They ordered room service again. Haddock and chips—decadently greasy. Well, they were in Scotland after all.

While they were waiting for the food and for Doctor Who to start John asked, "Tell me about the music you put on the player. I looked it up. You like opera?"

"I love opera. Although Puccini is rather opera-lite."

"It's always been…a bit incomprehensible to me."

"Philistine."

"Upper-class twit of the year," John teased.

"I looked at the lyrics of the song. Were they significant or was it just the music?"

"No, it's an aria. The singer has a secret and while the object of his love has resisted him, he knows that if he can just kiss her, then she will fall in love with him."

Sherlock shut his eyes and recited:

"…in your cold room,
watch the stars,
that tremble with love and with hope.
But my secret is hidden within me…

…On your mouth I will tell it when the light shines.
And my kiss will dissolve the silence that makes you mine!"

"So, significant, then?" whispered John.

"Yes."

They settled in to watch the Doctor Who Christmas Special with Sherlock's back sprawled against John's chest, what was left of the chips at hand.

"Wait! Did he just deduce something? Something from the chairs and the pictures? Those are my methods! Who wrote this? He stole that! Do you think he knows who I am? Can I sue him?"

"Calm down. It's a work of fiction, Sherlock. He may have heard of you—people do follow your website, but think of it as a tribute, not a steal. Anyway, the Doctor has always been a lot like you."

"I don't travel through space and time in a blue police box that's bigger on the inside."

"No…though that would be interesting. The Doctor is manic and really clever and sometimes off putting, but with a certain charm…"

Sherlock's bottom lip came out in a pout.

"And sometimes he's very lonely…" finished John, kissing Sherlock's hair.

Sherlock grumbled but continued watching.

"So obvious!" he waved his hands at the screen. "She's his true love and she's only got 8 days to live and they're wasting them on roaming earth with the Doctor. Just look! The sister isn't nearly old enough for her to have been frozen for all that time. Anyway I thought he wasn't supposed to be able to do that—go back and alter someone's timeline—"

"Alright, first—yes, the plot is obvious and we're supposed to know it. It's called dramatic irony.

"Second, I think the end will still be surprising and third, as I think I have mentioned, it's FICTION!"

They watched to the end and John actually felt a little moved, as he had his true love in his arms, but Sherlock rather ruined it by saying, "Ending with snow…pft…don't they do that every year?"

John moaned and laughed all at once. I can see that romance is still not one of your strengths."

"I don't quite see us as the gaze into each other's eyes and whisper sweet nothings types, do you? Anyway, if I swooned into your arms, I'd knock you over."

"I didn't say a romance novel, Git." John tickled Sherlock's sides and it quickly threatened to turn into another round, when John said, "God, you are so thin. Do you swim?" It was casually said, but the moment it was out of his mouth, John could feel them both tense.

"I used to. You?"

"Life guard certification for three years in my teens."

"Of course."

"Why of course?"

"Because you take care of people, John. It's in your nature. I knew you must have by the way you dragged me from the pool."

"We should talk about that."

"We have talked about it."

"That was before. Before this."

"Does this make a difference?'

"It does to me."

"Do you know what I want?"

"Don't change the subject."

"I'm not. I want to take you to the seaside in the summer. Or the south of France. It's beautiful there and the sun is so bright. I want to lie on a beach with you and swim in the ocean or the sea and forget about dark swimming pools."

This means it's going forward, thought John, not that he'd really doubted it, but it was good to hear it from Sherlock's mouth. It's something, maybe long term, maybe forever. A lyric from a song he'd downloaded came back to him as he pictured them—on white sands, splashing and swimming, just lying on the beach with Sherlock in his arms like this.

I think about us lying
Lying on a beach somewhere.
I think about us diving
Diving off a rock, into another moment.

Diving into another moment. A moment beyond this one, and beyond that moment eight months previous when he dragged Sherlock's body that had seemed so limp, to the far side of the pool.

"You know it's not that easy. Not for me, and probably even less for you."

