath his magnifying glass.

Afterwards, John sat at the table by a microscope and addressed him, "So, walk me through it."

The detective nodded, pulling up her stiff hand and wrist, "The attacker was quick, barely gave her time to respond. He probably nabbed her in a restroom, which can be confirmed from her post-mortem defecation. He injected her with the same chemical cocktail as the other victims, but she was moving too much and the needle snapped."

Sherlock pointed to a small mark, barely noticeable. "She didn't get the full dose. He took her to a secluded area, an ally most likely, I'll have to examine the soil from her clothes. She awoke halfway through his assault, struggled, probably started screaming. He used his hand to cover her mouth and she bit him. Cause of death was a fatal injection of ketamine. Probably a quadruple dose based on the track marks. This one didn't go the way he planned, so he left her in the skip."

"That skip must've been close to the scene of the crime, then," John knew Sherlock was already way ahead of him. He'd recognize that glazed yet intense look on his face anywhere. Sherlock was in his mind palace. John waited patiently for him to sort through whatever mental files he needed to.

“I think we should go to the crime scene,” Sherlock hummed, turning away, fingers slipping up to his face as he placed his thumb on his lip. “John? Will you send a text? To Lestrade. Exactly these words: DNA can be matched between victims. Send body to Bart's for confirmation. SH & JW.”

“And JW?” John mused, pulling out his mobile and typing the message in.

Sherlock gave a small smile, “Well, you are my partner.”

John bristled, “Yeah, about that, what were you trying to pull with Lestrade in his office?”

“Simply helping him avoid the subject and move on to relevant information.”

“I do not belong to you.” John remarked, voice even despite the fact that his cheeks flushed.

Sherlock simply raised his eyebrow into his ‘you are an idiot’ expression and dramatically exited the room. The crime scene in Brixton was through a maze of slum apartment surrounding a giant market. The river was four blocks away. The skip seemed unremarkable at first glance. Sherlock knelt down to examine the bin, his eyes scanning over the walls before turning back to John.

John was visibly exhausted. He obviously didn’t sleep much or very well the night prior, and Sherlock knew he’d been working long hours the entire week. Dark smudges haunted under his eyes and the lines on his face seemed older and more haggard. It was getting late in the evening, so Sherlock nodded at his companion and they hailed a cab.

“221b Baker Street.” Sherlock told the cabbie.

“Not Bart's?” John asked, budging over to let Sherlock slide next to him.

The detective shook his head, debating if he should tell the truth or lie. He’d been admitting to far too much sentiment in the last twenty-four hours and his dignity could hardly bear it.

“Molly can do the tox screen herself so it does not require my presence. You are tired. We’ll go home and you can sleep until we get more data. I need to think for a while.”

John got a strange look on his face, as if he needed to sneeze. Sherlock was trying to be considerate, John hummed to himself in awed realization.

Sherlock pouted waspishly and snarled, “What, now?”

“I just, um, wow. Well. Hmmm.” John crossed his arms over his chest and smiled bemusedly out the window.

Sherlock could feel his patience snapping in three, two-

Instead of responding, John reached over and placed his hand gently atop Sherlock’s leather gloves and gave a small squeeze. Sherlock stilled, glanced down at their hands resting between them, and looked out the window instead. He still wasn’t quite sure what this was about, but John was smiling a little pleased smile and cupping their glove-clad hands together and Sherlock didn’t want to say anything because he was afraid he would let go.

For a long minute, each second Sherlock counting in his head, John held his hand. When they got home, John released him like nothing happened and pulled out his wallet to pay the cabbie.

They marched inside Baker Street together. John dropped the duffle that he’d been hauling around all day with a relieved huff. He pulled off the double layers of coat he was wearing and stuck them on his peg by the door. The flat had been returned to a slightly cleaner version of what it normally looked like, and for that John was grateful. He toed off his shoes and went straight to the kitchen to put the kettle on.

“Alright, so what do we know about our suspect?” Sherlock inquired from where he was gracefully throwing himself into his customary chair.

“That he’s a child rapist, potentially a necrophiliac and murderer who needs to have his dick lopped off?” John suggested.

Sherlock gave a smirk, “All factual, yes, but I was hoping you’d go further.”

