could_be_dangerous | our stuck together pieces, a load of near-misses

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our stuck together pieces, a load of near-misses – aw shucks, you got me

Doomed. They'd said it, the both of them, agreed it, and when Sherlock slinks off back to his own room in the Ravenclaw dormitories he's feeling it, for the first time feeling the weight of something like fate tying itself to his bones. He's always avoided it, struggled stubbornly against his own restrictions even if he knows them inevitable. Isolation had once been one of those things, loneliness, but today slackened the ties of that anchor around his ankles. It might just slip free. Might just.

There might be those who would consider a sole friendship, a sole association, insufficient to stave off loneliness. People who need to bury themselves in others, in affection and esteem, as much of it as possible. Sherlock doesn't agree, though, he finds as he slips wearily under the blankets, a cursorily-written and bitingly critical essay resting on his nightstand, the ink glistening in the moonlight coming in the dormitory window as it dries. Today wasn't lonely at all. He's on his own when sleep twines about him like a cat, but even then it's not so bad.

After all, there's always tomorrow.

Tomorrow, the reason he's come to bed so late, likely to the chagrin of his roommates. Studying. Up late studying, charms and enchantments, incantations, grammars; searching for options, potentials, ways to make promises realities.

They'll get there. They're young and they're magnificent and they'll be even better together. So Sherlock genuinely believes, and it starts in the morning.

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"Well, that's something."

John definitely wouldn't want Sherlock to hurt anybody and certainly not himself. Really definitely wouldn't want that. Even if that's not going to stop Sherlock if he thinks it necessary.

Still.

"Mm. Even Mummy's given up. Sort of. For the best." Sherlock falls silent, looking down at John thoughtfully. Still too close, he thinks, probably, but neither of them seem to mind, save for how Sherlock is hyperaware of it all. What distance there is between them seems suffocating, far too little, a little too much; difficult to discern why either should be the case.

"She'd like you," he says thoughtfully. Said it before, but this time there's a point to it.

"You should come stay. Part of Christmas holidays, maybe. I'll show you the refrigerator."

John doesn't really notice the distance at all. He's never been one to mind personal space a great deal, and this is all so comfortable he's definitely just filtering it out. It's nice, so it doesn't matter much.

"I am kind of curious to see what sort of family produced you."

Which means to say that he would be glad to visit, and not only for that reason, although it's definitely a part of it. But there's no reason he wouldn't want to, really. He likes Sherlock, after all.

Sherlock had asked, but the answer still has him staring at John as though the other boy has grown another head. "W-- really?"

But apparently yes. Sherlock frowns.

"You'll be disappointed. Mummy's not a bit like me. Or Mycroft. Mycroft's not a bit like me either; he's an awful prat." Completely atrocious, if Sherlock's solemn delivery is any indication.

"But he goes away if you annoy him enough. He shouldn't be a problem." What is a problem is that Sherlock is rambling now, but he hadn't expected a yes, not at all, and so he carries on, if just so John won't have time to say no, that he was just joking, just a prank, or--

It only occurs to him belatedly that there's one small problem with this: John's got a mum as well. The frown deepens.

"What about your family?"

It's not like John expects Sherlock's family to be exactly like him. Merlin knows what would happen to the world if that was the case. So, if anything, he's almost glad to hear they're not the same, and all he gives Sherlock is an amused smile.

Sherlock seems concerned about the strangest of things sometimes.

"Well, I don't think I'll run off somewhere on Christmas day," he says, even if he's not sure he would really mind at all. "But I can pop by a couple of days before it."

No problem at all. He thinks he'd be glad for it. Maybe get a break from all that pre-Christmas running about and stressing.

Sherlock hums like he's trying to decide whether or not that's acceptable. It is, he supposes, but that doesn't stop him wanting to keep John to himself the entire break. The entire bloody school year, if he had his way. Maybe longer than that. It's hard to say, standing here and now.

"I'll write Mummy, then," he says, as though that's decided it. "She'll want to fuss over the preparations."

At that he pauses, thoughtful. "Will have to remind her not to tell Mycroft. Suppose he'll work it out anyway."