"No, it's not that easy. I wish it were. When you appeared in the pool I thought I was an idiot and I knew I had a heart because it was breaking and then when I realized the truth, I knew I was an even bigger idiot and my heart broke in a different way. I knew that he and I had to die, but I'd have done anything, gone anywhere with him, given him anything to have saved you. I just kept thinking how we would die and you'd never know what you meant to me."

"But you didn't tell me afterwards either. And you didn't have to die."

"I tried to tell you. Or to show you."

"Really? I didn't notice."

"Because you're an idiot."

"Ah…and so are you apparently, because you obviously didn't see how I felt about you, even though Mrs. Hudson did. And, now that I think about some conversations I had yesterday, so did a number of people.

"You still didn't have to die. Not alone, not like that. You needed to tell me where you were going. I needed to be there behind you."

"I knew you'd want to be there and I couldn't risk that. You follow me, John. You shouldn't follow me. I'll always lead you into danger."

John sat up, forcing Sherlock to sit up as well. "Well, it's a little late for that, don't you think?"

"John…I don't want you to follow me anymore."

"Is that why you kept me from some of the bigger cases for a few months? Like the one that took you to Germany, and the one where you went north for two weeks and I didn't even know where."

"Yes, plus you were working. I thought I'd disrupted your life enough as it was."

"How extraordinarily kind of you. You can't stop me. I'm not going to sit at Baker Street like some wife on the home-front waiting for the telegram. And don't say that they don't send telegrams anymore, because you know full well what I mean! It'll be Greg coming to my door or calling me and saying, 'we've lost him, John, I'm so sorry.' I'll be damned if I let you be noble—it's too late for you to start," John's voice was steadily rising and they were facing each other now.

"Without any of this, I'd still have shot the cabbie and I'd still have died for you and I fully intend to keep running around London with you, helping you, protecting you and saving you as necessary! And you DON'T get to tell me that I can't! That's not how this works!"

"What if I tell you that you are actually a hindrance to my work?" Sherlock's voice was preternaturally calm, in contrast to John's obvious agitation.

"I won't believe you."

"But it's true. If I'm wondering where you are, or if you're safe, then I'm not really focussed."

"I could be hit by a bus tomorrow. Does that throw your focus?"

"The odds of that are one in two million. If you go chasing after criminals with me, the odds are somewhat worse."

"You don't get to leave me out of it and you don't get to keep secrets from me!"

"I don't believe that the definition of a relationship is that one partner gets to tell the other what to do. Or command it. And I have many secrets that you will never know."

"What? Why would you keep things from me? Especially now? You know everything about me—everything. Possibly more than I know about myself and you expect me to just be happy that you only share some of yourself with me?

"A relationship is together! Things are decided and negotiated together, not by the one who thinks he's the smartest.

"We are not having this conversation now."

"If not now, then when, Sherlock, when? And if not now, then over and over until it destroys us?"

"I am not having this conversation now." Sherlock got up, grabbed his laptop and went into the bathroom. Once inside he slumped against the door. This is why one didn't care. This is why one certainly did not let oneself fall in love.

John knocked at the door. John called to him. John pleaded, begged, whispered. And finally moved away.

Sherlock heard the telly get louder. He spread towels in the bath and curled up in it. He tried to focus on research for the case—local MP found dead in the a side of town in which he had no business being, after being dropped at his own front door by the driver, and even seen entering. But his normally focussed brain was elsewhere, in the next room and also in a swimming pool with fire and debris falling.

He must have drifted off in the cramped and cold bath tub that smelled of tile and water but also of the soap John had used to shower and shaving cream and other things that were good, because when he woke the telly was off and John was knocking at the door again. His feet were numb and tingly at the same time.

"Sherlock?" John's voice was tight.

Sherlock coughed slightly and managed a fairly level tone, "Do you need the bathroom?"

"Well, yes, but mainly I want—"

"I told you no."

"Yes. Yes, you did."

"Nothing has changed," his voice wavered slightly, "please, John, respect my wishes in this."