John poured two spoonfuls of sugar into Sherlock’s tea and a dash of milk into his own. He brought the trey over and sat comfortably before handing the detective his steaming beverage.

“He must know the area of the Thames very well?” John suggested as he cradled his own tea, warming his fingertips.

“Yes, and that his appearance must be relatively unnoticeable since he picked up each of his victims in high-traffic areas.”

“Not another bloody cabbie?”

“I was thinking more of a freighter or boatman. They have a view of the harbor from the water, and the first three victims were found in isolated pockets not easily accessible from land. So, then, by water. Yet he’d have grab his victim, get back on the boat without anyone noticing, commit the crime there then dump the body? Unlikely. He lured the children to the boat.”

“But all the kids were last seen nowhere near the Thames.”

“A message?” Sherlock mused, “No, I’m thinking blackmail.”

“What does somebody blackmail a child with?” John sounded disgusted by the prospect.

“Pertinent question.” Sherlock confirmed. “I’m not sure.”

Sherlock’s mobile chimed and he quickly scanned the message. “DNA was a match between victims. Molly said this one had alcohol in their system also.”

“Why would a eight-year-old on a school trip have alcohol in their system?”

“DNA was no match in the crime database. Which discards our theory that the suspect is a violent criminal.”

“Just because he didn’t get caught doesn’t mean he never committed a violent crime,” John reasoned.

“Yes, but the vicious manner of these attacks leads me to conclude our man couldn’t manage to hide his temper from day to day life, ergo he is not an angry man.”

John’s eyebrows scrunched on his forehead, “You lost me.”

“Drug user.” Sherlock stated, setting his tea down. “Likely a calm and likable person on the surface, easily trusted by a child at first glance, enough that he could get close to them to give them a message of some sort. Then he waits for them to meet him, drugs them after.”

“Why not drug them instead of give them a note?”

“Two reasons. A man carrying an unconscious child will inevitably draw attention. If he drugged them and gave them a note simultaneously then the children couldn’t come to him without appearing suspicious or collapsing. Children are remarkable actors and can often hide their intentions, so blackmail first, drugs later. The kids came to him.”

John sighed, rubbing his hand over his face, “Well, on that cheery note, I’m going to shower and take a kip.”

A dark head bobbed his acknowledgment, he was already lost in his big brain. John strode the bathroom, turned the faucet on as hot as it would go, and got undressed. He stood under the scalding spray, not moving, hands splayed on the wall in front of him. What a hell of a day, he thought. What a hell of a twenty-four hours. Luckily he hadn’t been scheduled at the A&E, but he’d have to call in tomorrow if he was planning on finishing the case with Sherlock.

He was still a little amazed with himself that he was back home. He’d been so prepared to block Sherlock Holmes out of his life forever and start over, no matter how agonizingly painful that process would be. If Sherlock hadn’t come to get him, he would probably still be moping in a hotel room. But now he was back at 221b with his maniac roommate obsessing about their current case he was undeniably relieved. This kind of life wasn’t normal, but it was his normal and that’s all that mattered.

Sherlock came to find him, to set things right. The genius dropped a serial killer case to bring John back home. And John knew that the words they’d shared wouldn’t automatically and magically righten all of their problems, but it was a start. John knew he was hard to live with, and made concessions left and right, but he’d never thought about how often Sherlock did the exact same. Turning off the water, his skin was a healthy pink. He toweled himself off, put on his dressing gown and grabbed his clothes to head upstairs. Sherlock was still in his chair, hadn’t moved a muscle except to cradle his violin to his chest. John debated saying good night but figured Sherlock wouldn’t hear him when he was like that anyway.

His bed was utopia, his sheets the finest luxury. He closed the curtains from the last vestiges of sunset and curled himself under his sheets and John was fast asleep moments later. Sherlock woke him five hours later, at two AM. He didn’t wake him with his usual shake on the shoulder, but instead politely knocked on his door until John heard him.

“Wha-?”

“Lestrade thinks he may have found the suspect," Sherlock murmured from the hallway. "We’re needed at Scotland Yard.”

“Oh,” John replied, voice groggy, “Ta, give me five minutes.”