Which is worthy of a scowl. He remembers when Mycroft found out about Victor, and that... well, he'd been right about that, but Sherlock does wonder how much the ridiculous threatening might have done to end that particular acquaintance. Good riddance, but John he means to keep, John is better in every way, and Mycroft won't ruin it, he shan't allow it.

"So he's like that too, then? Like you. I mean, capable of reading things like that."

Sherlock's already hinted at it, but. Might as well ask, John thinks. It wouldn't be surprising, but he does wonder if he'll really be able to take two of them. Must be quite something.

Poor mother.

Mycroft is, if anything, better at it than Sherlock is. Mycroft was born with the benefit of understanding, or at least some good semblance of it. He won out in the balance of brains and madness, by most standards. Not Sherlock's. Mycroft is joyless. Sherlock is mad, Sherlock is tormented, Sherlock grows bored, but he's capable of mental exultation, of joy, capable of perceiving beauty with an acuteness few share.

Mycroft, on the other hand, is cold. Always cold. Even his fondness is tired and mild and icy. So Sherlock will never admit, not ever, that his brother is cleverer than he is. Their areas of relative expertise diverge.

"Mm. Sort of. Brilliant, I suppose, but he's lazy." Prefers to make assumptions which, while good most of the time, are far from perfect. He understands people better, but he still gets them wrong. If not as often as Sherlock does, then at least more severely.

And then there's how he manipulates. Why try to match when one can simply threaten?

"Suppose he can be. He's..." Less mad? More normal? "... different."

"Mm. Would be strange if he was exactly like you."

Very strange, because John can't imagine that someone could be. How could anyone be? Brilliant, incredible Sherlock Holmes. It just wouldn't make sense. Maybe with ordinary people, there could be more than one, even more than two or three. But of Sherlock? No, can't be possible.

Sherlock hums concedingly. "Be even more insufferable than he already is."

He can't imagine another person like him either. Mostly as they'd despise one another, he expects. Not by default, but somewhere along the line the acuteness of the empathy would become unbearable. It's for his own comfort that Sherlock says he wouldn't wish a brain like his on even his worst enemy. He already feels too much, and none of that is right by most people's standards either.

"Normal, I expect. Your sister's not like you either." They've already discussed that, but even if they hadn't, Sherlock would know. "Obviously. Nobody is."

"No, it's got to be that way, hasn't it? If you're still around."

Because if there was someone else out there that were like him, or a lot of people out there who were, then he doesn't see why Sherlock would be so interested in him. But he's stopped wondering if he really is, because that's obvious.

"Again, obviously." Sherlock sounds rather smug over the prospect, as though he'd somehow had a hand in the development of John's uniqueness. He certainly intends to in future, intends to nurture it to the fullest extent possible, but even if claiming retroactive credit is absolute nonsense, he can't help but be remarkably pleased at the fact they've managed to develop separately but in such complementary ways.

"Though you found me first. I'm perfectly willing to acknowledge a precedent, should it ever become necessary." He tilts his head to one side and wonders if it isn't possible to take someone's pulse with one's tongue. "For the record."

As though there's really any choice. As though he's likely to be able to untangle himself from the lot of this anytime soon. The idea is laughable, but so is the idea of admitting it.

"Yeah, I guess I did."

Which he supposes is unusual, but then Sherlock isn't like anyone else either. That's probably why. Some part of him that thought that if there is someone so utterly different from what he's used to, it might just be worth something. And he's thinking it most definitely is.

"One of my better accomplishments in life, I think."

The corner of Sherlock's mouth tugs up in a smile, the crooked one, the real one, and he snorts. Almost laughs along with John, except John isn't laughing. Either he's really getting better at this lying business, or...

Sherlock's expression quickly reshapes itself into one of confusion. That doesn't make any sense. The only person ever to say anything like that to him is his mother, and they're meant to, mothers. Fathers are meant to too, but his never did, which is why he knows it must only be duty which motivates his mother.

So it doesn't fit, it doesn't make any sense, even if John isn't like anybody else and therefore couldn't, logically, be expected to react like everybody else all the time.