"Fine," John's voice was strained with anger again.

Sherlock opened the door and he and John were face to face, well face to hair and face to neck. John was…

Drunk.

"I drank the champagne," John said in a voice that would have seemed almost sober to anyone who wasn't Sherlock Holmes, but anybody could have smelled it on his breath. "It seemed stupid to let it go to waste. It was very good."

They slipped past each other, awkwardly, trying not to touch. It seemed so tragic when for most of the day they had been doing everything in their power to touch one another.

There was a moment, just an instant, when their eyes met, and it could have all stopped, but John looked away and the moment was lost.

Sherlock plugged his laptop back in and started working at the table, scrolling through pages of the politician's actions and votes and taking quick notes.

John emerged, slightly shamefacedly. "Let's go to bed, Sherlock. Just to sleep. Maybe…maybe we can talk more at another time. It will all look different in the morning."

"I'm not tired, John. You know I don't sleep very much as a general rule, and I've slept a great deal today. If the light will bother you I can go back in the bathroom."

"No, no. Don't…put yourself out. I'll be fine."

It could have been any evening at Baker Street. As if none of the day had happened, and they were still just flatmates.

John got into bed with his back to Sherlock. For a very long time his body was rigid. Sherlock tried to keep his eyes on the computer, but they kept drifting back to the stiff line of John's shoulders. He finally saw John's body soften into sleep. Sherlock watched as the spasms he'd noticed the night before began again. And again, he had no idea if they were nightmares or merely restless muscles.

He watched John for over an hour. Watched until John rolled over in his sleep so that he was on his back. It made him feel…

What exactly? Love and anger in equal measure? Desperation, fear. Things that frustrated him by slipping past without definition. Without considering the foolishness of his actions he ran and jumped onto the bed to flail, stupidly, bruisingly at John's chest.

"I can't lose you John! Do you understand that? Can you get it through your tiny little brain that it will KILL me to lose you?"

Shocked awake, John caught Sherlock's hands and pushed him back down on the bed. John crushed his mouth on Sherlock's. It was hard and messy and painful. John ripped at Sherlock's pajama top, popping buttons and stripping him to the waist. Sherlock struggled, but John was having none of it this time. Roughly, he rolled Sherlock over and pulled him up onto his knees so he was hunched over, bum inelegantly in the air. Then he pushed Sherlock's pajama bottoms down to his knees.

"John, wait—"

"Shut-up. You don't want to talk, don't talk," and he prepped Sherlock roughly and shoved himself in. Thrusting, he reached beneath them to grip Sherlock's nearly limp cock and stroke with hard jerks that were more pain than pleasure.

This was sex as a skirmish, a fight for alpha position. John bit at Sherlock's back and what he could reach of his neck. Despite his reluctance, Sherlock reached back to grip John's hip and pull him in harder and faster as if he hoped to bring it to conclusion sooner.

Sherlock felt his orgasm build. It was being wrenched from him by John's force. As he came he moaned into the pillow gasping, "John, please, I'm yours, yours, please, yours," like a mantra, an orison to some God, perhaps John himself.

The sound seemed to wake John up. He froze, mouth against Sherlock's shoulder blade.

This wasn't him. He'd always kept that cardinal rule: one does not fuck in the middle of a fight because one or both of you will be hurt. The argument you cannot seem to win with words will be carried into action, as if you can put yourself in the right by force alone. He was drunk and he was angry and he had hurt Sherlock. He was no better than Harry, coming home drunk and bitter.

"Sherlock, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. Please, I'm sorry."

"If you're not going to finish, could you get off of me," Sherlock said, voice completely flat, "I need to go to the bathroom."

John pulled out as gently as he could. Sherlock rolled off of the bed at once, pulling his pajama bottoms up and holding them at his waist as he walked to the loo. Once inside, he dropped the pants to wipe away the slickness between his legs and where he had splattered a little come on his own stomach. Then he looked at himself in the mirror. The corner of his mouth was torn and painful. His chest and hips bore red scratch marks. He splashed water in his face. For a few minutes he simply sat on the toilet lid, feeling numb, and thought about going to sleep in the bathroom. But it was cold. He shouldn't be the one to give up the bed.

