Sherlock sees everything and nothing at the same time. John doesn't know how he does it-or rather, he does, because Sherlock explains several times, but John can't understand having that much knowledge or concentration.

The first time they meet at Bart's, Sherlock shakes John's hand and asks, "Afghanistan or Iraq?"

John sputters, but answers with Afghanistan, and Sherlock ignores him in favor of talking about the flat before leaving with a whirl of his coat.

Mike smiles. "He's always like that, yeah," he chuckles.

John doesn't realize Sherlock's blind until he reads it on the man's website that night.

"How could you possibly know all that about me?" John asks as they speed towards a crime scene.

Sherlock smiles, one corner lifting up higher and making it crooked. "When we shook hands, you didn't react to shaking left hands-you didn't think anything of it. So, you are left-handed, and your right leg had the limp as you didn't need to transfer your cane to shake hands. There was no tan above your wrist, the skin feels slightly different, and you only get that kind of sun abroad. You were trained at Bart's, but you were standing straight, military style, due to the height of your hand and face, based off of the direction your voice was coming from, which also revealed the fact that you have a psychosomatic limp. So the circumstances of the wound were traumatic, then-wounded in action. Army doctor, wounded in action, Afghanistan or Iraq," he answers.

John opens and closes his mouth for a moment before breathing, "That was amazing."

"That's not what people usually say."

"What do people usually say?"

"'Blind people don't see like that.'"

The flat is as neat as a pin; of course, it would have to be. John's barely spent five minutes there, total, before being whisked off by Sherlock.

This time, they go to a restaurant. They spend dinner in silence, because John is instructed to keep an eye across the street. He tells Sherlock about the stalled cab, and Sherlock leaps up and runs out without a second thought. John follows, watching the man as he almost gets run over in the street.

He doesn't realize that he left his cane until he's back at Baker Street once again. Sherlock decides it for him-Baker Street is John's new home.

"How did you know it was a green ladder?" John asks. They're eating Chinese after John's shot a cabbie and Sherlock's almost committed suicide. More important questions will come later, but it's trivial and it caught his attention yesterday.

"Pigmentation was consistent with that hue," Sherlock answers, handling his chopsticks with ease.

"You can feel colors?"

Sherlock nods. "You could too, if you had spent your life dedicated to it," he admits.

John hums. "So you were born blind?"

Sherlock's hand stops its path to his mouth. "No."

While John might not be able to detect colors or a tan with his fingertips, he does understand when people want a subject to drop.

It's obvious that Sherlock just needs a companion. Sherlock definitely can take care of himself, John thinks as he watches Sherlock's hand fly across a braille book. John's not sure if the man is actually managing to read it.

He often finds himself staring at Sherlock, confident the man knows nothing about John's decidedly non-platonic feelings.

Anderson's going on at the next crime scene about how Sherlock isn't a professional, contaminates crime scenes, causes an uproar wherever he goes, and should be in a place with 'people like him.'

"God, Sherlock's blind, not disabled! He doesn't need your help, you twat, you need his!" John bursts out when he finally can't take it. Everyone turns to look at him, except Sherlock, who stands up and turns to face Lestrade's general direction.

"It was the gardener. The mud on her shoes confirms it; you should find the missing valuables in the garden shed near the fertilizer," he says, as if he hasn't heard a word of Anderson's cruelty. John knows that is completely untrue because Sherlock can hear him hang up his coat in the downstairs hallway. "Come on, John," he commands.

John turns to follow Sherlock out in the street. He dithers for a moment-should he say something? And decides against it. Unless Sherlock asks, of course. But he's not offering anything more; he's already shown his hand to the detective.

Sherlock leads them down an alley and crowds John against a wall. John's about to ask what he wants when Sherlock leans in and kisses him. His lips are gentle, pliant, and inviting, so it's all John can do to kiss more. Sherlock tastes like something completely unexpected, like earth and coffee and something sharper. Sherlock's tongue slides across John's lips, asking for entrance. John opens his mouth, tilts his head a bit more, and suddenly everything just seems better.

They have a proper snog before pulling away to breathe, staying close enough for their noses to brush and their exhales to mingle. "Please tell me that wasn't a one-off," John says, finally finding his voice.

Sherlock leans his whole body against John's and positively rumbles, "I'll leave you to your deductions."

For a man who navigates the world with touch, Sherlock is practically starved for skin-to-skin contact.

John become intensely familiar with Sherlock's phone, simply because Sherlock's lazy. John does manage to figure out that Sherlock has personalized ringtones for each of his contacts. John's is a piece of Saint-Saens's "The Aquarium," Mrs. Hudson has Vivaldi's "A Rain of Tears," and Lestrade's is Schubert's "Der Erlkönig."

Sherlock's a violin aficionado, which is why John's not surprised all of the ringtones are classical pieces. Still, he laughs long and hard when the loud strains of Verdi's "Dies Irae" fill the room one afternoon and Sherlock growls, "Mycroft."