"You're serious. Are you serious? Why are you serious?" It doesn't fit, not really. But he has a feeling that his reaction is likely to be as laughable as the rest, so he attempts to cover it with dryness. "That was supposed to be the bit where you... I don't know. Run screaming? That's how it normally goes. Give you another chance, never know when I'm going to decide to skin you and wear you as a hat, or whatever it is people usually assume."

The laughter comes there; John snorts, leans over a little as he chuckles, because as if Sherlock would do something like that. It would be completely illogical, honestly. Wouldn't make any sense at all.

"Why would you make a hat out of someone's skin?" he asks while he's still laughing, and takes a deep breath as he pulls himself up straight again. "Why wouldn't I be? It's not like I think of this as torture."

He's already spent basically a full day with Sherlock, and it's looking like this one might just become that too. And he has no problem whatsoever with it.

People don't spend that much time with someone if they don't think it's a great idea, do they? And enjoy it, or at least... pretend to. But for him it isn't pretend, so of course. Of course it's a great accomplishment.

Sherlock sucks on the inside of his cheek because, well, that was a joke, obviously yes, but there's... oh, if there isn't a bit of truth to it too. Not a hat, not anything, but...

"I want to take you apart," he blurts, soon enough after John has finished speaking that it might almost be an interruption. "Bit by bit and down to the smallest pieces and then put you back together again, so I can hold it all in my head, so... but I'm not going to, you see; couldn't possibly. Not even going to try."

Well... "Maybe after you're dead. Not good? No, not good. Not a hat. No hats. But they're not completely wrong, you see? You probably should be running. I want to know everything about you."

The rapidity of the words, how they come in bursts, a few here, a few there, interspersed with awkward pauses clearly indicates this as something Sherlock hasn't entirely intended to say, at least in such depth -- if, of course, the faintly mortified expression weren't enough. He feels heat rising to his cheeks and swallows down the sudden tightness in his throat.

"Should... know the worst about each other." A pause, and then quietly: "That's not the worst. Nearly the worst."

That.

John doesn't expect to hear that. The laughter and the smile is gone immediately because of the pure surprise from what Sherlock blurts out, and his mind goes through jumps and leaps to even try and start making sense of it. It's not exactly something anyone would ever expect to hear, is it? Of course he's surprised.

And he stays absolutely still, doesn't move a muscle aside from blinking and maybe an occasional involuntary twitch here and there, his lips slightly parted and eyes wide and fixed firmly on Sherlock. He stays absolutely still and listens. Or tries to listen through the way all this somehow... muddles his mind in a way he can't explain. A buzz of confusion, maybe, something indescribable but very much there and kind of. In the way.

But he hears. Take him apart, put him back together, maybe after he's dead, and, no, it's not good. And that's not the worst. And John doesn't know what to think about it, how to react.

He probably should be running.

That's probably how he should react, isn't it? He should probably just... push off the wall, excuse himself, leave and never return. Which is also... far less tempting than it probably should be. Probably, probably, probably.

He should probably say something. Or perhaps that's only what he thinks he should do, instead of run away like anyone sensible would. So maybe he's not sensible at all, because he's still here and he has no idea how much time has passed but he's pretty sure he's just been staring at Sherlock for a good while now. Might just be imagination. But he should say something, anything. But what?

The first muscles that move are the ones in his throat as he swallows, followed by his tongue as he licks his lips. Something.

"Oh."

Smooth. Deep. Clever. Excellent.

Shit.

“Oh,” Sherlock agrees, eyes never leaving John’s face as he greedily absorbs every little piece of information he can gather from the widened eyes and parted lips. Pupils dilated with surprise. Sherlock thanks whoever there is to thank that John’s eyes are just dark enough to make noticing that a challenge. Interesting. Exciting. All of this is. The little brush of tongue over lower lip indicates nervousness, as though the jump in pulse weren’t enough, as though the way his breathing has changed weren’t enough. Subtle, maybe, but Sherlock was made to notice subtlety. Where John’s concerned, he’s insatiable for it.

It’s in his eyes, in the way they flick over John’s features. Dip down here to catch the flick of tongue to wet his lips, bright and intense and green, iris nevus very visible now. One point of asymmetry. The rest of Sherlock’s face remains initially distant, distracted, intense in the tightness around the eyes and the lowering of the brows, brows which shift as the rest of Sherlock’s face shifts in response to each new bit of input. For a while they’re a feedback loop, the both of them more honest than they’ve been yet, John in the extent of his surprise and Sherlock in the depth of his ardent fascination.