Back in the main room he retrieved his pajama top. John sat in silence on the bed. Most of the buttons were gone, some of them torn through the fabric. Both sets had been a Christmas present from Mummy. He tossed the top back onto the floor and crawled into bed and rolled to his side, back to John.

"Sherlock— do you want my pajama top? I mean yours, I mean, the one I'm wearing? I don't want you to be cold."

"I'm fine."

"I am so, so sorry. Did I— did I hurt you…badly."

"Not at all. I came. Isn't that the definition of a satisfactory sexual encounter?"

"Please, Sherlock. Look at me. Let me—"

"Shut-up, John. I'm bored with your incessant talking."

He heard John lie down. Heard him sigh, and possibly even smother a sob. For well over an hour they both lay there, unsleeping. Finally Sherlock felt the mattress shift as John's body sank back into it when he stopped holding himself stiffly. He felt the twitches begin again and heard John's snores. He didn't sleep until dawn began to light the room.

He woke when he felt John's hand on his shoulder.

John had woken from dreams that wove between Afghanistan and swimming pools and dark doorways where he'd stood beside Sherlock, gun in hand, on so many nights in the past year. He could see that Sherlock hadn't moved and knew he deserved nothing, but he just wanted to touch Sherlock one more time.

"Sherlock, please. I can't blame you if you can't forgive me. But I just want to say, before we, before this is over, that I love you. I love you so much I can't describe…or put into words…or even comprehend. This is going to sound stupid, but it's as if there was a box in my heart that I thought contained my love for you as a friend, but when I realized, when I saw…that you might love me like this I realized that I loved you with all of my heart and not just that little part.

"And now we've lost…I've ruined even that. Please, just tell me that you're ok and I'll go, back to London and I'll pack my things." Despite his words John couldn't resist running his hand along the back of Sherlock's neck in a soothing gesture, rubbing in small circles along the cervical vertebrae, and bit by bit he felt Sherlock's shoulders relax the tiniest amount. And began to hope.

"Sherlock? Do you mind if I hold you."

"No, but don't…"

"I won't! I just want to comfort you." John slipped closer, pressed his chest against Sherlock's cold, bare back and placed his hand very lightly on Sherlock's upper arm.

"Did it occur to you that I can't lose you either?" he whispered. "That if I lost you and there was ANY chance that my being with you would have helped…that I would never recover.

"I love you, damn it. I love you and I'll probably follow you even if you throw me out right now."

"You wouldn't be able to. You couldn't possibly follow me if I didn't want you to."

"It wouldn't stop me from trying. Did it ever occur to you that maybe, just maybe if we're together—if I'm not a half a mile back, if you let me into your plans for once—that neither one of us needs to die?"

"I'm protecting you, John! Why won't you let me protect you? I don't want you involved in what I do."

John took the chance. He kissed Sherlock's neck and upper back which he knew Sherlock liked , ran his hand down Sherlock's arm, feeling Sherlock press back into him very slightly, still taut, but beginning to yield.

"I have always been involved in what you do. You brought me along. You wanted my help then, and I'd like to think I've been some help to you since. I'd like to point out that you'd be dead a couple of times over without me. I'm not the one who needs protecting."

"I didn't end up covered in semtex."

"No, but we both ended up with snipers' guns trained on us. He'd have gotten you there with or without me. Hell, you were going there on your own."

"That's my point! I was going to him. He didn't need to take you but he did because he knew it would weaken me."

"Shh, he's not here now."

"He's always here. He's always in my head, taunting me, reminding me that I failed."

"You didn't fail."

"I failed you."

"No, you didn't. I'd have left then. I could have left anytime. I am a grown man, and a perfectly capable one. It's my choice and my choice is to be with you. I need you, and I think that maybe you need me. May I kiss you now?" John propped himself up on his elbow.

