Disclaimer: I have no ownership of Sherlock or its characters.

Note: These chapters are written with the assumption that the Reader has seen the episodes referenced. If you haven't, you still might enjoy them, but they may seem a little disjointed.

Chapter One - A Study in Potential Flatmates

He's not sure how it happened. No, that's not accurate, he does know the vague generalities of how it took place, but he's not entirely sure when or why.

But at some point, John Watson had changed his way of viewing the world.

Sherlock had never cared for people. They were irrelevant at best, idiots at worst. Invariably annoying, they were worth only the data that they could produce. If he was very lucky, they would sometimes create moderately interesting puzzles for him to solve. Other than that, they were a nuisance to be endured.

In close proximity for extended periods of time, they graduated up to full-blown torment.

He'd had flatmates before. None had lasted more than a couple of weeks. He wasn't sure whether he or they had first found the situation intolerable. Having now been kicked out of his three previous flats (something about disturbance of the peace, menace to society, irreparable damages, the usual complaints, he'd been ignoring them), he would now need another flatmate if he wished to take the place that Mrs. Hudson was offering. One offhand remark later, and in came John.

Perhaps the most remarkable thing that could be said about him was that he was an extreme example of the utterly ordinary. True, he'd had a stint as a soldier overseas, but the after-effects were thoroughly predictable: wound, pension, therapist. Nothing special. In fact, he was even easier to read than most other people. Sherlock was almost dismissive.

But, he needed a flatmate.

And this was a man who couldn't afford to say no. That would make things much easier in the future.

So, he'd astonished the man with his skills, given him the address of the space, and promptly moved in that afternoon.

John agreed to the flat (though of course he'd had to comment on Sherlock's mess), and everything worked out as he'd expected.

Then he'd gotten lucky. Four serial suicides, seemingly random and unrelated, the police completely stumped! (Well, they never knew what was going on, but it was nice to hear them admit it.)

The only problem was…Anderson was at the crime scene. Oh, how he hated to work with Anderson. The man took idiocy to an art form. But Sherlock refused to let Anderson keep him from his puzzle. He would just have to go and deal with it like he always did.

On his way out, he caught a side-long glimpse of John. The former soldier had lowered his body into a chair, and seemed a little at loss as to what to do with himself. Another person might have assumed that he was weary and in pain, but Sherlock noted the way in which his muscles clenched and his jaw locked and his eyes were sharp and clear even he stared at the room. No, the only thing he was weary of was inaction. He considered, as he put on his coat and scarf. If he brought John to the crime scene, he could take Anderson's place, and Sherlock would be free to think without distraction.

He stepped back inside and extended the offer. As expected, John agreed with alacrity, and they set off.

It was in the cab ride that Sherlock noticed the first thing different about him. After explaining his deductive logic and giving a demonstration via John's phone, John's reply was that it was…extraordinary.

Well.

He'd never had someone praise his skills before. They required them, tolerated them, but never enjoyed hearing them.

Hmmm.

At the crime scene, he'd expressed his amazement twice more, to the point that Sherlock asked, "Do you know you do that out loud?"

He'd apologized, unnecessarily, and Sherlock found himself almost starting to like the fellow.

He'd texted John later, asking him to return to the flat right away. He'd done his investigating, he'd reached his conclusions, now it was time to set his plan in motion. It took John forever to arrive, and for some reason, he seemed annoyed at the inconvenience of trekking across London just so that his phone could be used to send a text. Sherlock didn't see what the problem was, couldn't he tell that it was a compliment? He could have 'borrowed' (in the most liberal sense of the word) anyone's phone, but instead, he was allowing John to participate and share the fun.

Over the course of the conversation that followed, Sherlock noted something else about John: his apparent sense of loyalty. Twice did he take Sherlock's side of things: once explicitly when he refused to cooperate with Sherlock's 'arch-enemy' (Mycroft, such a drama queen, he thought dismissively), and once implicitly when he automatically assumed Sherlock's innocence in the case despite potentially incriminating evidence.

Sherlock wasn't sure if that made him misguided and naïve, or if there was something deeper at work here.

In any case, he decided to bring John along with him again for part two of the plan.

John seemed to feel the need for basic conversation on their stakeout as they awaited the arrival of the serial killer. Sherlock supposed he could understand why; for the deductively inept, there was no other way to get information from a person. He disliked when it interrupted his thinking, though.

Then the appearance of a suspiciously placed cab left no more time for either thinking or conversation. They dashed outside, and it pulled away from the curb. Sherlock immediately focused inward and darted into his Mind Palace, as he called it. It was the mental organization of data in his mind so that it was readily available and accessible. There were all kinds of facts, events, dates, and locations that he had found desirable to keep over the years.

It was the one place he could go and be guaranteed solitude. No people to disturb him there.

Right now, he needed the room he used most frequently: the Map Room. Pulling up the immediately neighboring streets, he calculated the only possible route of the cab, and an alternative path by foot that he and John could use to intercept it. "Come on, John!" he cried, and took off.

The chase was glorious, although it ended in failure. The cab's passenger was a newly-arrived American, clearly not their desired killer.

Despite that, the chase was not completely worthless. Thanks to the heat of the moment, John now had conclusive proof that he didn't need his cane anymore. Which would serve to make future endeavors much more fun.

The serial killer (the cabbie, it should have been obvious from the start) enticed Sherlock away with the promise of revealing his method. And in truth, he did. The man was an arrogant schemer who sought to prove his so-called genius to the world by playing mind games with his victims. He challenged Sherlock to play, too.

Choose a pill, either pill. Prove how clever you are.

Sherlock didn't need to play. He already knew that he would win.

He would have.

He didn't have to prove anything.

Because this other man couldn't outthink him. Couldn't outthink Sherlock.

He couldn't have.

But he didn't have the chance to find out, because just before the pill reached his mouth, a bullet flew through the window and hit the cabbie just below the left shoulder. Sherlock hurried to the window, but there was no sign of the shooter.

He turned back to the cabbie, but the man refused to tell him whether Sherlock would've won. Well, it didn't matter, because Sherlock got something more important out of him just before he died. The name of his sponsor: Moriarty.

The police and the Yard took their time in arriving, and for some reason kept treating Sherlock like he was in shock or something. He didn't know why, it was just a simple murder. The only mystery was the identity of the killer. A crack shot, inured to violent situations, probably military, yet with moral principles…

He suddenly caught sight of John across the parking lot.

John….

Of course, it was the obvious answer when put together like that: John's loyal character, and his military background. Yet, somehow, he would not have deduced this result beforehand.

That was when he realized how shallow, and, in some cases, even off-base, his deductions about John truly were. Underneath the surface, John was quite far from ordinary.

He…hadn't expected that.

A/N: To be continued...This will cover the course of all nine (of the current) episodes of Sherlock.