What he said; it isn’t a bit good, and maybe there’s nothing else to say besides that. He suspects he could write it all up on blackboards, in the margins of some textbook, lay it down in golden inks, in blood, with the finest quills on the finest paper and the result would still only be ‘oh’.

The worst of it, of course, the unspeakable worst is that he wants to trace it all out in invisible little lines – or nearly invisible, but not quite, where his fingernail drags – over John’s skin. That guiltily he thinks he’d like to form an invisible signature with the trace of a forefinger at the base of John’s neck; in his moments of greatest grandeur, he knows he might come to suspect that canvas of bone and muscle and skin to have been crafted solely to bear his mark. And even the invisible marks are only the worst that Sherlock permits himself to entertain; below that something sinks its teeth into supple skin.

Even lower than that, and even more insistently, his own skin itches for incisors and canines. Some sort of sign, even if it’s vicious, marking the pathway of affections. Or attention, at least. Someone, once, someone as brilliant and improbably as John Watson liked him, appreciated him in some fashion. Cerebral is good. Cerebral is better than good. But oh, what might it be like if it were visceral?

Those are all idle thoughts, of course; lesser roads down which his thoughts meander, but they’re driven there by the overarching need to know. Everything, he’d said. Absolutely everything, the extent of which only the single word can’t begin to express. It’s not hyperbole.

“I already know the worst about you,” he says quietly, uncertainly. “My favourite bit. So. Not terribly good at doing things properly either, I suppose.”

He bites at his lower lip, eyes turning away, though he knows they won’t be able to stay there for long.

“Think I know the worst. Maybe I’ve missed it. Doesn’t matter; I’d like it all the same.” His brow clouds and he inhales audibly, eyes downcast as he frowns. “I won’t… you know. Hurt you. If you’re worried. Not unless you ask, anyhow. But you should... know. I expect."

"Shut up," John says, quickly, doesn't realise that the word choice is rather poor until it's already out, and he immediately raises a hand and shakes his head, frowning at. Something. Something above Sherlock's shoulder. "I mean-- Sorry, just... be quiet for a second."

His head's spinning enough without Sherlock adding to it and talking about shoulds and trying to reassure him and. Whatever the hell else all that is. Something nonsensical that feels completely pointless in the situation, because it's just talking, words, and if it isn't that then it's something ridiculous because John doesn't think Sherlock would hurt him, could never begin to think it. Maybe he should be suspicious too, to add to the list of all the things he should. But Sherlock hasn't given him a reason for it. All things considered, Sherlock never seems to actually initiate anything.

Which is a great big reason to like him.

John has a lot of reasons to like Sherlock, but this is something he has no idea where to place it. He's got a mental list to fill in with both favourable and less so - or not at all - traits of Sherlock and he has no idea where to put this one. Which probably tells a great deal about him. Whatever that might be.

He looks at Sherlock some more. Tries searching his eyes even if he doesn't know what it is he's looking for. He's just pretty sure there's got to be something.

Time passes, but it's useless to think about how much it might be. It feels like he's looking at Sherlock for all too long and yet not long enough at all. But at least he has enough of an idea to think that he should probably say something soon, except he has no idea what that would be. Something better than "oh" and "shut up", most definitely, but that doesn't exactly help.

"I probably should be running," he manages, echos Sherlock's words, echos his thoughts, and it still leaves him none the wiser.

And he's still not running.

Sherlock shuts up. In and of itself it’s probably a small miracle, though it isn’t as though he’s thick enough to push the issue right now, chatty or no. He does still watch though, watches intently with his lips pressed shut and his fingers twitching nervously at his side.

There’s something wrong here. Or something completely new, at least. He isn’t certain how he ought to feel about it.

And then the words. “Yes,” he rasps, and clears his throat softly.

“It’s fine. If you want to, I mean.” The pause isn’t even very long this time. “It’s not fine, not a bit, but I’d understand.”

No, he wouldn’t.

“No I wouldn’t. It’s… you can. If you like. I won’t stop you.” He’d only want to, desperately.