Sherlock shifted onto his back looking up at John. His eyes were wide and sad, body still tense, but he nodded the tiniest bit and John leaned in, like the first time, to press his lips against Sherlock's mouth, just a tender press of lips without the suggestion of anything else. They stayed like that for some time. Just lips together, parting, coming back, until the smallest hitch in Sherlock's breath, a sigh in John's, signified something else.

"John, I want, but I don't know if…"

"I know. I won't hurt you. I promise."

John stripped and eased Sherlock's pajama bottoms off. He straddled Sherlock's hips and sat up, just looking down at Sherlock's face, then he ran a finger along Sherlock's jawbone and turned his hand to cup Sherlock's cheek. Sherlock closed his eyes and turned his head into John's hand.

John continued to simply caress Sherlock's face soothingly. He smoothed the worry lines on the pale forehead, brushed back the dark fringe and swept away a loose hair. Sherlock opened his eyes and watched him.

"I love your face. It's amazing to watch. It's a mask that you project, and yet you run through a thousand expressions a minute. I love the way your nose turns up and the way you get a little wrinkle at the top when you're really laughing—or when you sniff with disdain. I love the shape of your ears. They're like no one else's. I've always wanted to touch your hair, and it's as thick and soft as I imagined. I love your jaw and your strong chin, and how sometimes you pull it back when you're cross, so that your profile is funny." He leant in to kiss Sherlock's mouth sweetly.

"I think you can guess how I feel about your mouth." He leaned in to graze his lips down Sherlock's neck, "and your neck. It will be hard when we go back to London to watch you with other people. To see them look at your throat and the little bit of smooth chest that you always show and know that they want you too."

John planed his hands along Sherlock's arms and across his chest. "It's amazing to me how defined your muscles are. How beautiful you are."

"I love your hands. They're wonderful. Long and beautiful. They should be a woman's hands, but they're not. They're strong and dextrous.

"But most of all, I love your eyes. I love how they pierce through everything and change colours in different lights and with your different emotions. And how they narrow in thought, or pop open wide when you've solved it. Or when you come. You are vibrant when you come."

He was startled at himself. He wasn't usually so talkative, so sappy. He'd been with women who wanted him to do that—to describe why he loved them—and he'd tried, but the words poured out of him with Sherlock.

John slid his hands down to stroke Sherlock's penis, easing it to hardness. When Sherlock was fully erect, he slicked it up and carefully lowered himself onto it. Sherlock arched up and fell back, forcing John onto him fully.

How amazing this is, thought John. If anyone had asked him forty-eight hours earlier if he would want this, want to be rolling his hips gently with his lover deep inside him, he'd have gaped at them like they had three heads. And if they'd suggested that he would want Sherlock deep inside him, he would have stammered and blushed, because it would have triggered something that he'd hidden away, even from himself.

Meanwhile, Sherlock was moving his hands along John's thighs where they gripped his waist, up over John's hips, pausing to rest them there for a moment, enjoying the sensation of John moving against him. Then he slid them up to caress John's chest as carefully as John had explored his. He traced scars with his fingers, running them over the hypertrophic scar on the shoulder with care. John watched Sherlock's fingers as they moved across him, shutting his eyes when Sherlock reached the scar.

It was slow and sensual. John rocking against Sherlock's hips. Sherlock running his hands along John's penis, keeping him hard but nowhere near coming. They would pull together to kiss sometimes lightly and sometimes hungrily, and then John would sit back to just study Sherlock's face again, to trace it with his fingers.

"Do you forgive me? I need to know that you forgive me."

"I forgive you," Sherlock replied. But a corner of his mind whispered, but I won't forget.

"Do you trust me?"

"I trust you."

And then it began to build. John closed around Sherlock's hand to tighten it, to bring his orgasm closer and closer, until he came over both their hands.

