You might need me more than you think you will
Come home in the car you love, brainy, brainy, brainy

Brainy written by The National.

The book closes with a satisfactory thump in the scarred and worked hands of the soldier. Finally, he thinks. Halfway finished. The dictionary is placed on the bedside table he's adopted from Mrs. Hudson. 'Auxiliary,' he murmurs as he reaches for the folder that sits next to the book and pulls a pen out of his pocket. 'Puerile.' He scribbles these two words down on a piece of loose-leaf paper. He flips to find a different sheet of paper and he speaks softly as he writes one more word for the night. 'Idiosyncratic.'

This business has been going on for two weeks. Two weeks since he met Sherlock Holmes. Two measly weeks. It feels like he's been living with the 'madman' for a lifetime. And it hits him right then and there how bizarre it is that he's been sneaking dictionaries and thick texts from the bookshelves in the sitting room, quietly traipsing into the detective's bedroom and nicking files and any kind of heavy reading he can get his hands on.

John tells himself that he needs it. That he needs to be smarter, that he needs to catch up with the brilliant man. He smiles to himself at the thought of Sherlock asking him for help, or him knowing something that Sherlock doesn't. Of course, reading Sherlock's books will only let him know what Sherlock knows, and he knows that.

But maybe, just maybe he'll forget something. And then maybe he'll smile when John helps him remember.

And maybe it's something about the fact that these books are Sherlock's that push John to be attracted to the idea of scouring them for vocabulary to memorize, for facts to consider later. Those long, elegant fingers turned these pages, those blazing blue eyes took these words in, that brilliant brain of his deciphered them and made them useful. Oh, his brain was magnificent.

John imagines those eyes raking over him in that same way. Absorbing information, examining an experimenting with his fingers, undressing him like he's a puzzle. he imagines the man's thoughts, his brain taking in the information of each pleasurable place and cataloging it for later in some sort of index, some sort of special file.

He soon realizes that he can't deny the feeling swelling up in his gut and the pressure just below that. John shudders. He doesn't feel ashamed that it's over quickly-it's hard for him hold on for that long when he can almost feel those icy eyes and elegant hands enveloping him. That mind reading every inch of his body.

Brainy, brainy, brainy.