—

A week later John wakes up to find Sherlock rummaging in his wardrobe.
“Sherlock? What are you doing?” He asks sleepily, watching the other man form the cocoon of his duvet.
“Packing” Sherlock states, gesturing to the open suitcase which is slowly filling with John’s clothes and shoes and toiletries.
“Why are you packing a suitcase for me? You’re not sending me to Scotland for a Skype case again, are you?” John groans, shuffling to a sitting position
“No, we’re going on holiday. You have two hours to be up and dressed and fed before we have to go to Heathrow”
And with that Sherlock snaps the suitcase shut and clicks the locks before dragging it out and from his bed John hears it thud against every step.
He is sure he has misheard Sherlock, but does as he is told. He showers, dresses and goes down for breakfast before realising he doesn’t know what the weather will be like wherever they are going.
“You won’t need the jumper” Sherlock says absently as he passes the kitchen to pick up the tickets that are on the mantel under the skull.
“Where are we going?” John calls, but he gets no answer and instead rolls his eyes and butters his toast in frustration.

When they arrive at Heathrow John tries to look at the board of departures to work out where Sherlock is taking him, but the detective is already sweeping towards the check in desk with their luggage and tickets and smiles at the girl behind the counter. He whispers something to her which makes her coo. John’s eyes narrow, but then he has to jog to keep up because Sherlock is off again towards the security checkpoint and it’s the standard dull procedure of taking everything off, putting all their stuff in a box and being patted down by a fat security guard with suspicious little eyes and a probable heart attack in the pipeline.

It is not until they finally board the plane that John knows where they are going.
“Venice? We’re going to Venice?” And his voice is full of excitement and relief.
“You’re pleased” Sherlock states
“Yeah, I’ve always wanted to go to Venice. How did you know?”
“…I didn’t. It was a lucky guess I suppose” Sherlock’s lips twitch slightly, like he is irked that he didn’t know this particular fact about John, but is satisfied with himself.

—–

They arrive in the early afternoon and the sun is glorious. They have to get the train from the airport onto the main island, but John is wearing a wide grin and Sherlock knows the best is yet to come. It is summer, and maybe John doesn’t realise that it is the festival week in Venice. They go to the hotel, a small but beautiful building overlooking the grand canal with balconies covered in climbing roses, and they have two co-joining rooms next to each other overlooking the boats and market stalls by the train station and the water is sparkling aqua-blue.
“Sherlock-”
“Yes?”
“This is amazing. Thank you”
“Come on John, lets go for a walk”

They wander and get a little lost, but it’s fine because they have all the time in the world here, the streets are new and everything seems so much brighter. They have been walking around the narrow streets and canal sides and over bridges and through the intricately detailed plazas for well over three hours, enjoying the sights and looking in shop windows and inhaling freshly baked bread smells. Finally Sherlock looks at his phone and grabs John’s hand.
“We have to go back to the hotel to change”
“Why?”
“Just come along John” Sherlock says and the two of them are heading back to the hotel, their fingers still entwined and neither feeling uncomfortable about that fact.

They get back to the hotel and on John’s bed there is a suit bag laid out that was not there before.
“Sherlock?” John calls through the co-joining door. “What’s this?”
“That’s a suit bag, John. Instead is a suit. You should put it on” The voice floats back but John can sense the satisfied smirk on Sherlock’s face even if he cannot see it.
“Fine. Be mysterious.” He huffs, before opening the bag to reveal a perfectly tailored charcoal grey tuxedo complete with white shirt, white bowtie and a white flower in the button hole. It feels amazing between his fingers, beautifully soft and expensive. He pulls it on with ritual, enjoying the feel of the silk shirt, the cool material on his legs and shoulders.
He hadn’t noticed before, but on the bedside table is a white mask with silver detail around the eyes and edges. It comes down halfway over his nose leaving his mouth exposed. John runs his fingertips over the mask before he hears the door open behind him and Sherlock is stood in a black tux, a similar black mask in his hands and something quite like shock on his face.
“You.. You look very dashing, John” He manages, and John grins, spins on the spot before pressing the mask into his face and securing it on with the ribbon.
“You don’t look half bad yourself”
“Yes, well.. We have to be at St Marco’s in fifteen minutes.”
“Come on then” John says from behind his mask, reaching his hand out for Sherlock to take, an instinctive gesture. Sherlock attaches the mask before grabbing John’s hand and they leave for the masquerade party.

It has been two long months since Sherlock returned to Baker Street and it feels like nothing has changed. Nothing except that the two are an official item, that they sleep in the same bed and that Sherlock has finally stopped calling himself a sociopath. Instead he refers to himself as ‘an anti-social genius maniac’. John doesn’t think he likes the sound of this. It’s much more of a mouthful.

John makes tea for them both but the detective does not drink his. Instead he is prowling around the flat, laptop balanced on one forearm while he types and clicks with the other hand. He says nothing as he works, and his boyfriend doesn’t ask what he is doing. He never likes being interrupted while he is working. John knows this, he is used to this, and honestly he doesn’t mind.

Sherlock doesn’t go to bed that night, but sheets still smell faintly of him. They are cool. John sleeps in fits and bursts, waking often to the darkness and reaching out for a man who is too busy to sleep. There is a silent pang in John’s chest, one of loneliness, the same loneliness after Sherlock was gone, when there were those long months of meaninglessness, of coldness. John bites back the tears and resists the urge to find comfort in Sherlock’s arms. While he has to believe that Sherlock would give up the case to curl up next to him, John has known Sherlock for a long time and there is a niggling doubt in his mind that he might be shooed away. Instead he closes his eyes and counts to a thousand. He rolls over, repeats the exercise, and eventually he is asleep again.

The next morning, Sherlock is in very much the same frame of mind. Restless, agitated, but it is not boredom. It is the frustration of having a word on the tip of his tongue, knowing but not recalling, desperately grasping for the answer that is mere centimetres out of his reach. He almost gives up, but it is not in his nature and this is too damn important. He instead throws himself into the search with more fury, ignoring the tea John makes the next morning until it is cold and abandoned on the coffee table. An hour later Sherlock realises John has gone out to work without saying good morning or goodbye.
Sherlock sighs.

A case comes up, but for the first time in over three years Sherlock tells Lestrade he is too busy to help. The detective inspector is shocked into silence.

Sherlock decides he needs a wider range of data. He goes to the library first, then to an art gallery, then to St. Barts, but nothing is adding up. Disgruntled, annoyed and disappointed he returns to Baker Street where John is ordering their favourite from the Chinese take away. Sherlock smiles, kisses John’s temples. There is an unspoken agreement that Sherlock will come to bed after dinner.

He lies next to John that night, but barely sleeps while the other man snores softly beside him, lost in dreams which fascinate Sherlock. He watches as John’s chest rises and falls, how his lips twitch, how his body naturally curls towards his in search of warmth. Sherlock rests his palm flat on John’s bare chest and in the silence mulls over the thoughts plaguing his brain, desperately tries to work out the equation, fails and at 4am he cannot stand it anymore and leaves the bed to pace in the living room.
John stirs but does not wake until the sun is up.

The next morning, a Saturday, John finds his way to the kitchen by following the smell of freshly brewed coffee. The table is laden with fresh Danish pastries, coffee, the morning paper and a single red carnation in a thin vase. Sherlock is sat at the table with his eyes closed, the tips of his fingers touching under his chin.
“Good morning” The detective says, opening his eyes and smiling at the look of mild surprise on John’s face. In the last two months it has been an expression Sherlock has grown familiar with, has fallen in love with. The small gestures, the occasional day off doing what John wants to do. He even dared to venture as far as cooking dinner, but the result was far from edible and they ended up eating toasted bagels with cream cheese and curling up on the sofa watching Judge Judy.

“What’s all this for then?” John asks, sitting and pouring himself a strong coffee, adding milk and taking a long slow sip.
“I have been neglecting you the last few days” Sherlock states, watching as John takes a pastry from the pile and takes a large bite.
“Well,” John manages around the mouthful, “You’ve been busy. It’s okay, I understand”
“I’ve been researching”
John says nothing, because there is a look about Sherlock, a rare look which clearly shows he is trying to be romantic. It’s endearing. The consulting detective stands, walks to the seat next to John and sits, reaches for his hand and rubs the back of John’s palm with his thumb.
“John. My dear John. I’ve hurt you, I’ve abandoned you. And for that I am sincerely and eternally sorry.”
“Sherlock-”
“Please..” The grey-green eyes are pleading, desperate for John to understand, so the doctor says nothing and places his other hand on top of Sherlock’s.
“I’ve considered all the facts, done considerable research, and I have come to a very important conclusion.” He pauses, his eyes flicker to their hands, then up to John’s face and the doctor notices Sherlock is trembling slightly, his hands are clammy.
“I love you. I love you so very much. I think you are utterly perfect, and I can’t stand being away from you for more than a few hours. The world is dull without you John… I wan to spend the rest of my life with you” He draws his hands away from John to his chest, digs his hand into his jacket pocket and pulls out a small black box. He opens it to reveal a simple silver band, highly polished and shining in the morning light.
“Will you be mine, forever?”
John is silent for a moment, his eyes fixed on the ring before his face cracks into a wide smile. He reaches for Sherlock’s face, cups his cheek in one hand and forcefully kisses him, crushing their lips together. They stay like that for several moments before they part breathless and tinged pink in the cheeks.
“Is that a yes?” Sherlock asks after a moment, still holding the black box out to John.
“It’s a definite yes” John grins before pressing another long kiss to his fiancé’s lips.

This was a request fic for a friend. Its a bit raunchy at the end, so parental guidance or whatever. Don’t read if you’re against homosexual sex or whatever

———

John – SH
John – SH
JOHN! Come home immediately – SH

John ignores the texts, he is working and he has already bailed out on three shifts this month, managed to have a very loud and unprofessional row with Sarah and now there are two doctors on leave. He looks at his phone, decides if it was something important Sherlock would have sent a text a minute until John replied or showed up or preferably both.

