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

[could_be_dangerous]

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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[could_be_dangerous]

“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."

[hadbadays]

"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.

[could_be_dangerous]

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.

[hadbadays]

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.

[could_be_dangerous]

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.

[hadbadays]

"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?"

[could_be_dangerous]

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.

[hadbadays]

"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.

[could_be_dangerous]

It might not go over as horribly as John expects; Sherlock anticipates being misunderstood. He has to, because he nearly always is. Still, it is probably best they don't delve further, dig deeper into the more unfortunate areas of his psyche.

If only Sherlock knew what to do in lieu of that.

He nods, this time. Nods slowly, eyes fixed on John's face, searching for any signs of dishonesty or half-truth.

Finding none only inspires the question: "What about figuratively?"

[hadbadays]

"You mean you haven't already done that?"

It's half joking, half not because John is pretty sure Sherlock knows him better than anyone at this point. Possibly even more than his family. And they've known each other for... what? A week? It's almost frightening, really. But the most frightening thing is probably how it's not very frightening at all.

[could_be_dangerous]

"Not properly. Bits and pieces." But he had said everything. That Sherlock wants to possess every last little secret, filthy or otherwise, every hidden thing, is encompassed in the statement -- but also best left unspoken, perhaps.

"Like... a puzzle. Put together a bit of it and you can work out some of the picture, but only... some here, some there." And so little of it the bits about which Sherlock is desperately curious, the bits he doesn't understand about anybody, except perhaps himself.

"It's a... work in progress." He says it with a faint, crooked smile, as though he's joking, but he's not, not really. He doesn't expect to really manage it, though. Even if he did... people are constantly changing, aren't they? It would be the work of a lifetime.

Sherlock can't, at the moment, really say that he minds the prospect.

[hadbadays]

"I'll take that as a good thing and a compliment." He puffs a breath, shakes his head. "Figuratively's fine, I suppose."

More than fine, even, really.

and then, finally...

[could_be_dangerous]

"Fine," Sherlock repeats with vague suspicion, as though committing it to memory as proof for later, when all of this inevitably goes horrendously wrong and he's the only one who remembers the really relevant details. It's fine. It's fine, and he's ecstatic, really he is.

"I'll be sure to put everything back where I found it," he adds, a joke to take the edge off the rest of it, to bury his own tenuous hope, to cover the steady thudding of his heart. It's not safe, but sod safe. To hell with it and bugger it all.

It is, if he's honest, the last thing he ever wanted after all, and dying young will be quite alright if it's anything like this.

"I'll write mum. You really ought to come; I know how to get out the window at night without anyone hearing, you'll see. We can have all of London if we want it."

/o/

[hadbadays]

Well, that escalated quickly.

"Of course you do," John says and he's not one bit surprised. "I don't think I've ever snuck out at night."

He's kept from coming home at the decided time every now and then, but not that. When thinking about it, sneaking out would have given him a better chance of avoiding trouble.