Author's Note: Not exactly sure where this story came from, actually. It just occurred to me at one point that there is no way Sherlock's return to 221B is a smooth transition. John is stubborn in his own way, and I think he would have a very hard time letting go and readjusting in the same moment.

This story can also be seen as a background snippet to mine and Setep Ka Tawy's ongoing post-Reichenbach plot-arc, "Returning to Tomorrow". If you have a chance, please take a look! It's on Setep's profile. :)

Enjoy, and, as always, reviews are the best thing an author can receive around here, and they will never go unnoticed!

Too Much To Ask

"There is a line, Sherlock, and you've just crossed it."

John caught a blurred glimpse of an odd expression on his friend's face – something frowning and vaguely bewildered – but he didn't linger long enough to read any more than that. It wouldn't help anything, not here. There was just no point.

Jaw set, John turned sharply on his heel and walked from the room. A second later, he was pounding up the steps to his own room, even though he knew the thuds would be audible all the way downstairs. Mrs Hudson would probably be coming up to investigate in a few moments when she thought things had calmed down a bit. Dear woman that she was, she would try to respect John's privacy at first, badgering Sherlock instead about what had happened this time, but she would not, John thought grimly, get any answers out of him. Not Sherlock. Not the man who was so goddamn selfish that he couldn't do one bloody thing –

A muffled swear forced itself past John's lips as he slammed the door shut and dropped to a sitting position on the edge of his bed. He ran both hands over his forehead, but was up again a short second later, pacing back and forth abruptly from one end of the room to the other; he was too irritated to sit still, that much he knew. Thanks to Sherlock.

He distracted himself for a few minutes by just breathing. In, out, in out... It didn't come as easily as he would have liked, and he was uncomfortably aware that he knew exactly why: because underneath the curses and the anger and the denial, there was something else, and that something was hurt.

Only, there was no point in realising that, certainly none in trying to prove it, because Sherlock Holmes just didn't think that way, and God forbid that anything should be different just because the man had faked his own death and spent six months in some sort of martyred self-exile –

John stopped short in front of the unsympathetic wall. He looked up, blew out a long, slow breath, closed his eyes, just tried not to think for a moment – but the silence wouldn't come.

Hurt. That was what it came down to, really. It was not anger but disappointment that was making him act like this, that had sent a stupid, trivial argument tumbling head over heels into something painful and entirely different. It was his own fault. He had thought – oh, yes, he had even expected, of all the idiotic things – that things, that Sherlock, somehow, would be different. Not obviously. Not something stark and life-changing. Just something... better.

Consideration, John thought, running a hand over his hair. That was what he wanted. Consideration, and understanding.

He was getting neither, and it wasn't for lack of trying.

"Want to eat out tonight?" he had said, walking in from the kitchen to find Sherlock lying on the couch, hands for once not steepled under his chin, but bent upward, pillowing his head.

Sherlock, being Sherlock, had made absolutely no reply to that.

John tried again. "There's a new Italian place a couple blocks down; just put in a few weeks ago. It's supposed to be pretty good, from what I've heard." And then he had waited, for a minute, two minutes, and by the time it got to three, he was starting to feel the slightest twinge of annoyance.

"Sherlock – "

"Not hungry, you go, tell me how it is."

"Oh, come on, Sherlock," John pressed, "it'll only be – "

"Not interested." A pause, and then a reluctant clarification. "I'm trying to think, John."

God, that wasn't the point. And yet John was reluctant to make himself any clearer, because he honestly didn't know how to go about it. How did you explain to Sherlock Holmes that even having your presumed-dead best friend back did not make everything OK? How did you tell the man whose mind was one logical bloody machine that the past is not, in fact, a thing of the past?

One week in, John was not OK. He was still angry, still hurt, still overwhelmed with the mind-shattering return of Sherlock to his life – but he was trying to stay rational, and right now, all he wanted to do was get away from all that mess, at least for a little while. He wanted to be across a table from Sherlock, eating good food and just talking, and even if their conversation turned to the important things, they could just as easily turn it away again, brushing on the subjects without pain and without fear.

And that was why, this time, he kept going. "Look," he said, fumbling for the right words, "I'm not really asking much, am I? Just, you know, getting out of the flat for a bit."

Sherlock's head twisted sideways to regard him. "What's wrong with the flat?" He sounded genuinely puzzled.

Oh, nothing, just that I spent two weeks here, by myself, after you were gone – and those weeks were hell, Sherlock, they really were, but what do you care? John felt his hands beginning to clench, and his forced his fingers apart again.

"Nothing," he replied aloud. "It'd just be – for God's sake, Sherlock, you've been lying there, like that, for the past two hours. How hard is it to just – "

"Very," interrupted Sherlock again, with one of his 'you-really-should-know-better-' looks, one which right this moment made John want to grit his teeth in frustration."Did you not hear me? I'm not hungry. I don't want to go out. You go, then, if you're so set on this – Italian place." He unbent one arm enough to flap a dismissive hand in John's direction before settling back into his previous position.

"The point," John said, quietly and carefully, "is that I don't want to go by myself."

"Why not? You're perfectly fine on your own."

They felt like a cold slap to the face, those words. John knew what Sherlock was actually saying, knew he hadn't meant it like that, but at the same time, he could hardly believe that his newly re-established flatmate would be so tactless. Hadn't he listened? (God, how childish that sounded in his head) Hadn't he heard all those things John had said that first afternoon – the questions, the denial, the accusations, the pure confusion – all spilling out in a tidal wave of raw emotion that John had kept pent up inside him for six months because he couldn't, just couldn't let himself feel that much? How could Sherlock possibly think that now, barely a week later, everything was back to normal?

Then again, how could John have possibly thought that anything would change?

"Am I?" He wondered if his friend could hear the shift in his tone, the way his voice suddenly went soft and flat.

A sceptical sort of noise came from Sherlock's direction. "It's a restaurant, John, not some back alley in Brixton. I don't see why – "

"No, you really don't, do you?"

That got Sherlock's attention, even if nothing before it had. The detective looked up very sharply, his brow furrowed in apparent confusion, and then he abruptly sat up and swung his legs around until he was facing John. "I've said something," he muttered, rather rhetorically, John thought, for a man who was supposed to be brilliant. "Something's changed, something just now – what's changed?"

Of all the bloody ignorant –

"Nothing!" John shot back furiously. "Nothing's changed, Sherlock, that's the whole point, and you – oh, you – you just don't get it, and I don't know why in all hell I'm even surprised." The conversation was spinning out of control, and he knew it, and he should do something to stop it, he needed to pull back now – but he wasn't going to.

He didn't remember what he had said after that, actually. Something stupid, probably, and his brain was trying to rationalise it presently by blocking it out more or less in full. It didn't matter. Dealing with Sherlock Holmes required more patience and more acceptance than he was capable of giving right now, and he was beginning to wonder whether he hadn't used up his stores of both in the months following his friend's terrible disappearance.

It was starting to dawn on John that this had, perhaps, been a mistake. He hadn't been ready for this, hadn't been ready to accept Sherlock Holmes back into his life when he had just reached the point of moving on. His initial reaction, even fraught with illogical emotion as it was, should have been warning enough. Sherlock's return... Well, he hadn't dealt very well with it then, and he wasn't at all certain that he could deal with it now. Maybe this was wrong, he thought (hating it even as he thought it). Maybe there was no going back.

Because somewhere, buried deep under a layer of fear and shame and guilt, there was a small part of John Watson that wished with all sincerity that Sherlock Holmes had never returned.

Many thanks, O marvellous reader! Do leave your thoughts, 'twould be so kind of you.