He endures another two hours of mind numbing appointments with sick infants and injured teenagers and paranoid women before he glances at the clock and sees it is time for him to go home and face the music. While he locks his drawer and dons his jacket, there is a niggling suspicion in his mind that going home will mean bad news, but Lestrade is working tonight and he doesn’t want to drink with anybody else and bore them with the details of his overly complicated relationship with the infamous Sherlock Holmes.

The tube is rammed and he ends up waiting for the next tube to Baker Street because the crowd of people surging forward makes him claustrophobic. He hops on and manages to perch by the door for a quick exit. When he finally smells fresh air again he relaxes.

The first thing he sees is the familiar black car. Mycroft is here, and that can only be a bad thing. He dreads to think what catastrophe has occurred and when he unlocks the door to 221B he is met with the strong smell of sour chemicals and smoke.

“Sherlock?” John calls up the stairs, taking them two at a time, his anxiety rising. He reaches the door of their flat and pushes to see Mycroft and Sherlock sat having tea, quite like civilized persons, although Sherlock is peppered in ash and dust and what looks like soil. There is a dark smudge on one of his cheeks which runs down to the top of his lip and John gulps down the urge to wipe it away with his thumb.

“What the hell happened?”
“Ah, John, good to see you again. Are you keeping well?” Mycroft drawls, his tone so thick it makes John’s jaw tighten with dislike.
“What happened Sherlock?” John avoids the question and stares at the dirty shirt Sherlock is wearing, the sleeves rolled up, the fabric browned where it has burnt, the stains in the collar. He attempts to avoid looking at Sherlock’s collar bones or his long neck and desperately tries to think of anything except how the hollow of that throat might taste.
“You will have to sleep in my room for a week” Sherlock announces calmly. Mycroft has a maddening smirk plastered to his face and John takes a moment to resist the urge to locate his cane and smack the bastard around the head.
“Why?”
“Oh, I may have been doing an experiment which had somewhat unexpected results.” He continues, waving his hand in a non-committal way.
“Such as?” John’s ears are turning pink, the tell tale sign that he is getting a little bit pissed off.
“I destroyed your bed, set your wardrobe alight, and I smashed your mirror.”

There is a very long silence where John stares at Sherlock, Mycroft stares at John and Sherlock stares at the floor. The doctor is torn somewhere between rage and laughter, and quite frankly has no idea what to do with himself. He wants to stride across the room and hit Sherlock, wants to shake him by the shoulders, wants to slap some sense into him, but then kiss him better all over ‘til he is forgiven.
He says nothing, but brings a hand up over his mouth and counts to thirty in his head.

Without a word he trudges upstairs to see the damage for himself. The brothers do not dare move, but instead look to each other for an answer to an unvoiced question. Mycroft shakes his head. Sherlock sighs. Damn.

The damage is pretty devastating. In five minutes John assesses the ruin of his room and finds his only surviving possessions are a few jumpers, two pairs of jeans, a few pairs of socks, a single pair of boxers (all of which smell like smoke) and the few personal artefacts that were in the bedside cabinet. He comes back downstairs, heads straight to the kitchen and puts three fingers of whiskey into a glass. John’s never been a spirits drinker, but he downs the liquid in one, lets it burn, then tops up with another couple of fingers.
“Sherlock, I want my room exactly the way it was” He calls, but he gets no reply.
“And I’m borrowing some pyjama bottoms.” Nothing,
“And you owe me big time” When he walks back into the living room to see why Sherlock has not responded, he sees that Mycroft has left. Good. John does not want him here adding yet more tension to the already statically charged air.
“How exactly do you want repaying?” Sherlock asks, his fingers touching under his chin, his eyes narrow as they flicker to John’s face.
“I don’t know but I’m going to bed. Goodnight” John snaps, goes to the door that leads to Sherlock’s bedroom and slams it shut behind him.

Alone in Sherlock’s room is an unfamiliar sensation. John has only even been in here twice, and both times it was to hunt for cigarettes. But right now he is frustrated and needs to make Sherlock understand it is not fucking good to blow up somebody’s stuff and not expect to have to apologise or compensate them in some way.
He finds clean pyjama trousers in the drawer under the socks and slips them on; they’re a little snug but comfortable enough. John downs the rest of the whiskey, growls at the taste and throws himself under the covers shutting his eyes tightly to black out the light and his anger and his disappointment.

John is on the brink of sleep when he hears the creek of the door opening, but he doesn’t stir. He’s too exhausted to move and instead he keeps his eyes closed and pretends he is asleep.
There is the ruffling of fabric behind him and the bed dips with new weight and somehow the words ‘Sod off Sherlock’ leave him, but he doesn’t mean them at all.

There is a nibbling on his earlobe that feels wonderful, a trail of kisses moving down his neck and back, a pair of soft cool hands rubbing circles on his shoulders, down his sides, around and slipping under the elastic of the pyjama bottoms. John gasps, groans slightly and rolls onto his back, which Sherlock takes for permission to continue.
A pair of thighs straddle his hips and the desire to sleep leaves him entirely. John opens his eyes and in the darkness makes out the shape of Sherlock sitting on him, tall and magnificent. The brunette dips his head down and begins kissing and nipping at John’s chest, which leaves the poor doctor speechless and aching for more. There is a warmth growing in the pit of his stomach, sneaking lower, and Sherlock smirks, rakes his hands down toned muscles until the pyjamas are abandoned on the floor and the duvet is bunched at their feet.

Sherlock does things to John that are delicious and wrong and utterly amazing. It turns out that he is not a novice at how to please a man; his hands and teeth and tongue; oh God his tongue. When John comes, it’s a torrent of need and lust and ‘OhGodSherlockFuckYes!’ and when Sherlock is satisfied that he had repaid John he kisses him long and deep on the lips, his hands steady either side John‘s head, their bodies perfectly aligned.

They sleep together that night, the duvet and pyjamas forgotten and the air still faintly smelling of sex and smoke and John decides he quite likes the smell as he inhales deeply and slings an arm around Sherlock’s waist.

It is not the way he thinks, or moves, or speaks that define his separation from the rest of society. It is the way he looks at people.

It is a look that says I can read you like a book. He knows their past, present, probable future. He knows their relationship status, their sexual history, their profession, their eating, sleeping, drug habits. He knows where they’re from, their family life, he can accurately guess their favourite colour and approximate date of birth. He has spun these complicated life stories into webs, connecting people would have never even met, he sees the patterns like silver thread weaving glorious complex patterns around these people. They are entirely oblivious.

Worst of all he sees that they are not like him.

He spends two decades knowing that he is alone. There are no shining threads bonding him to anybody. There aren’t even any loose strands attached to him. He is a completely different creature, something alien, something sacred. It makes him cold and frustrated, but mostly it makes him ache.

Mycroft keeps himself absorbed in his work, and the younger Holmes tries to follow suit, hopes that if he dedicates himself to the cases, thinks of nothing else, he might (might) find peace.

He is wrong. He doesn’t admit it, instead he tries harder. Works harder, refuses his humanity, ignores the detestable weaknesses of hunger and pain in favour for a comfortable numbness. The ache dulls. He manages to make himself blend in better, people don’t stare as much, but they still sense something is peculiar about him. He pretends not to notice, but his eyes do not lie. He knows they are afraid of him, afraid of the unknown in him, and it makes him withdraw further into himself until he finds he does not want to be joined to any other person. Let them have their silver, let them tangle their lives together in a horrible convoluted network of emotions and memories and lies.

But then along comes John.

There are no silver threads tying John down, no strings to make him dance, and it makes Sherlock sad. John looks so alone, his eyes full of nightmares and fear, the trembling hand a symbol of the things he has endured. While he looks at John an unfamiliar pain hits him in the chest, like having a sledgehammer slung into his torso. It’s agonising, terrifying. Sherlock doesn’t know what the fuck is happening, but it is new, exciting, mysterious. John is what can bring him back from the brink of being a cold hearted bastard like Mycroft. It is this that makes him ask if it was Afghanistan or Iraq.

They move in together, they spend time together, they laugh and talk and drink tea together. It makes Sherlock as close to happy as he has ever been. John seems happier too, and this is worth the crushing twisting heart-wrenching ache in his chest every time he glances at the redundant solider

He doesn’t notice at first, but a thread is beginning to twist around them, like elastic binding them together, stretching across any distance. It is golden and unbreakable and beautiful.

When he finally sees the gold he smiles. He is not special, but John is, and the two of them are so perfect together. It was obvious from the very beginning.

The bathroom light is a little too bright, a little too yellow, and it distorts the colour of his skin. The faint tan lines are less obvious now, but somehow Sherlock still sees, still knows every inch of his skin like a map.

John frowns, the reflection does the same, and he wishes he didn’t look so old.
When did it happen? When did he go from being a young doctor, a foolish solider, to this? The man in the mirror is a poor echo of the man he knows he is.

He stares at his bare chest, his muscles still visible although he knows he has let himself go a little. He blames Mrs Hudson for bringing baked goods up to them every weekend in the hope that Sherlock might actually eat breakfast for once. It rarely happens, and John is the type of man who hates waste.

His eyes flick up to the face, the familiar tired face, and he attempts to see what Sherlock sees. He is clean shaven, boyish with eyes that have little crinkles in the corners. His hair is still cut in a military style, but it has grown out now and a few flecks of grey are appearing. John has always liked his face, always considered himself blessed. But his body he has worked at, trained, abused. He glances over his arms, the curve of disciplined muscle around strong bones and a ghost of a smile creeps onto his lips.