Sherlock nodded and spun back down the stairs. The military taught him to get dressed in a heartbeat so he used that skill to good use. Pulling on a pair of jeans, shirt and jumper he also tugged his warmest socks on, the pair Ms. Hudson had given him for Christmas. His gun was resting on his bedside table. He checked the ammo and hid it under his shirt. Wallet and cell phone were next, he was glad he’d remembered to charge it. Glancing around he absently wondered why he couldn’t find his house keys.

The next thing he knew his coat was shoved at him and they were in yet another taxi. He idly wondered how much the pair spent since they'd met on taxi rides. Sherlock was busy on his cell phone, probably googling who-knows-what. John cleared his throat. 

Sherlock glanced at him out of the corner of his eyes, "Last night a man was found, unconscious, in a boathouse alongside the Thames. He was mumbling nonsense and the owner called the police. James Tylern, 28-years-old, ferrymen. Tylern was so out of it he didn't notice the police taking a swab of his saliva."

John frowned, "Saliva?"

"Enough for a confirmation that the DNA matched. We are going in to question him." 

"Damn," John pouted, intending to sound overly dramatic.

"What?" 

"No chases over rooftops or anything! The damn coppers found this guy for us. This Consulting Doctor stuff is pretty dull," John's tone was warm and playfully teasing. 

Sherlock huffed a laugh, unable to help himself, "Agreed! They can't all be a 9 out of 10. However, I will be eager to find out how he managed to lure the children, what pretense he utilized." 

"It's probably going to be disheartening, freaky and slightly perverted in the bad way." John hazarded a guess. 

"Fascinating, then." Sherlock confirmed.

John chuckled, glancing in amused disbelief at his flatmate. Sherlock maintained a slightly pleased smile on his face. People who didn't know the man wouldn't be able to tell, but John had long since memorized Sherlock's smile, in every form it took. 

"Um," John spoke after a long moment of companionable silence. "I don't think I can sit through this entire interrogation. Not after seeing those kids. It's just a little too…"

"I understand." Sherlock assured him, thinking of the great wealth of knowledge he'd learned about John in the last couple days. John stripped himself metaphorically bare in the train for Sherlock, and just as the great doctor wore the people he'd killed like a set of scars, Sherlock would as well. The genius sleuth hadn't believed in heroes. Then he met John Hamish Watson.

The next few hours were a blur as they took continual statements from James Tylern. Turns out, Sherlock was right on all accounts. The man was a ferry driver who had no criminal record. He'd gotten into meth a few months prior, and mixing that with LSD boiled holes into his brain. He admitted to killing the four children, laughed about it on record. Said that he took photos of the kids in the bathroom and told them if they didn't come to the harbor he'd send them to all their classmates. This confused John behind the two way mirror until Lestrade reminded him that most grade school children owned cell phones now, that it was the norm. The children followed and John left the room while Tylern described how he drugged, raped and murdered them. He could stomach a lot, but this wasn't something he needed to hear. 

Sally Donovan brought him a bitter black coffee as he lounged in some chairs by Lestrade's office. She sat on the chair beside his and stared him down curiously. She looked like an interrogator trying to deduce someone a bit not right in the head. 

"Sick man, that," Donovan remarked. "Lestrade told me the Freak did one of the kid's autopsies back at your flat. Don't know how you can live with such depravity." 

John felt his hackles rising, "If by sick man, you are referring to the disgusting excuse for a human being that raped four little girls before murdering them, you are right. If you're talking about Sherlock, than you've really got your priorities fucked with." 

Donovan smirked, "You defend him like a bulldog. Never understood how the Freak found someone so loyal." 

His shoulders tightened unconsciously as he forced hateful words back down his throat. 

"It's all for the best," she mused. "At least this way we know he's not the one raping and murdering children yet-"

"Shut the fuck up, Sally Donovan." John snarled in his Captain Watson voice as his temper snapped, jolting to his feet and looming over her like a wolf and his prey. "How very professional, calling him a freak. Left primary school, yet? You will live and die and never be one fourth of the human being Sherlock Holmes is. Yeah, he performs autopsies in our flat when the Bart's lab is full. But guess the fuck what? The DNA he found nabbed the fucker over in that interrogation room," John pointed at the closed door. "And that man is the true Freak."