Sherlock began to thrust up into him in earnest and despite the intensity, John stayed upright to watch Sherlock's face as the ivory skin flushed pink across the sternum and up across Sherlock's face, as Sherlock bit his lip and rolled his head from side to side, eyes squnched tight in concentration. Sherlock was making breathy moans that were getting faster and faster, and John could feel Sherlock's cock getting harder and thicker until Sherlock arched, head thrown back, mouth is a perfect circle as he cried out.

They rested for awhile, John resting against Sherlock's chest as the long fingers ran through his hair and down his back.

At last Sherlock asked, "What time is it?"

John propped himself up slightly to look over at the clock, "Half past ten."

"You should go out early and buy your clothes before the shops are packed."

"Aren't you going to come with me?"

"I need to get started on the case. I'll meet you back here for lunch and we can go out again later."

They kissed one more time and John went off to take his shower.

Sherlock put his pajama bottoms back on and his dressing gown and went back to his research with a far lighter heart than he'd had the night before.

John came back out toweling his hair. "Tell me about the case."

"An MP was found dead in the wrong part of town."

"Mistress, prostitute?"

"No idea until I take a look, but nothing seems to suggest it. I'm going to go see the wife this morning."

John glanced over his shoulder as he pulled on his jeans, "Going to pull your 'Alas, poor Yorick' performance again?"

"My what?"

"Trick the widow with your fake tears—old friend of the deceased. I suppose she's guilty."

"No, I'm sure she isn't, by all accounts, they were very happy together, but yes, I may manipulate her for information and tears are often a very good way to do that."

John looked at him aghast. "But you can't. Not when someone's really in pain. That's just cruel. Wait a few days. Do something else."

"I'll do what I need to do, John. Why are you so surprised?"

"I thought, after this," John waved at the room, the bed, "that you wouldn't be able to do that.

"It's what I do, John. It's all I know how to do. This changes nothing. I don't know why you think it would. I'll still come home to you. This is just a case like a dozen others. Why are you so concerned?"

"I don't like to see innocent people hurt. You have other methods. Go to the crime scene, insinuate yourself into the morgue. Use Lestrade's ID. Just do something else."

Sherlock looked up surprised, "Are you telling me how to solve a case?"

"No, just making suggestions." John sat on the bed to finish tying his shoes. "I'm trying to tell you that it's a bit not good. Just like I always have."

"But if I need to do it, then I will do it. Perhaps I won't need to do it, but I doubt that I'll get in the front door if I don't use that kind of tactic. I could try to be sympathetic, but that seldom yields any usable results."

"Is it enough for me to say that I don't want you to do it this time?"

"No."

"Oh."

Sherlock's eyes narrowed, "You said that I don't get to tell you not to come. Fine. But you don't get to tell me how to do my work. You don't know how to do it. You don't observe. You're just like the rest of the stupid population and you don't get to stop me. Do you understand? This doesn't change anything. You said you wanted me to be me. Well, this is me. This is what I do. And you know that. You knew that when you kissed me in the airport. Did you think your kiss was magic and I'd suddenly stop wanting to solve the puzzles, needing to solve them ANY WAY I can?"

"I thought that my loving you and thinking that you were clever might be enough, or might give you enough humanity to stop being callous! I thought that loving me might show you that people can hurt!" Just like the night before John's voice was rising while Sherlock remained perfectly calm.

"Well, apparently you were wrong. I don't care and if loving you means that I have to stop this, then…it's better that we end this now, because I will never stop and I will never give it up. Not for you, not for anyone."

"And if solving the puzzle meant driving someone to suicide, would you still do it? If it meant sleeping with someone else even though that would destroy me almost as much as your death, would you still do it?

"You said that losing me would kill you. That's clearly not true. Your true love really is your work!

"I'm getting some air." John grabbed his coat from the closet and raged out of the room.

Sherlock stared at the closed door for some minutes. It was over before it had begun. What always happened had happened; just one more person who didn't understand. He'd thought John would be different, but in the end he wasn't.

The work was still here and that was all that mattered. The rest was transport and the day before had been a lovely trip, but the problem with trips is that they always come to an end. He resolved to shut down that part of his mind and went to take a shower.