John feels the hands on his shoulders before he sees them, closes his eyes to the touch as one hand rubs his neck, the other slides around his waist to hold him.
“You’ve been in here for twenty seven minutes. Come back to bed.” Sherlock purrs in John’s ear, and the man in the mirror shivers.
“In a minute” John replies, twists his head around awkwardly to press a kiss on Sherlock’s jaw. The taller man smirks and saunters off, his pale body disappearing around the doorframe.

There are no words to describe this, so instead John accepts that this is who he is, and goes back to where he now belongs.

“John?” A voice breaks through the nothingness, reaches him, ensnares him.
“John, can you hear me?” The voice is scared. The voice is so scared that John feels the need to comfort it, to find the owner of the voice and tell them everything is okay.
He mumbles something inaudible to the owner of the voice, and then he feels warm hands on his forehead and cheek. Warm hands smaller than his own. A woman’s hands.
His eyes fly open. In the blur of the table lamp and shadows, he sees a familiar face swim into his view, a face with a small sad smile and it is Molly Hooper.
“Molly?”
“John? Oh John! We were so worried. You’re okay, I mean, you’re going to be okay. You have a concussion. You banged your head on the corner of the desk. You were bleeding, it was awful and-” She pauses when he shuffles in his bed so that he can sit up. It hurts to do so, she knows because he grimaces, but she does not tell him off.
“How did- Why are you here?”
“Oh, well..” She blushes a little, hides her eyes from him by pretending to check his pulse in his wrist and looking at her watch. “He asked me to come check on you”
“Who? – Mycroft?”
“No, John”
“Greg?”
“No..” She still refuses to meet his gaze until he is silent for a long time and when she looks at his face he is chewing his bottom lip which is red with blood where he has ripped the skin between his teeth.
“John-”
“I’m fine” He choked, swallowing a dry sob.
“He.. He’s downstairs”
“Oh.” It seems as if he is incapable of any intelligent thought. He sits there, drawing his knees into his chest like a child, his arms wrapping around his legs to keep himself bundled up against the crushing reality of the situation.
“Well?”
“Give me a minute. I’ll be down when I’m ready.”
Molly takes this as a dismissal, and like an obedient puppy she stands. She makes to leave, but pauses in the doorway to look at John, who stares at his knees like he’s trying to make the hardest decision of his entire life.
“It will be okay John, all of this happened for a reason. I mean, well, he thought he knew what he was doing, but you know how he is. He doesn’t consider how it effects those who love him.” She tries to smile, but instead it looks like she’s just trying not to cry. “Anyway, I’ll leave you to it”

In the sitting room Sherlock is stood at the window, staring at the night sky, silently waiting with growing anxiety. His hands are behind his back, but nervously he reaches round to check his suit breast pocket for the singularly most important document he has ever received.
He hears the creek of the stair, but it is not John.
“How is he Molly?”
“He’s awake now. He’s.. I don’t know, he’s not good”
“Yes, of course.”
“He said he’ll be down when he’s ready”
“Thank you Molly”
“Do you need anything else?” She asks, and he feels something almost like affection for her. She has been so good to him, so helpful, so sweet. He turns to face her.
“No, thank you Molly. I will let you know how it goes, I suppose” He sounds unsure of himself. It is something that has become frighteningly common.
“Right. Yes, well, hope it goes well. Text me.” And she is gone.
John finally, finally after what seems like an hour, or a week, or a lifetime, twists himself around and finds his feet. He is still in his jeans and cotton top, but the top is stained with drying blood from when he smashed his head on the desk. The bandage now around his temples is secure and feels like it his holding him together. John sighs at his reflection. He decides to change his top, at least, and put on some shoes before he ventures downstairs. Just in case he has to run away.

Sherlock is back at the window, facing the night, his clammy hands clasped behind his back. He does not turn when John enters the room, but his head drops a little. He can see the reflection in the dark glass.
“Hello John” He says softly.
“I told Mycroft I didn’t want to see you”
“Why else would I have come?” Sherlock says, his tone calm but with undertones indicating his stress. John twitches his nose. He can smell blood. Noticing the pool of his own blood has not been cleaned up he sighs. Sherlock turns, his eyes red and hooded from the lack of sleep, his cheek bones more pronounced through his poor eating habits. He is slightly thinner, definitely distressed.
“John-”
“Actually, Sherlock.. I don’t want to hear it. I don’t care. I don’t care because the last few months I’ve been through hell. I’ve been hollow, I’ve been utterly fucking miserable without you, and now, when I’m finally starting to cope, you show up like nothing happened” John keeps his voice level, but he is deceived by his trembling hand. Sherlock moves a step forward, but it stopped when John holds his hands up in protest.
“Please. Don’t”
And Sherlock knows John, knows there is no point trying to reason or apologise or beg. Instead he nods, blinks, tries a smile but fails.
“I’ll go. But I think it is only right you have this back” Sherlock speaks in a hoarse whisper, his throat constricted by the threat of overwhelming emotion. He digs a pale hand into the inside pocket of his jacket and passes a familiar envelope to John, who takes it but says nothing.
“I just wanted you to know… I feel exactly the same” Sherlock says, his voice cracking slightly.
John stares at the parchment for a moment, smiles but then Sherlock is sweeping passed him and is halfway down the stairs and the door is opening and slamming shut.

John’s brain works at an average of three thoughts at a time. Right now it is in overload; a billion feelings, a million memories, a thousand words, a hundred hurts, a dozen confessions, a single truth.
“SHERLOCK”
He is running down the stairs two at a time, nearly stumbles and falls, leaps the last four steps and crashes to his feet before pushing forward to the door. He can’t leave again. John can’t let him leave again.
“SHERLOCK!” The door is wrenched open and he is looking left and right desperately, looking for the tall man with curly hair and pale skin and piercing sad eyes. John sees him at the end of the street and takes off as fast as he can, narrowly dodging an oncoming couple as he follows the worlds only consulting detective.
“Sherlock? SHERLOCK!” John bellows as he flies around the corner he last caught of glimpse of his best friend and he manages to catch up in another hundred yards, grabs the back of Sherlock’s infamous coat and spins him around.

There are tears clinging hotly to his pale cheeks, the tracks glistening in the orange street light. He looks horribly sad, and John pants, one hand clutches the stitch developing under his ribs.
“Sherlock-”
“John, I.. Please-”
But there is nothing that either of them manage to say before John is tugging Sherlock’s face towards him and their lips are crashing together forcefully. Their teeth clash, their tongues meet, their lips move with fury and all the words are forgotten. Sherlock wraps his arms around John protectively, and John runs his fingers through the detective’s unruly locks, his chest bursting with pain and love and relief.
Sherlock pulls away first, smiling slightly as he gently runs his thumb under John’s eye and holds a teardrop at the end of his digit. The shorter man smiles, presses their foreheads together before he lightly presses a chaste kiss to Sherlock’s lips.
“Lets go home” He whispers and Sherlock nods, pulling John into an embrace that communicates perfectly just how much he has missed his Boswell, his only and truest friend, the love of his life.

Stepping into the warmth of Baker Street, John holds Sherlock’s hand, leads him up the stairs and ignores the patch of his own blood as he guides the taller man to the first floor bedroom, and the two of them curl around each other on the bed.
“John?”
“Yes?”
“I’m sorry”
“I know.”
“I missed you”
“I missed you too Sherlock”
“John?”
“Hmm?”
Sherlock presses a kiss to John’s lips and rests his palm over John’s heart. He stays like that, and silently vows to do so for the rest of his life.

An hour later John is stepping out of the bathroom in a towel, his greying at the temples hair dripping, and he sees a flash of colour pass the doorway and down the stairs.
“Thanks for the tea, Mrs. Hudson”
“What was that, dear?” She calls, popping her head back around the doorframe. She does not hide her eyes as she takes in his barely covered body. He doesn’t seem to notice.
“The tea this morning. Thanks”
“Oh, I didn’t make tea for you. I’m not your house keeper” She reminds him for the ten thousandth time and potters off downstairs. John pauses, imagines he misheard her, before shaking his head. She must have forgotten making him tea. That’s it. She is getting on. Maybe she forgot. And yet.. this is the woman who remembers everybody’s birthday, their middle names, the price of his last electric bill, his sister’s girlfriend’s current address. John bites his lip.

Mycroft. He decides it was Mycroft sending some poor lowly employee to make sure he doesn’t choke on his own vomit. He knows he is still being watched. He knows because Mycroft’s agents all have a signature look. One of utter discontent at the fact that they have been given such a boring security detail. John rarely goes out of the flat except for food shopping or whenever Lestrade drags him out.

He tries not to think about the cup of tea, and instead goes about his day. His head is still throbbing, his jaw aches, his body hates him. He watches telly, ignores the pang of guilt as he watches a hour after hour of pointless mindless crap. It’s fine though, John thinks to himself, I’m allowed. It’s not as if there is anybody to tell him what to do. Nobody with demands of him. Nobody dragging him about the city on adventures and cases and the doctor is suddenly frustrated. He hauls himself out of his armchair with furious energy, pulls on the first jacket he gets his hands on, the familiar leather sliding on over his thin cotton top, and strides out of the flat with purpose.

Of course, he doesn’t know where he’s going. He ends up at the Diana memorial fountain in Hyde Park, and he sits on the grass a little way away, watching the water cascade down the two arcs. There is a few moments peace in his mind, and he manages to forget everything.

That is until a familiar shadow falls over his face and blocks out the glorious sunshine.

“Fuck’s sake” John utters, knowing who it was before looking up. The umbrella in the shadow gave it away. Nobody except Mycroft carries an umbrella on a day like this.
“Hello, John. How is the headache?”
“Better”
“Would you like to get a cup of tea, John?”
“Do I have a choice?”
“Of course you do, but I am certainly not going to sit on the grass, so unless you like me hovering over you like this, I suggest you come along”
“Fine” John grumbles and gets up, childishly dragging his feet as he follows the other man who is as infuriating and mysterious as ever.