John took a deep steady breath. Donovan didn't seem to know what to say, she stared up at him like he'd just gone off the deep end. 

"If I ever hear you talking about Sherlock like that again, or calling him a freak, I will report you. You're a cop, act like one. Leave him the fuck alone and do your goddamn job." 

John took off down the hall before she could even open her mouth. As he tore down the halls he watched people glance up to stare at him. He didn't care in the slightest. His fury was still pumping like a drug through his veins, his anger at Scotland Yard's treatment of Sherlock too palpable for him to handle. Sherlock had dealt with these ignorant fuckers his whole life, with nobody to stand up for him. He couldn't imagine Mycroft Holmes sticking up for his little brother and Sherlock never mentioned any pervious friends. It bothered John, and made his stomach twist. His mobile chimed in his pocket. 

5:56 AM

Location?

SH

5:57 AM

Outside north doors. 

Needed air.

JW

6:00 AM

Stay there. 

SH

Sherlock arrived a few minutes later as John stared into the distance blankly just beyond the doors. Sherlock tucked his scarf tighter around his neck and stood by John's left side. 

"He's irrevocably pleaded guilty. Lestrade is processing evidence as we speak." 

"That's good," The words blew puffs of visible air past his lips. "Let's go home?"

"Lets." Sherlock agreed. 

Without speaking they'd both nonverbally decided to walk the fourteen blocks home instead of catching a cab. It was chilly out, but the sun was bright and the sky was clear and another serial killer wouldn't be preying on London streets any longer. The case was over. To think it could have been his last. 

"What did he say?" 

Sherlock frowned towards his snow-clad shoes in contemplation, "It's all very unpleasant and unoriginal. Bares no need repeating." 

"I see." 

The consulting detective sighed, staring up again towards the roofs of London apartments and shops, "Donovan apologized to me, earlier." 

John flinched, "Did she now." 

"She seemed a bit… intimidated." 

"Well," John deflected weakly, "You just can't please some people." 

Sherlock grinned his happy-genuinely-excited grin, turning his face away before tugging at John's coat with his hand near his wrist. The gesture was a thank you, was a reassurance, was a tiny miracle in John's mind. John gently reached up and captured Sherlock's hand for the second time that day, squeezing the appendage for a long moment before they parted, strolling inches away from one another in perfect synchronization. They walked back silently, but this wasn't the oppressive lack of noise from the beach. This was the silence that told Sherlock everything would be fine, just fine. 

But Sherlock knew he couldn't leave it unsaid, knew that he had to speak the words aloud otherwise John would never know. And it was a risk and it was a leap and it was also the greatest gift he could give him. So right before they turned onto Baker Street, Sherlock pulled John into the park and halted. 

"What's going on?"

"Shut up for a moment, please." Sherlock snapped, trying to make it sound less offensive by adding the please. 

John tilted his head, eyebrow raised, but shrugged and gazed around the park with an absentminded appreciation. They were both invigorated from their long walk, their blood pumping healthily through their veins. Sherlock navigated John to a park bench, between a set of large hibernating oak trees surrounding them on either side. 

"When I was a little kid Mycroft was my hero." Sherlock murmured, voice so hushed it was almost a rasp. "My father died by the time that I was five and Mummy never forgave me for looking just like him."

So, Sherlock talked and talked and talked. And his stories weren't as easy to follow like John's, but nonetheless he spun memory after memory, filling in the gaps of time before they'd met. He talked at length about his drug use, his addiction, his rehab. He spoke of a perverted step-uncle, who through trying to molest Sherlock (and failing when he exposed him via videotape) gave the budding scientist a taste for puzzles and mysteries. John asked question after question, the detective replying honestly and evenly to each one. No deflections, just unflinching trust. 

They were frozen ice blocks by the time Sherlock ran out of words, and John tugged at his hand and lead him home. They locked the door and drew the curtains, taking off their heavy jackets. Sherlock stoked the fire while John made tea. They both grabbed comforters from their respective rooms and changed into pajamas and dressing gowns. A few birds were chirping out their sitting room window. Sherlock stared as John meandered down with his blanket drawn around his shoulders. The ex-soldier plopped on the couch beside him and they both watched each other, thoughts whirling in their minds. 