But when he came back out and looked at the disheveled room he could feel that resolve slipping. He sat on the bed and drew his knees up to his chest.

He wished now that he hadn't washed off John's scent. He wanted to roll in the sheets they'd shared. After he left the room the staff would come in and strip the bed and the sheets would be run through scalding water with bleach and all traces would be gone. For a moment he thought about asking the hotel if he could buy them, to save them always, a reminder of the day when he'd been perfectly happy and content. But they would grow stale within a week, and the scent would be gone. Sentiment was a useless emotion.

When John came back Sherlock's things were gone. There was a credit card in Mycroft's name on the desk and his plane ticket home. He knew that if Sherlock wanted to hide, then the amateur detective skills of an ex-army doctor weren't going to be much good.

The plane ticket was for two days away. There was no point in staying in Edinburgh any longer. John doubted that he would ever want to come back to Scotland again. He called the airline. It was surprisingly easy to change the date, probably because Mycroft's office had made the arrangements. He wondered how he should return the card to Mycroft. Put it in the hollow of a tree, a loose brick like a spy in a detective novel?

His flight was four hours away. For awhile he just sat on the bed. He hurt inside in a way he hadn't felt since fifth form when his first love had broken his heart. Angry and frustrated and confused and devastated. He checked his phone but there were no messages. He couldn't decide if he should apologize first or wait for Sherlock, but waiting for Sherlock to apologize could take until the end of time. Right now he needed to get back to London where he could sit and think.

Four days later Sherlock sat in his brother's official office in Whitehall. "What the hell was that little adventure?"

"You solved it, I take it?"

"Promised votes to the wrong people. Had an attack of conscience and couldn't go through with it. They didn't take kindly to it. I figured it out from records on the internet and a brief trip to records. Any of your minions could have sussed that from here."

"Then why did you spend a further four days in Edinburgh?"

Sherlock looked away. "I'm quite sure you know why."

"I have my suspicions. Pity. When John caught up with you in the airport I thought that things were finally resolved in your favor."

"Well, you were wrong. Extraordinary but true.

"You sent me up there in the hopes that something would come to a head, didn't you? Well, once again, dear brother, your meddling has wrecked the course of my life."

"Have you spoken to John? It is possible to repair a relationship, Sherlock. People do it all the time. One of you apologizes, the other apologizes and all is well."

"Not this. Not when someone you love…misunderstands you so completely. It's as if he told me that I needed to stop breathing in order to be with him."

"But you find breathing boring."

If looks could kill, Mycroft would have been a pile of ash. "You should talk to him. It may still be possible to bring him round to your point of view," Mycroft continued unperturbed.

"I don't want to." Mycroft smiled sadly at his brother, his six year old/thirty-four year old brother.

"Go back to Baker Street. Think about it for a few days. Get over your temper tantrum. Don't look at me like that—we both know that's what this is. John is probably somewhere thinking about his right now."

"John will be at Baker Street. I'll stay somewhere else."

"Please don't use one of my safe houses. It's such a nuisance when you do that. It means we have to start from scratch with a new one.

"At any rate, I happen to know that John is not at Baker Street. I presumed that he stayed with you, or at any rate in Edinburgh, or with some relative."

Sherlock looked up sharply. "What do you mean you don't know where he is? He checked out of the hotel and flew back to London on Boxing Day. And he doesn't have any relatives except his sister and he'd be pretty desperate to go to her."

But John was not at his sisters, and he wasn't at Sarah's and when Sherlock returned to Baker Street Mrs. Hudson was surprised that John hadn't returned with him.

Sherlock bounded up the stairs. There was a piece of paper attached to the door with cello-tape.

Do you think they serve coffee in Coffeyville?
I doubt we'll get a decent cup of tea.
But if you've got some time to kill
Why don't you come over and play with me?
Let's play in the middle
And see what we see.

-Jim

Oh, and I have a nice, new blog for you to RSVP, just like Dr. Watson