They end up at a small tea shop, something much more to Mycroft’s tastes than John’s, but it is quiet and much better for a private heartfelt conversation than a branded coffee shop.
“John, you may be wondering why I’m here-”
“Not really. You’re keeping tabs on me, I know. I don’t really see why. I’m not going to-” But the doctor stops for a moment, the words crashing in his brain before they reach his throat. He had considered killing himself, at the beginning. Had briefly thought about how much easier it must be, not having to be the one left behind.
“I’m sure you have considered it, John. I know how close Sherlock was to you” John winces at the use of his best friends name. Mycroft pretends not to notice.
“I was going to ask if you needed anything. I feel like it is partly my fault-”
“Piss off Mycroft” John says, but there is no bite to his words. He sounds like he has given up, and this concerns the elder Holmes.
“I promised my brother that I would ensure you were safe. That includes making sure you are safe from yourself. If that means I have to put you in a padded cell until I feel like I can trust you not to do anything foolish, that I assure you I will”
“I’m not a child, Mycroft. I don’t need you looking after me.” John suddenly snaps, downs his tea and slams the mug back on the table. He stands, but Mycroft blocks his exit with that bastard umbrella.
“Listen to me John, before you storm off. Sherlock cares about you a great deal. I promised him no harm would come to you. Please be reasonable-”
“Wait-” John frowns, looking at Mycroft’s grey-green eyes (almost the same as Sherlock’s eyes, piercing, all-knowing) “-You used the present tense.”
“Excuse me?”
“You said Sherlock cares. Sherlock is dead. Sherlock might have cared for me, but you said he cares for me” A strange sensation bubbles in John’s chest. He has seen a tiny flaw, a microscopic mistake that a million other people would have missed. Sherlock would have been proud of him.
“What the fuck is going on Mycroft?”
“John-”
“Why didn’t you come to the funeral?” John hisses, his teeth bared, his eyes alight with doubt and curiosity and rage.
“There were other matters I had to deal with-”
“Like covering up for Sherlock?” The doctor snarls. His fists are clenched, his knuckles white, his hands trembling.
Mycroft hesitates for the tiniest moment before standing, raising himself to his full height, but even with five inches on John, the doctor does not feel in the least bit intimidated. If anything he is more angry and upset and fucking fed up of being taken for some poor vulnerable idiot. The silence is enough to tell him everything he needs to know.
“If you see him, tell him to go to hell. I’m done. I am so done”

John leaves, resists the urge to punch anybody who so much as looks at him as he gets the tube back to Baker Street. He is in a frenzy; he calls a locksmith and requests the locks to the flat are changed. He throws books and the science equipment and other random things that were never really his into black plastic bags and dumps them in the corridor to be thrown into the rubbish bin outside. He finally goes into Sherlock’s room, retrieves the letters and burns them in the kitchen sink, watching as the parchment curls and disintegrates. His heart is painful in his chest, his eyes wet and his breathing is laboured. He lasts long enough to turn the tap on and extinguish the flames. The doctor begins hyperventilating and he feels dizzy. So dizzy. He stumbles into the living room and passes out just before he reaches his armchair.

John’s own bedroom always was quite tidy. Military discipline and all that. He was used to keeping his life minimal and well organised. So he had little to do in there except open the window and let out the stale air.

John’s first action though was to organise the kitchen. If he was going to be living here he needed some order, and one long weekend he managed to put the small kitchen back into a sane working order. There were no longer any half-completed experiments, no frozen body parts, no chemicals that did not belong. They were all unceremoniously dumped in the bin outside.

The next challenge was the sitting room; most of the stuff in here belonged to Sherlock, so obviously they would have to stay. John refused to get rid of anything sentimental, and while he imagined Sherlock sneering at it, John felt like it was wrong to part with certain artefacts. In the end the only three things to go were the blood stained rug, the harpoon and the boxes of case files. He sent them back to Lestrade with an apologetic smile. He couldn’t help them any more than a child could have. He was lost without Sherlock in more ways than one.

The worst part was looking at the door of Sherlock’s bedroom. A pain unlike any other he had ever known overtook him and crippled him, making it damn near impossible to go those few extra steps and reach out for the handle.

He gives up after three attempts and instead sits at the desk in the living room, pulls out his old stationary set and writes the second letter to Sherlock Holmes.

*****

By the time John has finally worked up the courage to enter Sherlock’s room, his psychosomatic limp is back with vengeance, his shoulder wakes him every night, he is having reoccurring nightmares of that day at St. Barts and he has written eight more letters to Sherlock.

When he first enters the room, there is a faint vapour of faded cologne. The bed is unmade, there are papers on the bedside table and three packets of nicotine patches. John smirks to himself as he sits on the bed, takes it all in, the mess that represented Sherlock’s chaotic way of life.
For a long time John just sits there, staring at the framed periodic table, his eyes dry but a lump in his throat and his breathing laboured.
Eventually he lies against the pillows and inhales deeply. It smells of Sherlock’s luxurious shampoo and he finally racks a heavy sob and cries.

A week later the first floor bedroom is now clean and tidy, with fresh linen on the bed and all of the clothes in the wardrobe have been dry cleaned and pressed. John did not truly understand why he did this. Maybe it was some tiny hope whereby Sherlock was alive and was coming back, but of course that was foolish. John did not remove any of Sherlock’s possessions except the blue scarf, which he now wore on the rare occasion that he left Baker Street.

However now on the perfectly made bed, on top of the sheets was a small stack of neat envelopes addressed to Sherlock. John rarely goes into the bedroom except to place another letter on the pile.

*****

Greg and Molly are now dating, it happened a few days after Sherlock’s fall, and John tries his best not to think about how they were pushed into it by the fear of dying alone. The couple takes him out for a drink one night and John appreciates the gesture, but Molly is awkward around him. Greg doesn’t seem to notice and John wonders how the hell he ever managed to get to his positioning the police with such ignorance. Stupid, he thinks to himself, and then realises his thoughts resemble Sherlock’s more than his own. He shakes the thought by drinking the rest of his pint in one. Molly watches cautiously. Greg finished his own drink and gets another round in.
“I miss him” John says simply, to nobody in particular, but Molly is sat there barely drinking her wine and looking mournfully at the table.
“I’m sure he misses you too John” She whispers. John is sure he misheard her, but doesn’t linger on it. Molly half-smiles and excuses herself to the bathroom. The doctor gets a familiar feeling, like something is missing, like he has overlooked something major, but Greg returns with another drink for him and he decides it is the alcohol maiming his ability to think straight. He drinks and he tries to forget.

That night Greg and Molly drop him off at Baker Street because he is inebriated and they don’t trust him to get a cab on his own. When he finally manages to get the key in the lock and stumble upstairs, he drops face first onto the sofa and falls asleep almost immediately.

A week later he goes to the grave with Mrs Hudson; in the taxi they are quiet, the anguish and tension noticeable even by the cabbie who is distracted, thinking about the three more hours he has to clock before he can go home to his wife and terminally ill daughter.

Mrs Hudson rambles on, and John tries to listen, but his mind is elsewhere. The letter in his breast pocket feels like it is burning his skin. There is a moment where the emotion overwhelms Mrs Hudson. (And a strange moment where John wonders if Sherlock ever knew what her Christian name was. Come to think of it, John didn’t know. How awful of him not to know her name. But Sherlock must know. Rather he must have known. Because Sherlock had known everything, that infuriating man. He was honest and brilliant and the papers were awash with lies. Moriarty’s lies. That bastard.)

Mrs Hudson wipes her eyes on a handkerchief and leaves John to do what he came here to do. They sky is white with low cloud, with the high probability of rain that evening, and he is glad that he thought to bring a plastic wallet. Not that it matters. Because this letter isn’t for a person who will be able read it. After all Sherlock is dead, and it is improbable, and well as impossible for him come back from the dead to read a fucking stupid letter full of sentiment.

But he has written it, and as he pulls it out of the inner pocket of his jacket he briefly looks at the name on the front. A smile twitches on his lips, tears form in his eyes. John places the letter at the base of the headstone, the clear plastic stopping the morning dew from seeping into the parchment. He stands, stares for a moment then turns on his heel in a military fashion and leaves. He chokes back a sob as he joins Mrs Hudson near the church and they walk towards the main street.

A pale hand reaches for the letter, slim fingers pull the parchment out of the plastic wallet and shake slightly as the dead man opens the envelope and reads the words scrawled in John’s steady slightly slanted handwriting. Sherlock’s heart skips a beat as he sees his name in the familiar scrawl.

*****

John returns a week later. It is not a special day, it is much like any other Saturday, but he needs to get out in the open air and his feet have brought him here. He wasn’t intending to come, and yet it all seems inevitable. John is grieving. Of course he would come here.
The sky is brighter today, a soft blue. The air smells fresher, cleaner, his heart doesn’t ache as much until he reaches the gates of the cemetery.
The grave is black marble, simple, refined. He half expected Mycroft to interfere and insist on something grander, but here he stands at the unremarkable grave of his very best friend, and his heart clenched painfully. The letter he had left is gone. The flowers are still there, dying now, but the letter in its plastic wallet is gone and he swells with rage and panic.

He tries to be logical – maybe the wind blew it away, he hadn’t weighted it down well, or maybe somebody removed it thinking it was litter. He cringes at that thought. Maybe somebody stole it – though God knows why they would steal a letter to a dead man. He imagines it being published in a newspaper and his face flushes pink and hot. He chews his bottom lip and dreads reading the headlines of the newspaper for the next few days.