"I think we've just learned more about each other in this last row than we have during our entire friendship." John remarked in a bemused tone. 

"Indeed." Sherlock confirmed. 

"You haven't slept in days," John commented. 

"Nooooo." 

John pulled his feet up on the narrow space of the couch, and Sherlock mimicked his action. Their comforters twisted together, and Sherlock's bare foot brushed up against John's clothed ankle. They both stared at each other from across the couch, breathing in unison. John reached under the blankets, wrapping his greedy fingers around Sherlock's slender digits, the pressure returned moments later. They twined fingers and shifted closer, thighs and calves and arms relaxing. Eyes sliding shut from the world, falling away.

When he awoke they were wrapped around one another, his nose near Sherlock's cheek. Sherlocks's shut eyelids were dancing with dreams, and John took a great breath in to remind himself he was alive. Their hands were still clasped, slightly sweaty from sleep, bodies fitting effortlessly on the space the sofa allowed. 

He'd never known that life could be like this. For the longest time dating had been a means to an end. John was a heterosexual, and only slept with women. But this wasn't just some bloke. Sherlock was this brilliant mesmerizing quasar, pulsing with life, and John thrummed alongside the man, his partner. The genius treasured his secrets, but in that freezing park that smelled of crisp morning, the consulting detective shared himself passionately and trusted him with his past. John was privileged. They would be fine. Everything would be just fine.  Sherlock shivered in his grasp, slowly coming to consciousness. His eyes cracked open, looking more blue today than gray or green, and he smiled. 

And when Sherlock Holmes smiled his unaffected little quirk of lips, John Watson fell in love with him all over again. 

"Good morning," John murmured in a husky voice.

"Judging from the shadows on the floor it's actually late afternoon," Sherlock remarked absently. 

John pulled at their joined fingers, thumb tracking the back of a slim palm to feel his pulse. 

"Did you know?" John breathed, still a bit tired but otherwise inexplicably content, "That you are a like a brilliant bloody quasar, powered by the black hole of your intellect, pulsing and thrumming in cadence alongside me?" 

Sherlock moved his head against the back of the couch, regarding John for the longest time. 

"I find myself to have fallen into sentiment with you," Sherlock returned. 

John blinked, grinned, and rolled his eyes, "Oh, sentiment?"

"Yes, some variation of it. Probably not healthy, since it might paint you with a target board across your chest."

"Already worn Semtex, ta." 

"John, you could be at risk." Sherlock protested, sounding like a grumpy old man. 

"Sherlock, I'm stupidly in sentiment with you."

Sherlock surged forward and captured John's mouth, slanting their lips together for a chaste brush of affection. John felt Sherlock taste him and wrapped his arms around that slender neck. Sherlock tilted his head, tapping at John's lips with his tongue and it was moist and wet and hot and John felt like he might drown. When they were both sitting down the height difference wasn’t as much of an issue. 

Pulling back, John pressed his forehead against Sherlock's, freeing his hand to cradle his aristocratic face. 

"Thank you for coming to get me, I'm sorry I ran away. I promise not to do that again." 

Sherlock paused, nodding, "A new list might be in order."

"Yeah, I couldn't be arsed to care about that at the moment," John said, pulling Sherlock back towards him and forcefully pushing his tongue into the detectives mouth. Sherlock made a noise, a pleading sort of keen, and all thoughts promptly left the doctors head and rushed towards his groin. 

They kissed like it was the only thing they’d ever wanted to do. Sherlock told him in the park that despite the fact he wasn’t a virgin, he was a neigh shade away from inexperienced. He didn’t feel comfortable with previous partners (only two, males, from Uni) and Sherlock maintained some serious trust issues. He’d never came by their hands, and he explained that these previous men tried to use sex against him. So he stopped doing it, focused on drugs instead. He could never get hard when he used, and that only encouraged his celibacy. 

But at that moment the detective was whimpering and lapping at John’s mouth with sloppy satisfaction, pushing their chests together and exploring his tongue over each tooth. He was stroking his violin-calloused fingers into John’s short hair, cradling his skull with such a gentle steady hand that John could barely breath. 