There’s something he should be doing here, he thinks. Something to demonstrate preference. Touch John’s shoulder, perhaps; is that what people do? Brush some molecules of themselves off onto someone else, leave a few cells behind to mark their passage?

Sherlock has never in his life been bold enough for any such thing. He isn’t now, either. Not half good enough to get away with it besides.

“Should I not have said that? You can forget it if you like; I don’t mind.” And if it's all a bit much to take in, well, it's also a bit hard for Sherlock to breathe.

The whole... picking him apart thing is in itself worthy of befuddled staring, but what Sherlock has said afterwards really isn't helping at all either. Somehow it doesn't... work together, it's too endearing, all this struggling for words, to fit with a man who says he'd like to pick another man apart. It's... absurd.

John can't really come out with anything else - for starters - than, "Merlin, you..." Okay. Okay. "What are you talking about? All this... talking is driving me mad. Did your brain to mouth filter go on vacation? Because it's not there at all right now, I'm pretty sure."

Which basically means he thinks Sherlock is being ridiculous, and he's not going to run.

Oh. Sherlock’s brow furrows.

“Arguably never had one. Broken, at— doesn’t matter, look: they’re not wrong. Completely. Is the point. Not going to lie about it.” Maybe he should’ve done, but it’s not good, is it? Lying. Not supposed to. Not to friends, and that’s the point. John… should know. Has a right to it? Maybe; Sherlock doesn’t know. All he does know is that it’s better this much is said now before it comes up some other way later.

He’d hoped it wouldn’t, had hoped, but it’s become steadily more improbable, hasn’t it? Steadily more difficult to refrain from indulging in degrees of acceptance, of… of investment. It’s enraging, in its way. Frightening in plenty others, which is why he’s got to sort out what to say before he ends up doing something out of keeping with what he has said, something not only not good but unexpected.

Then again… then again John has does plenty of unexpected things thus far, and Sherlock hasn’t liked him any less for it. Rather the opposite. Case in point: he’s still here.

“I don’t have any friends,” Sherlock tries cautiously, eyes narrowing slightly. Hasn’t any, and hasn’t any idea what he’s supposed to do, either.

"I've kind of gathered."

Which is far from meant as an insult, and more just... a statement. Because it's obvious. Sherlock is so eager to spend time with him, but he's never with anyone else, and the way Sherlock acts overall just screams it. But - as silly as it can sound-- As silly as it definitely sounds, John believes there is always someone for everyone. In a. Friendship way. Or something.

He expects, for someone like Sherlock, that's just a little bit harder than for most.

"Broken filter or not, you've never really talked like that. You're just waiting for me to run, aren't you?"

Sherlock snorts, indignant. “No. Little bit, maybe. Waiting for you to hate me, but I’ve been waiting for that since the start.”

His tone is light, amused, but there’s honesty in the statement too. He’s said it before – it’s what he expects, once the truth of him sinks in. That he’s only ever this. Strange. Irritating. Always on, never off, never a moment’s rest. He wants to knock his forehead against John’s, shake the reality of it into him now, spare himself the trouble of untangling himself later.

“If you’re going to, better now than later. So I told you. I told you most of it, anyway.” The relevant bits. The most relevant bit.

“The underlying cause; you can extrapolate the rest for yourself.” Not that anybody ever does follow Sherlock’s statements to their furthest conclusions. He expects John will take the statement, the ‘I want to know everything’ as hyperbole. It isn’t. Not an inch of exaggeration in it. Every little detail is important.

If Sherlock’s going to build a John Watson inside his head to carry around with him, he’ll have to know the lot of it, after all.

"Well," John says, licks his lips, and shifts until his back is against the wall and his arms crossed. "I'm not sure what to think. But that's nothing new, with you. I don't hate you. I mean, if you actually do start picking me apart, we might have a problem."

Trying to joke it off, that's the best way to deal with this sort of uncertainty. He might just take it as hyperbole, for his own sanity more than everything else. He doesn't know how to interpret it, or if he's doing it right, and if he asks Sherlock... He doesn't think that would go over very well.

our stuck together pieces, a load of near-misses – aw shucks, you got me

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and then, finally...

/o/