*****

There are no newspaper articles, and John is relieved, but still a little angry that the letter is missing. It shouldn’t matter, it really shouldn’t, after all Sherlock would never have been able to see the words, know how John felt, feel anything like that in return. At best Sherlock would say nothing. At worst.. Well. John cringes and does not eat for three days because the thought of Sherlock rejecting him makes him sick to his stomach. He tries his best to avoid all contact with the people and things that remind him of his truest friend, but suddenly it seems impossible to even watch the telly without some painful memory giving him whiplash.

But he decides to return to Baker Street, much to the confusion and disappointment of Harry, much to the delight of Mrs Hudson, and much to the amazement of Lestrade who has tried his very best to keep John distracted from the agonising grief which is consuming him.

He returns, and John’s grief continues on it’s natural course.

It started with a cup of tea, a single steaming cup of tea which John drank greedily after coming home from work. There is a long silence before John registers something is wrong.
“Why did you make me a cup of tea?” He asks, but Sherlock shrugs and starts playing violin.

An hour later John is hungry and they order Chinese. His speech is slightly slurred, the words mashing together, which he doesn’t seem to notice, so Sherlock orders and soon a large portion of fried rice, lemon chicken, dumplings, duck in plum sauce, chow mein, prawn toast and two fortune cookies arrive at Baker Street.

Sherlock makes two large gin and tonics, makes a deal of giving John the one with the lime wedge, and they both drink deeply. Then the fun really starts.

While Sherlock takes the empty food containers downstairs to the bin he hears two loud thuds upstairs. When he returns his finds John’s shoes have been kicked off violently, one is on top of the desk, the other is the far side of the room by the bookshelf. There is the sound of clattering in the kitchen and Sherlock goes to investigate.

“Where the fuck is it?” John grumbles, pulling drawers out at random, searching for something in the cupboards and under the kitchen table and amongst the papers.
“What are you looking for?”
“Superglue”
“Can I ask why?”
“You can. I won’t answer” John said, in a matter of fact tone, before bursting into fresh addictive giggles.
Sherlock pulls open the drawer next to him and passes out the tube of glue. John grins and disappears with a bundle of things in his arms, including a wooden spoon and a marker pen.

Twenty minutes pass before Sherlock decided it’s time to find out what John has been doing, and he knocks quietly on the door of John’s bedroom. There is no reply, but a faint sound like somebody trying to stifle a laugh, so Sherlock peeks his head into the room and his face breaks into a lopsided grin.
John is sat, cross legged in the middle of his bed, surrounded by debris; wool, pens, lollypop sticks, felt, scissors, and glue which is slowly seeping into his bedspread.
He holds in his hands something magnificently childish, but Sherlock loves it all the same. A wooden spoon puppet of what is obviously supposed to be Sherlock himself, in a little black jacket with curly wool hair and a hand drawn face. John turns to face him, a huge grin on his lips which reaches all the way to his dilated pupils and glue stuck to his fingers.

“Look, Sherlock. I made you” The doctor bursts into deep laughter, rolls backward and flicks his legs out so he is lying straight on his back. He holds the puppet up like a trophy with two hands, before he finally stops laughing and turns his head to look at his flatmate with something serious to say
“You drugged me” He states, but his words are still a little messy and Sherlock just nods.
“I don’t mind though. Quite like it. Being stoned. You should get stoned. It’ll shut your stupid head up for a bit. Or maybe not. I don’t know. But it’ll make you relax. Look at me. I’m relaxed. I’m so..” John pauses for a moment, to find the word, find the right word. “Lethargic” He says, dragging the word out and it would sound sexy if he didn’t then chuckle and snort.

An hour later, the two of them are lying on the floor in the living room, staring up at the ceiling, both spaced out and grinning for no reason.
“John?”
“Hmm?”
“I like you”
“I like you too Sherlock”
“That’s good. I like that you like me”
“It is good. I like that you like that I like you”
“Enough. Can’t process more likes.”
They are quiet for a moment before John rolls onto his side so he can look at Sherlock’s face.
“Sherlock?”
“Yes?”
“I like like you.
“You said ‘like’ twice”
“There was more emphasis on the first like.”
Sherlock turns his head to look at John properly, smiles, his eyelids heavy and his eyes slightly glassy, but all seeing.
“Ah. I think I know what you’re trying to say”
“Yeah?”
And Sherlock grins as he presses a lingering kiss on John’s jaw line.

Where are you? – SH

Less than a minute later John is stood in the doorway,
“Did you get any sleep?” The doctor asks, knowing that bed rest is the best thing for combating the illness, but the worst thing for Sherlock Holmes’ sanity.
“Bit” The patient says, stifling another yawn and curling himself into a ball in the middle of the bed.
John comes to sit beside him, gently places a cool hand on Sherlock’s forehead underneath the brunette curls and the detective lets out a small sigh of relief. It feels good, the contact, the touch.
“Your fever is coming down. Do you want anything?”
“Will you stay for a while”
And of course, because John is John, he does.

“People take photographs to hold onto memories” John responds, but is mildly distracted by something in the co-joining room. Sherlock says nothing for a moment but he withdraws his fingers from the photo frame and slips them into his pockets. He has to ask-
“Why don’t you have a photograph in your wallet, John?”
John pauses. He is no longer distracted.
“…I don’t need one”
Sherlock is confused. He does not admit to it, instead he inspects the rest of the room in a flourish and when satisfied, leaves. John follows, ever his loyal Boswell a few steps behind.

“It was the father’s secretary, she was obsessed with him. She stole the bracelet – God, really? So predictable. Sentiment. It made it so easy! – Anyway, yes, go to her home. The bedroom, check the bedside cabinet.. NO! The dresser. The bracelet will be in the dresser” Sherlock informs Lestrade, but no more explanation is given. Lestrade nods, awaiting genius deductions and snide remarks that never come, and when he opens his mouth to ask how he knew, Sherlock is already hailing a cab. John shrugs and runs to catch his flatmate before he disappears.

“How did you know where they should look?” John asked when they were half way back to Baker Street.
“Sentiment. She would want to look at the bracelet every morning and every night. It’s too obvious for her to wear it so she has to keep it safe and concealed. She feels like having it makes them close, binds them. The fact that she turned over the photograph of the family made it obvious she was jealous and felt betrayed somehow, but of course he had not been dishonest in his marriage. He loves his wife too much.”
“How do you know?”
“The bracelet. It was a one of a kind, cost over ten thousand sterling, but it had insurance on it worth twenty. He loves his wife.”
Sherlock states, and John smiles out of the window.

That evening Sherlock tries to find a satisfactory photograph, but fails miserably after three hours and decides he will find a camera instead. He locates John’s digital camera after twenty minutes, and after patiently waiting for forty nine minutes his subject is in the best light.
When he shoots it is like capturing perfection, and a half-second later perfection is looking up at him from the book he was reading with a confused part-blinded expression.
“What the hell?” John asks, blinking the flash from his vision.
“An experiment”

John had Sherlock’s wallet the previous day for food shopping, but Sherlock tells him to keep hold of it as he’s had all of his cards duplicated. John is a little surprised because this means Sherlock wants him to have access to all of his financial accounts. John is flattered, but Sherlock has another motive for this. He has another wallet which he keeps himself, and inside it behind Mycroft’s ID card is a small photograph.

————————-

John notices that Sherlock has been flustered recently, and he cannot pinpoint what the cause might be. He is aware that Sherlock hasn’t had an interesting case in a while, but it’s not just boredom plaguing the detective’s brilliant mind. He does not ask though, that is foolish, because Sherlock will only snap and they will have a shouting match, which will solve nothing. John hates their arguments, they always end in him taking a long walk regardless of the weather and Sherlock will make some painful attempt at an apology via text. It’s a vicious cycle, one that John regrets every time.

It is only when Sherlock has had a very bad day (an experiment went wrong and he set his favourite suit jacket on fire, burnt his arm rather badly and exclaimed that the experiment was a failure) that John realised just how serious it was. He deduced this because it was the first time that Sherlock had willingly allowed John to treat his wounds without moaning. Much like a child, Sherlock would often writhe and wriggle whenever John was patching him up, but now he was extinguished and had removed the jacket and shirt, he was quiet and sat still on the side of the bath. John held the cold shower above his shoulder so the water would run down the full length of his arm. Sherlock refused to go to the hospital (“No point making a fuss, John”) , but at least he was letting John do his best. The burns were not entirely horrific, but would scar around his wrist and forearm. When he had been under the cold water for fifteen minutes John found a soft towel and gently dabbed Sherlock’s arm dry before leading him into the kitchen, ignoring the charred remains of the experiment on the table and pulled out his medical kit. He squeezed a large amount of chemical-smelling paste onto his fingers and gently rubbed it into Sherlock’s burnt flesh. The doctor worked quickly and carefully, aware how much pain his friend was in by the silence and the way he had his eyes tightly shut, blocking the sensation as best he could.
When he was done applying the burn cream John packed his things away and Sherlock sighed, relaxed his tense muscles in his back and shoulders.
“Feel better?”
“A little… Thank you, John” Sherlock said softly, lightly touching the skin and wincing.
“It will be sore for a good week, and I’ll have to keep applying-”
But he stops dead when Sherlock takes a step back and without warning aims a camera at John, who barely has time to register what is happening before he is startled by the flash of white light.
“-Sherlock, what-”
“Experiment” Sherlock mumbled looking at the digital screen and a ghost of a smile graces his lips.
“Don’t you think you’ve had enough experiments for one day?” John asks, blinking several times and seeing white spots in his vision.
“This is less explosive” And with that Sherlock disappeared into his room.