John returned the attention, hands diving under the back of Sherlock’s shirt and up around sharp shoulder blades. One of their comforters fell to the floor, John got on his knees and crawled over Sherlock, hand on his shoulder, other braced on his hipbones. Sherlock’s slender arms wrapped around him like vines, their hips accidentally slotting together and shifting, tenuous friction startling them both. 

Sherlock’s eyes were half-lidded, his mouth was bruised from the attentions and he was the most bloody gorgeous thing John had ever seen. And what did it matter if sex complicates relationships slightly? He was practically already dating this crazy man anyway. They spent all their time together, lived together, shared finances and now he wanted nothing more than to strip this marvelous bloke bare and sweat.

Sherlock seemed to have the same idea; he was pulling at the hem of John’s t-shirt, dressing gown sliding down his body and cotton pajamas over his head. John was a modest person, he never walked around starkers, even in their flat. Sherlock paused to run his hands over the ugly reminder of his injury, dipping his palm around to caress the other side of the puckered scar. 

“This brought you to me,” Sherlock murmured, voice deep and sensuous. 

John was lost after that. Clothes pooled to the floor, hands grew bolder, skin shiny with sweat and the heady musk of sex filling their sitting room. They groped and fumbled and giggled at one point, mouths fused together like magnets. Sherlock took them both into his large hand and pumped. John became nothing more than an incoherent mess of small syllables. When Sherlock came, he was silent, and John watched each second, refusing to close his eyes even to blink. John followed moment later, semen pooling on the genius’s flat belly. The doctor collapsed atop his flatmate, their chests heaving as they tried to catch some much needed air. John twined their fingers together and pressed his cheek into Sherlock’s collarbone. 

John grinned, appearing almost shy, “What happened to, ‘Well I’m flattered by your interest?’”

Sherlock smirked, “That went away on holiday, forever. Hand in hand with your heterosexuality, I’d presume.”

John huffed a laugh, leaning up and smashing his lips against Sherlock’s with little finesse. 

Everything would be fine, just fine. Within the subsequent week, the flatmates tore down their previous lists and sat at the experiment and foods table to draft up a replacement. They drank coffee and discussed things like adults, and Sherlock managed to only pout a little bit. Their modified list read:

• All dead people parts are to be labeled, properly stored in certified dead people part containers, not smelly & must be disposed of accordingly. 
• Sanitize kitchen table and countertops if questionable substances are experimented on.
• NO FLAMMABLE EXPERIMENTS and open the damn window if it’s toxic, you berk. 
• Keep JW up to date on all cases, including if autopsies need to be performed in the flat; never go on a dangerous chase without notification and backup. 
• Mycroft is a git and should be treated like one. 
• On the rare instance SH sleeps, please don’t wake JW when climbing into bed by shoving cold hands up his shirt. Only wake him if there is a nightmare or case. 
• Ask before any new sexual act is introduced. Remember what happened with the handcuffs? Panic attacks aren’t fine. 
• Medical kits are still for medical purposes.
• No more than three nicotine patches a day.
• No more than twenty clinic hours a week. 

And that was that. Everything that needed to be said was said and they were sincerely glad to get all such sentimental and emotional tripe out of the way so they could go back to living their lives without this entire hullabaloo. They were British after all, these talks on feelings made both uncomfortable. 

John was a pain to live with and Sherlock insanely driven by puzzles, but they were together and not going anywhere. The flat was messy and sometimes littered with questionable goo, but the violin that Sherlock played out the window was beautiful and heart wrenching. John occasionally had a vivid nightmare and would often be stroppy the next day but Sherlock knew how to wrap his arms around the man and give him nonverbal comfort. 

They of course kept their relationship to themselves, didn’t parade their promise to one another around. They weren’t affectionate in public, didn’t hold hands while walking down the street and god knows there would be hell to pay if John got Sherlock flowers for Valentine’s Day. Ms. Hudson knew (always knew) and Lestrade was clever enough also and of course Mycroft tried to corner John for the obligatory ‘hurt him and I’ll hunt you’ speech but those things were bound to happen anyway. A natural progression. Things weren’t normal by societal standards but they were normal for this pair.  

The Consulting Detective and the Consulting Doctor. A right pair of control freaks. But they were happy and chasing criminals and solving mysteries and high on adrenaline. It worked for them. 

END