The flat is warm, and they're laying in bed, completely tangled in each other, just a thin sheet covering them both. Sherlock presses his nose against John's hair, inhales, and asks, "John, what do you look like?"

John swallows. He was not expecting that; for Sherlock to ask John about something so important and still be so trite about it. "Well," he replies. "You know that I'm five six. I have blue eyes and blonde hair and I'm tan, but you knew that already. Er..."

"Is the hair on your legs lighter than the hair on your head?" Sherlock interrupts.

"I thought you could tell colors?" John asks while lifting the covers to look at his legs.

Sherlock sighs. "I can do paints, but hair is harder. Except greys. Grey hair is a bit coarser," he answers.

"Oh. Well, my leg hair is lighter than my head hair," John replies, tucking the covers around himself again.

Sherlock's hands gently seek John's face. They rest against John's cheeks for a moment before moving higher. John closes his eyes and lets Sherlock's fingers brush his eyelids and lashes, trace his brow bone and inspect the crow's feet at the corners. "Blue," Sherlock whispers out, more of a reminder to himself than anything else.

John doesn't say anything. He just leans in and kisses Sherlock.

John doesn't know what to get Sherlock for his birthday. He agonizes over it constantly for days until he's walking home one night and happens to glance at the sky. John remembers the quiet nights in Afghanistan, the sky brimming over with stars and how looking at them made him breathless.

Sherlock hasn't seen the stars in years.

John finds a large star chart at a local shop, and a person on the internet willing to translate it to Braille. She sends it back to him just in time for Sherlock's birthday, and John rolls it out onto the table.

"What was that?" Sherlock asks from the living room.

"Your birthday present," John answers, so Sherlock saunters into the room. He looks cynical as he runs his hand over the table. The moment he realizes what he's reading, Sherlock gasps with shock. His head turns in John's direction, one hand reaches for John's face as the other brushes over the Braille, and Sherlock breathes, "You gave me the stars."

They were happy. Or, at least, as happy as they could be, tearing off to solve crimes at all hours of the day and night, arguing over violin-playing at two in the morning, and Sherlock's obsessive need to show off.

John's pretty sure that's why, when Moriarty kidnaps him and stuffs him in the bomb vest before sending him out to greet Sherlock, Sherlock looks devastated for a moment before catching on.

And then it's banter, back-and-forth, and Moriarty leaves and Sherlock rips the bomb off and Moriarty comes back. John grabs his gun that Sherlock brought along and shoots.

The last thing he remembers are Sherlock's fingers gripping his wrist tight.

The first time John wakes, it's barely enough time to register he's in the hospital before his eyes close again.

The second time he's awake long enough for a nurse to chat with him. He's not quite sure what she's saying. All he knows is that his skin hurts, he has a bandage on his head and arm, and his throat burns-so they definitely had to intubate him. John falls back to sleep when the nurse ups his pain medication.

The next time, he can see Sherlock in the bed next to him. John would have sighed his relief if the mask wasn't helping him breathe. Sherlock looks a bit worse for wear, though. He has multiple burns, thankfully none of them are third-degree. There's nothing wrong with his arms or head, but John can only see that much. But at the very least, he and Sherlock are alive.

When John woke up again, Sherlock was already up. "Hey," he says, his voice scratchy with disuse.

Sherlock sighs dramatically. "Unacceptable."

"What?" John asks, totally off-guard.

"You. You were unacceptable," Sherlock shakes his head. "You can't be getting hurt. Or kidnapped. Though I do suppose that won't be a problem anymore, since you killed Moriarty with the bomb."

John gulps. "Oh. So you're not mad that I killed your archenemy?"

"John, pay attention. I told you that Mycroft was my archenemy. And once Moriarty kidnapped you, the game didn't matter to me anymore," Sherlock replies, drumming his fingers against the covers.

John nods, then remembers Sherlock couldn't see him, so he says, "Right." Then he simply watches Sherlock for a minute or two, simply because he can. "I love you too, you git."

The flat is cold, and they slip into bed, wrap themselves around each other, and sleep and wake up. Days pass, then weeks, and months and years. It's not easy, it never is with a consulting detective and an army doctor. But they muddle through, somehow. John eventually tells Sherlock his nightmares, and Sherlock eventually tells John his, and they take comfort in each other.

How Sherlock became blind was the only secret between them; and when Sherlock told John it wasn't a revelation, just a fact. A lab accident when Sherlock was eight that also killed his father, and a lifetime spent honing his observation skills sense.

And who knows? If Sherlock hadn't been blind, John might not have met him on that day at Bart's, and John will never bring himself to regret anything that brought them together. Especially since it never mattered that Sherlock was blind, because of the things Sherlock could see.

A/N: Written as a part of the Johnlock Challenge Gift Exchange on tumblr. Thanks always to my wonderful beta, Lauren and her fantastic insight. This fic is for pensglow on tumblr, and the prompt was, "Sherlock's experimenting and it goes horribly wrong, leaving him blinded. Any rating." I hope you liked it!