——————————-

Two weeks later Sherlock’s arm is partially healed, the burn now shiny and pink and puckered in places but John considers him lucky. It could have been much worse.
They are back from Scotland Yard with a pile of cold cases which Sherlock is keen to get started on. He dumps the files on the coffee table and begins riffling through and John goes to the kitchen to make tea.
Sherlock glances up, considers taking a picture of John but resists. He can get one of John making tea anytime, and right now he wants more than anything to see the look of sheer concentration in John’s startling blue eyes. There is something boyish about his face which makes Sherlock think of an unfulfilling childhood, one not dissimilar from his own, and he ponders if this is why he and John get on so very well. Because they are similar. But then he considers their past and their characteristics and their attitudes and he realises they were only similar in three respects:
One – They did not enjoy their younger years; neither had the opportunity to enjoy their childhoods in the way that their peers had.

Two – They were not afraid of death or pain or the darker side of human nature. Very difficult for an army doctor and a detective to go about their work if they were afraid of such inevitable things.
Three – They both wanted their lives to matter.

John returns with two steaming mugs of tea, sets one in front of Sherlock and one on the table where he picks up a case file. He sits in his favourite chair, slightly turned to the side so Sherlock sees him almost in profile. He reads, and Sherlock watches him while pretending to read, and John is oblivious when Sherlock takes his third picture. John looks up, blinks several times and frowns, but then sighs and resigns himself to the fact that he wont get a straight answer out of Sherlock, so doesn’t bother to ask.

Later that evening Sherlock takes a picture of John while he is collapsed on the sofa, asleep by the dying fire. John twitches slightly when the flash goes off but other than that does not move. Sherlock is a slight man, and John is much stronger build, but somehow when John wakes he is in his own bed, the duvet tucked in around him.

Sherlock takes a photograph at breakfast that morning, mostly so he can capture the surprise on John’s face when he realises that Sherlock has prepared bacon, eggs, toast, coffee and freshly squeezed juice. There is still sleep in John’s eyes and he is still in his pyjama’s but Sherlock finds this picture is his favourite so far; sleepy John, a little confused from waking in his bed and a lopsided grin on his face stimulated by the smell of good food.

When the time came in Sherlock’s mind for the last photograph he could not decide when it should be taken. He has enlisted the help of Mrs. Hudson, who despite her minor clumsiness, had remarkably steady hands. She knows how to use the camera and the settings are pre-programmed. It is a Sunday, and John has the day off. Sherlock has no case, which normally would frustrate him, but today he is content without the stress of performing.
John has finished lunch, has tidied the kitchen, has whined at Sherlock about the mislabelling of things in the cupboards and has finally come to sit and read the newspaper. His chair is facing the window, and Sherlock stands silhouetted against it, his violin neatly tucked under his chin and his bow ready. He plays something soft, soothing and he has his eyes half closed to help him hear the notes, so he doesn’t quite register when Mrs Hudson creeps into his line of sight and there is a white flash. He continues, as if nothing has happened, but hears John ask Mrs Hudson what the obsession with photographs is recently. He smiles and finishes the solo before holding out his hand. Mrs Hudson passes over the camera, smiles and shuffles off downstairs.
He delights in the effect, and when John demands to see Sherlock obliges and hands over the camera.
John is silent, but the image on the small screen makes a smile tug at one corner of his mouth. It is serene; John reading the newspaper and Sherlock playing for him. It seems to sum up their relationship in a way words have so often failed to do. Sherlock reads John’s face carefully and relaxes when he sees John’s half smile. He likes it.
“I was thinking..” Sherlock begins slowly, deliberately-
“Yes?” John raises an eyebrow suspiciously
“Where could I get a nice frame?”
“A picture frame?”
“Precisely”
John smiles, and it is one of the richest and most magnificent things Sherlock has ever seen. He only wishes he had the camera for one last shot.

Sherlock drinks his coffee quietly, ignores the digestives and continues working.

When Sherlock finally proves it was the neighbour’s brother’s girlfriend who kidnapped the little boy, he and John celebrate by eating Chinese takeout while watching Judge Judy. Sherlock laughs at the defendants and John nearly chokes on a dumpling. Sherlock laughs harder. It is a good night.

Over the next week they do not have any cases, either from Lestrade or the blog. Sherlock prowls around the house in his dressing gown like a wildcat desperate to get out. It is John’s day off and Sherlock has been insufferable. He hasn’t eaten, hasn’t slept and has managed to burn two large holes in the kitchen table, killed John’s cacti, shattered four dinner plates, upset Mrs Hudson, left his shoes in the hallway which made John trip over, broken the stepladder, shot three more holes in the wall and misplaced a severed hand. John found it in the washing machine and it had been the last straw.

“Sherlock!” He shouted, to which he got huff from Sherlock’s bedroom in reply. “Sherlock, you clean this table and put your acid away. When I get back I was this room spotless! And I don’t want to find more body parts anywhere!” There was a threat in the soldier’s tone and even though Sherlock could not be seen, John was sure it had registered. He grabbed his phone and wallet and left 221B with purpose in his stride.

He did not receive any texts. He was gone for a little over two hours.

When John got back he was mildly surprised that Sherlock had done as he had asked. Of course he had done nothing about the two holes in the table, but he would ignore that for now. Sherlock was sat on the back of the arm chair, his feet resting on the arms and his eyes closed. He acknowledged John’s return with a question;
“What did you buy?”
“Come find out.” John said. He was much calmer now as he moved into the kitchen laden with three bags, a trace of a smile on his face. The tone piped Sherlock’s interest and he practically leapt off the chair to follow.

John hadn’t started to unpack, but instead of asking for help he pulled a chair out and pointed. Sherlock sat obediently. He watched as John rummaged in a red plastic bag then threw something at him. Sherlock caught it, something black and silky soft, before looking at it and seeing a blindfold.
“John?”
“Put it on and wait for my instructions” Sherlock did so, waiting expectantly, his hands lightly resting on the table.
“Can you see anything?”
“Obviously not, John” There was a second when John hesitated and waved his hand in front of Sherlock’s eyes.
“Do you believe me?” Sherlock grumbled. John made a rude hand gesture. Nothing.
“Yes, I believe you. Now sit there patiently for a minute”
John started unpacking, threw the bags in the bin and got three plates and a bowl before Sherlock sighed.
“It’s been more than a minute.”
“Give me thirty more seconds” John rolled his eyes as he got a couple of knives, forks and spoons from the drawer.
“What are we doing?”
“An experiment”
“Really? I thought-”
“This is my experiment” John said which a chuckle.
“I am intrigued.” A few more seconds passed before John pulled out the chair next to the one where Sherlock sat.
“My hypothesis is that you will enjoy this.”
“What was your prior research which led you to conclude such a thing?” Sherlock asked, tilted his head slightly on one side.
“You love anything that allows you to show off, you like being distracted from boredom, this is a power play, it involves some things you’ve never tried before and it’s scientific” John reeled off, grabbing something in a glass jar, popping the seal as he twisted the lid off and dipped a knife into it. There was some rustling, the smell of something sweet mixed with the smell of baked goods- So it was a taste test. Sherlock grinned.
“Open”
It was sweet and sticky. Tasted familiar. Peanuts? But sweet and on bread.
“Peanut butter..” Sherlock mumbled around the mouthful.
“Good. Now see how you like this” John smiled, adding another ingredient to the mix. The next mouthful was similar but sweeter, fruity, delightful. Sherlock made a strange moaning sound as his taste buds tingled
“Jam. Peanut butter and jam.” He swallowed and licked his lips. John chuckled.
“They were easy. Don’t worry, it’s not all so simple.”
Sherlock opened his mouth in anticipation.

*****

Sherlock grinned.
“Caviar, John? I didn’t realise you were keen on the notion of haute cuisine.”
“You have to guess what type it is” John said, his lips twitching in a smirk.
“…I don’t have enough data” Sherlock said simply, and John put another loaded glass spoon to his lips.
There was silence, a long and thoughtful silence before Sherlock shrugged.
“Do you want me to tell you what colour it is?” John asked. The blindfolded man shook his head.
“I told you, I don’t have enough data from source. Tell me what is it”
“Are you saying you don’t know?” John teased.
“Just tell me”
“It’s easy, you should be able to tell-”
Sherlock growled.
“Fine. It’s salmon caviar.”
“Should have guessed” Sherlock grumbled, which earned a hearty chuckle from somewhere very close.
There was the sound of John getting up from the table, the sudden feeling that there was movement in the room. There was a few moments hanging in the air before he heard a familiar popping sound. A cork. John was pouring fizzy liquid wine two glasses. He placed one on the table and guided Sherlock’s fingers to the glass.
The champagne was cool, refreshing and most welcome.
“I’m unable to deduce what exactly this bottle is, but I’ve got citrus fruits, toasted finish, fresh, rich pinot noir… Forty pounds a bottle. Good. Very good. I like it-”
“I’m glad. Forty two pounds a bottle. Veuve Clicquot. I’m impressed.”
“Of course you are John. You’ve never seen me drink champagne before, you thought you had me”
“Shut up and open”
A moment to taste, enjoy, chew and swallow.
“Parma ham wrapped around asparagus”

*****

“Last one” John said as he put a chocolate dipped strawberry in his own mouth. It was driving him mad watching Sherlock eat so well (granted for the first time in days) and he just wanted a little taste for himself. Sherlock smirked; he’d guessed that one by smell alone and John threatened not to let him have it as punishment. Sherlock whimpered and John relented.

“Here” John said finally, offering a spoon to Sherlock’s lips. The spoon was cold, and since they had gone through savoury and were securely on sweet things he guessed it would be a frozen desert of some kind. He slipped the spoon into his mouth and smiled around the metal. Sherlock took the spoon in his hand, savouring the vanilla ice cream that was lingering in his mouth. It was good. His favourite. He was never fond of other flavours except perhaps mint. John grinned and leaned over to pull the blindfold off.
Sherlock’s eyes were closed, his smile growing wider and when he opened his eyes to look at John he couldn’t help but feel a flutter in his chest that was nothing to do with the cold ice cream he had just swallowed.

“Did you enjoy yourself?” John asked. Sherlock nodded and dove the spoon into the tub of vanilla ice cream to help himself to more. It was hand made stuff – nearly everything had been specially prepared, that much he knew without observing with his eyes, and he deduced that John had been to several different delicatessens in order to get the finest ingredients.
“Do you know how long we’ve been doing this experiment?” John asked, glancing at his watch with a triumphant grin.
“No. How long?”
“Three hours and five minutes”
“…Mm” Sherlock murmured around the spoon. John smirked and raised himself form the chair to put the half eaten food away for later consumption.
“This was excellent John. Thank you”
“You’re welcome, Sherlock”

*****

Half an hour later Sherlock was sat in the sitting room, frowning, with the laptop at his fingertips, John sat reading the newspaper. There was a strange muffled cried of surprise which made John drop the paper down so he could look at Sherlock, one eyebrow raised in confusion.
“I’ve got it!” The detective shouted, running from the room and disappearing into the kitchen. John frowned, shook his head and returned to the article he was reading when suddenly his vision was impaired by a black something covering his eyes.
“-Sherlock?”
“Sit still.” The detective said softly, and John did so as the newspaper was taken out of his hands and dropped onto the floor.
“What are you doing?”
“An experiment”
“Goddammit, Sherlock.” But John relaxed into the armchair and did not move. He heard the freezer door opening, the sound of a spoon being extracted from the drawer, the freezer door closing and then footsteps. John was about to open his mouth to ask what Sherlock was planning when a weight suddenly landed in his lap and there were two cool hands, one snaking around the back of his neck, the other cupping his cheek
“Sher-!”
There were lips suddenly pressing against his open mouth, lips that were cold and tasted like vanilla and were soft and sweet and moving with purpose and precision.
John was shocked, unmoving before his mind suddenly registered what was happening and he responded with eager lips and a low soft moan which was rewarded by Sherlock’s tongue slipping into his mouth. More of that sweet vanilla flavour hit John’s tongue.

When Sherlock pulled away John found himself leaning forward. Sherlock watched for a second with a satisfied smile before John reached up and pushed the blindfold onto his forehead so he could see.
“That was unexpected” The soldier breathed, looking at Sherlock straddling his lap. He felt a familiar ache as Sherlock moved so he was more comfortable.
“Really? Because I thought you were encouraging it?”
“Encouraging you to kiss me?”
“Yes.. With the food and the blindfold and the closeness..” Sherlock’s eyes narrowed with confusion. John smirked. Sherlock hesitated.
“You finally caught on” John chuckled, watching the serious look in the detective’s face melt instantly.
“It took you forty minutes to figure it out-”
“No, John, it took thirty two. It took me three minutes to find that damn blindfold and five minutes to get my point across.”
“I don’t think I quite understood” John mocked.
“Well it’s obvious in that all of the food you gave me is believed to enhance sexual desire, perception-”
“Shut up” John mumbled, pulling Sherlock down and kissing him hard. Sherlock smiled into the kiss and left his deductions unspoken.

Take it Easy

Tim
The Q
http://www.theq-hq.co.uk

Take it Easy

Tim
The Q
http://www.theq-hq.co.uk

Life’s challenges are not supposed to paralyse you, they’re supposed to make you who you are. I honestly cannot remember who said that, but it is one of the truest things I have ever heard. My time in the army has taught me many things. To be brave. To be loyal. To put others before yourself. In the face of death, agony and fear, I have often been reckless with my own life. But then they seem to praise rash instinctive action with medals these days.
I have two, myself. One for surviving my third tour of Afghanistan and one from the medical core for outstanding services. They sit hidden away in Baker Street, never to be brought out or shown to anybody because honestly I’m somewhat ashamed. They do me no honour, and in all my long years, my time as a civilian doctor and a military one, I have never felt any real joy in my work. My father’s dream, my mother’s joy, and my wasted life. I was shot at. It seems stupid to write it down, but I was in a pointless war and I got shot. And let me tell you, dear reader, it bloody hurts.
I woke at 4:39am with the pain in my shoulder and since them have been ambling around our flat like a wounded dog, unsure of what to do with myself. Sherlock is out, God knows where, and I do hate being alone-

I heard the front door click, and a moment later the second-from-top stair creaked and I knew Sherlock was back from whatever escapade he had been on. Without a beat I closed the lid of the laptop and took a long loud sip from the mug of luke-warm tea beside it. In three strides he crossed the room and I knew Sherlock was going to grumble about how tedious or boring the world was-
“What is wrong with all the dullards, John?” Sherlock asks, and I do him the curtsey of glancing up as if he had my undivided attention.
The startling thing is that Sherlock can look up to the sky and I can see in the cynical recesses of his eyes that he cannot see the beauty that is there, so plain for all to see. He is too fixated on the fantastical, the obscure and the clever. I do not doubt that for a mind such as his, the normal routines are terribly mundane, but that is reality. Sometimes I wonder if he truly understands that he will never be satisfied with what this life can give him. I remembered the day we met, how instantly I thought I had met the only man in the world who could be more in need of affection than myself.

Sherlock interrupts my thoughts by staring at the laptop on the desk, and I anticipate the interrogation.
“Are you ‘blogging’ again John?”
“Don’t ask questions to which you already know the answer”
“Obvious. Why are you so obvious, John?” He is frustrated. I don’t care to ask why, of late he always seems.. unfulfilled.
“Probably because I’m sat at the desk where I am always sat when I write my journal” I sound bored. I almost sound like him. I sneak a look at his face and I see that he too has registered this, and the expression is something like surprise. Then it turns pensive. I expect that my face mirrored this thoughtful manner.
I was supposed to be here, like it was destiny. We are meant, Sherlock and I, in ways the rest of the world cannot fathom. On occasion he calls me his ‘Boswell’. I am that, and so much more. I am his Boswell. We are two halves of a whole. We are complete when we are together.

SHERLOCK
He looks like he’s drowning in thought and I try my hardest to deduce what he is thinking about. He’s thinking about me, about us, about how we have grown so alike in the last few years since our paths collided and became forever entangled. We would no longer do well without the other.

Some say we have most potential just before we are born, but that promise of great things decreases as we grow. That’s just a normal life. I do not have a normal life, and now neither does John. We are two in the same, two halves of a whole.

I almost dare to ask what he is thinking, my desire to hear his thoughts vocalised almost overwhelming. But I resist. I always resist because I know that he will convey them on his blog. It may not always be what I want to hear, but at least John is always honest. When it comes to that online journal, I often shout at him and constantly remind him that it is a fruitless waste of his time, but secretly I am obsessed with it. When I cannot deduce what he is feeling or thinking, I turn to the blog and there in black and white I have my answers. And it is then I can deliver simple gestures that reward me with a small smile and that odd glimmer in his eye which I have far too often assumed to be affection.

The frustration was that I wanted him to care. My mind could have conjured fabricated evidence of his true affection; a dubious gift from my tortured subconscious. Even the greatest minds have weaknesses.

WATSON
He has been quiet for some time, staring at my face and I feel my cheeks burn with the intensity of his gaze. Maybe he’s zoned out, like he often does, but his eyes are sharp and I feel like he can read my mind. Maybe he can, after all he is all too knowledgeable to not be supernatural or superhuman. But then again I have met Mycroft who is as infuriatingly accurate when reading the facts of recent events.

The silence is agonising, and I try my best to look away, distract myself but every-time I dart my eyes back to him, he is still as a statue, his eyes burning into my soul.
I speak without fully registering what I am saying-
“You know, some people might consider staring to be rude-”
He is unresponsive, and remains so for the next for seconds so I assume he is in his ‘mind palace’ and sigh. I open the laptop again, confident that he cannot read the entry from where he is sat, and continue typing.

“Are you happy, John?”
The question catches me off guard, partially because I was not aware of Sherlock being in his present mind, but mostly because the question was such a peculiar thing for him to address.
“Sorry.. Did you just ask if I was happy?” I say, slightly dumb, sounding foolish no doubt, and now my attention fully upon him. His slim fingers were not touching under his nose, like he usually sits while thinking, but drumming on the arms of the chair, the soft pittering sound seeming to fill the quiet room.
“Yes, that was my question”
“Why would you ask such a thing?” I am hesitant. The blog post for today isn’t published yet, and while I have no idea how he could have read it from where he is sat, I reassure myself that my body language is quite neutral. How can he suspect me of not being happy?
“Because I am curious”
“But why would you suspect me of not being happy?” I am persistent. He seems a little agitated by it, but speaks smoothly as ever.
“I always.. I assume that you are happy. But I should not. You know that feelings are not my strongest suit” His lips purse together, quite like he feels uncomfortable by admitting such a flaw in his immense deductive detective skills. His fingers have stopped drumming and instead are clasping the edges of the chair arm like a life-support.
“… No, they’re not, but you are getting better” I reply, but leave it at that. Sometimes I wonder if Sherlock really knows me at all.

SHERLOCK
He is truly infuriating, and while we both seem to tiptoe around the subject of his happiness I have the sudden urge to grasp him by the shoulders and shake him. All I want is a straight response, one that does not even need intelligent thought or logic, but John seems to either be unsure of the answer or is uncertain if he should tell me. We both know it will be on the blog by evening, so why must he torture me so?

He gets up, his legs now steady. He hasn’t used the cane once in a year, and I am proud of him; I do however notice the slight reluctance to use his left arm to heave himself up. He awoke in pain this morning then.
His feet take him to the kitchen and I hear the sound of the kettle being filled, cups being taken from the cupboard and teabags being unceremoniously dropped into the teapot. John has an art for avoiding things that cause him bother. But I shall not give in. I want my answer, and I want it before every other faceless person gets the chance to find out how Dr. Watson is feeling.

I go into the kitchen where John is waiting for the kettle, but I hesitate. I want to spin him around and demand my answer, but that never works with John. He clams up, looks at me with his eyes full of hurt and I melt. Instead I stand behind him, staring at the two day shirt he’s wearing and the twist in the back of the collar.
“You didn’t answer my question” I speak softly, trying to use some form of emotional blackmail, not that I believe it will work. John is surprisingly complex. He has even managed to shock Mycroft a few times before, and that is a rare thing.

He sighs, his shoulder rising and falling with the breath, and I withstand the urge to touch him.
“Sherlock..” He begins, then hesitates, and for a moment he looks at me over his good shoulder. He returns to the now boiled kettle and pours the water into the teapot.
“..I am surprised” He says after replacing the kettle.
“Surprised?” I query, wondering what I have done that could have caught him off guard. He turns slowly, and I look at him, his face still with a slight boyish charm lingering behind the anxiety lines in his forehead and the redness around his eyes from the lack of sleep the last few nights. Nightmares. He always suffers with them.
“Do you really need to ask?” John looks at me, and I look at him, and I have my answer.

WATSON
“No. No I suppose not” Sherlock responds, but his tone is so much more restrictive, softer than I’ve ever heard him speak before. He has a genuine emotion, one that is not boredom or excitement, and I smile at him. His lips are slightly parted, thin and dry like paper. They draw breath in surges, like waves and with something akin to insanity I feel the need to touch them to see if they are as fragile as they look. I am aware that he is once again staring at my face, and this time I have a strange expression plastered there. He must be wondering what I am thinking right now.
SHERLOCK
He looks at me in a way nobody has ever looked at me before. If I could read thoughts I would not be tempted to ask-
“What are you thinking?”
He says nothing for a moment, and I feel my palms are sweating slightly. My eyes are locked with his and I fear that if I look away the world will come undone. My heart is loud, my feet anchored to the floor, my body unaware of how to move. He appears not to have heard me, and I consider asking again when he speaks.
“I’m thinking about your lips”

WATSON
I’m thinking about your lips. The words echo my thoughts exactly and my ears register my voice ringing in the otherwise soundless room. He blinks. He breaks the eye contact with me briefly to look at my face as a whole, then blinks again and tries to meet my gaze but I am looking at the floor, my face burning with embarrassment. I start to turn, trying to hide my shame by busying myself with the tea but his cool hand is on my forearm, stopping me, suspending me, knocking all sense out of me. I glance down at his fingers delicately wrapped around my wrist and when I dare to look at his face there is sincerity.
SHERLOCK
He is embarrassed by his own admittance, and while he turns away it is like slow motion. The puzzle is completed, the pieces slot together in perfect harmony, stars collide and my heart pumps vigorously in my chest.
My fingers wrap around his forearm. I don’t want him to ignore this, I want him to accept it, to embrace it. I slip my hand down until I have his wrist, and he pauses to look at the physical connection. He looks up at my face. I silently try to tell him what he already should know.
“What good is thought without action?” I utter, and while I have never been physically attached to any person, I feel instinctively drawn towards him. I am a moon in orbit of him. I place one hand at the back of his neck and press my lips to his.

WATSON
Sherlock’s lips were against mine, which resulted in very little conscious thinking capability. My eyes fluttered closed, my hands found places; one on his slim hip, the other in his dark hair, and while he was a novice at kissing, I was not. It became a strange yet entirely pleasurable experience, once I had persuaded his mouth to open a little more and then he had realised he wasn’t to bite so hard. The tension of the last few days was ebbing away, the kiss was melting all wounds and mending me.

Somehow we ended up on the larger of the two armchairs in the sitting room and finally having to stop for breath, we paused, both panting slightly and licking our now swollen lips

SHERLOCK
Kissing, as it turns out, dulls intelligent thought. I have no recollection how we went from the kitchen to the sitting room, but when we both stopped to breath we were entangled on the larger armchair and I had a devilish grin stuck to my face which simply could not be removed by force of will.

John said nothing for several moments until he looked at me, square in the eye and said-
“For somebody who’s new to all this, you are remarkably good” He chuckled, then slouched down further into the seat to make himself more comfortable.
“I am a quick learner” I replied with a slight tone of smugness.
“yes, but you can save the biting for later” John mumbled, pressing his fingers to his bottom lip, which I noticed was slightly more red on one side than the rest of his mouth.
“Later?” I asked, raising an eyebrow in mock confusion.
“Yes, Sherlock, later.. I have to-”
And with that he heaved himself from the armchair and settled himself at the desk. From where I sat I saw him delete all of the unpublished post so far and type for a minute before clicking the post button.
“What did you write?” I asked from the armchair, not wanting to move.
“Read if for yourself” John replied, passing the laptop over to me.

The personal blog of Dr. John H. Watson
Thursday

Each planet may fall from their orbits, but I would remain here. How could I possibly choose my fate when it has already been laid out so beautifully for me?

Just got off the tube, and the picture was begging to be taken. Unfortunately I only had my camera phone, so here it is.

Subsequent adventures drew popular acclaim and by 1891 a series of short stories and serialised novels regularly featured in The Strand Magazine. By the time the last of these appeared in 1927 the detective consultancy operating out of 221b Baker Street had become a national institution.

Through the stage adaptations, films and TV series that followed, Holmes and Watson have  proved to be the most enduring of literary characters. The Guinness World Records has listed Holmes as the “most portrayed movie character,” having been played by 75 different actors in over 211 films.  

The instantly recognisable image of Holmes as a pipe smoking sleuth clad in frock coat and deerstalker, peering through a magnifying glass, is taken from the original illustrations by Sidney Paget which accompanied the stories.     

In the 1940s Basil Rathbone’s monochromatic Hollywood performances famously drew on these and his portrayal of Holmes set the standard for those that followed, although I don’t recall ever seeing one of these films in its entirety.

When I was young my Mum used to work at the local Byron Cinema and received a weekly entitlement of complementary tickets. I consequently became a bit of a film buff at quite an early age.

My first encounter with Holmes and Watson was therefore through the big screen in Hound of the Baskervilles, a 1959 film in glorious Technicolor, with Peter Cushing taking the lead role.

However as far as I’m concerned the definitive Holmes, to date, was splendidly played by the late Jeremy Brett in the Granada TV series which originally ran for ten years from 1984 and even now is frequently repeated.    

More recently a 2009 film starring Robert Downey Junior received mixed reviews for its unconventional portrayal of the Victorian crime buster and his relationship with stalwart companion Watson, played by Jude Law, but I haven’t seen it and will therefore suspend judgment.   

Each of these actors has brought something different to their interpretation of this most celebrated of detectives but the setting has until now always remained as smoggy Victorian London with its attendant gas lights and hansom cabs.      

On Sunday night we were treated to something different, the first of a new three-part BBC series called Sherlock in which Conan Doyle’s characters inhabit present day London. The show has been created by Mark Gatiss and Steven Moffat, both well-known as writers for the highly successful Dr Who series.     

It might be argued that there was something of the Doctor in Benedict Cumberbatch’s performance as Sherlock; the world’s only consulting detective and a master of modern technology in solving crimes. 

The essential intellectual brilliance, logical reasoning, and aloofness of Conan Doyle’s original character remain but there is an added dynamism and urgency about 21^st century Sherlock.

He is very much a man of our times. The three pipe problem has been replaced by the three (nicotine) patch problem, he advertises his services on a website and his favoured form of communication is the text message.   

The dialogue is slick and witty, as illustrated by Sherlock’s riposte to an antagonistic policeman, “I am not a psychopath I’m a high functioning sociopath!”        

Martin Freeman’s John Watson is also seemingly very contemporary, recently discharged as an army doctor  and returning wounded from a traumatic posting in Afghanistan, but amazingly this is exactly the background created for the character by Conan Doyle back in 1897!         

The first episode A Study in Pink was reviewed in the Guardian as being strong on characterisation but thin on plot. It was however quite clearly based on Conan Doyle’s first Sherlock Holmes novel A Study in Scarlet.

Much of that book is given over to providing background information about Holmes and Watson prior to their meeting through a mutual friend. Its title is derived from Holmes’ description to Watson of the murder investigation in which they are involved as his “study in scarlet”.

He explains, “There’s the scarlet thread of murder running through the colourless skein of life, and our duty is to unravel it, and isolate it, and expose every inch of it.”          

A Study in Pink owes its title, more simply, to the colour of the dress worn by a murder victim and her missing matching suitcase!

However the murderer remains a London cabby (but this time not the hansom variety) with limited life expectancy due to an aortic aneurism. His modus operandi is also faithful to the original. He offers his victims a choice of two pills, a game of Russian roulette, one being harmless and the other poisoned!

I am usually rather a traditionalist when it comes to film and TV adaptations but I thought Sherlock was fresh and innovative whilst maintaining the spirit and integrity of the original.

I look forward to seeing the next two episodes and I suspect a further series featuring the dynamic duo from way down on Baker St.     

At Baker Street Bar, umpteen screens show an array of sports. Soccer and rugby outnumber American games, like hockey, but no seems to be there to watch TV. Baker Street in London was home to fictional figure Sherlock Holmes, but the NY bar’s only reference to him is a silhouette on the menu and napkins. Apparently the literary executors are strict about the detective’s image.

I picked up my coat.  ”It’s not good business,” I said, “to make an appointment for 9.45 and do this.”

“It’s not my fault, I’m running late” she replied.  ”Do you want to make another appointment?”

I said, “No thank you” and left.

So, no haircut, and I won’t be going back there.  I’m sure the girl isn’t typical.  But maybe it’s a growing trend that the notion of “customer service” is meaningless, and people feel entirely justified in alienating customers in pursuit of their own convenience.