At night, Claire moved like torn paper. There was always a cigarette in between her lips and she would fill the kitchen with the smell and John would walk in and she'd be making dinner with her eyes dark and her head full of smoke.

Parties passed slowly, and every five or so Claire would give into an animal urge. John saw her sneak out the back, reaching into her purse. He would slip out after her, not entirely sure of what to say, and her eyes would be closed and smoke drifting out between her teeth. Her dress was a rich orange red, and against the dark blue night her body was an unlit firecracker, steaming slightly from an inflammable orifice.

And every single time, John would have nothing to say. Every time, he left.

If John told you that tonight would be different, he'd be lying. There was a party, hosted by one of the other rich families that was meant for socializing, and they'd been personally invited. Claire had said they would go through gritted teeth and a syrupy smile. He could almost see her fingers twitch for a lighter.

"The theme is romance; lust," Claire had told him after.

John had responded wordlessly, with a look. She had held his hand, dancing her fingertips across his.

Now, they were getting ready. Claire was applying makeup, trying to perfect her eye shadow in vain. She hadn't put on a dress yet. John was laying on their bed in a half open button up and pants, watching her run a red tipped brush on her lash line. "I can't get the hang of this," she stated impatiently.

"I'll get it," John grunted, rolling up and out of bed next to her. He took the brush from her hands. "Close your eyes."

She did so, and John's tongue poked out between his lips as he ran the dark red across the hollow of her eye. "Stop twitching," he muttered as he picked up a light shade of gold. Her eyes looked burning. It wasn't anything too extreme, but it was a spark of red and that was all Claire needed.

John stepped back, his eyes running over her blood red lids. "Take a look," he said.

Claire chewed on the inside of her cheek as she opened her eyes, shifting her face to account for all the angles. "Sometimes I think that you would have made a splendid woman," Claire said with a grin, pushing wild blonde hair from her face. "It looks beautiful, John." She turned away from the mirror, then. "What shall I wear?"

John walked to their closet, revealing lavish dresses and skirts, all in row. There was a lime one, a fuchsia one... and John's eyes landed on a dark red halter top, with edges that were singed, glowing embers. John pointed at it.

She saw the dress, tucked away in the corner, and reached for it, pulling it out with one hand on the lace imprints that crawled up and down the sides. Her fingers felt the material, softly pinching it in between her thumb and forefinger, and Claire gave John a smirk. It was blood red; it was battle armor.

"When they see me in this," she said, laying the dress on the bed and reaching over to the bedside table to grab a pack of Malboros, "they'll wet their knickers." She stuck the cigarette in between her teeth, and it wiggled as she spoke, the incense of danger rising as a lighter jumped awake in the dark.

***

The venue the hosts rented out was on a nearby reservoir, with tables lining the water front. It wasn't especially dazzling, but they had arrived at six, around the time that warm, rich sunset was settling in.

When they walked in, it struck John how dim it was. The entire room was hardly lit, except for the sparse few candles that were burning at circular tables, half resembling a sacred seance. Each table had four seats, embroidered with rich mahogany and accented with gold paint. John's eyes drifted to the art lining the wooden walls; every painting was drawn in sensual colors. The arched windows had thick red, plain curtains tied back to avoid smothering the room in darkness, but John found that obsolete. The sun would be gone under the horizon in minutes.

A microphone shrieked to life, the entire room cringing in pain as it settled down and a new voice cropped up from the shrillness. "Hello, ladies and gentlemen." The voice seemed to be coming from nowhere, and everywhere - John looked around to pinpoint the man speaking, but he found no one. They had been ushered behind some stanchions, which was blocking them from entering the candle lit room where the party would begin, and John spoke softly to Claire as he was pushed against her. "This seems wholly unnecessary."

"I love it," she said back. John gave her a look before turning his attention back to the low voice that was eerily filling the room.

"Tonight is a very special night," the voice rang. "A very intimate night. We invite you, dear lovers, to learn more about your partner. Maybe... even meet someone new."

John shifted uncomfortably, looking over to Claire for comfort, but she was clearly engaged, her eyes shining in the dimness. Maybe John could slip away before she even noticed. "We have assigned you to tables based on your age and relationship status. I hope you all have a very lovely night. Now, the names," the voice continued. "Table one, Ruth Garland and Jonas Kerr with Mr. and Mrs. Fullum. Table two..."

John's eyes searched the crowd, looking for possible people his age to sit with them. All of the people here were either too old or two young, too married or not married enough, and few that were their age looked downright snobbish. He recognized a few people in the half lit darkness. Their baker was here. And, oh, a teacher from work. He was married? And who was that, his sister? Oh. That wasn't his sister. And then... a familiar brush of hair.

"Table seven, John Watson and Claire Tabbot," the man announced.

Probably a patient.

"Along with Jacqueline Forthwright and..."

Wait, that wasn't a patient. Oh, no, that was not a patient.

"...Sherlock Holmes."

"Oh," John hissed, "shit."

***

There he was. It was like John had been dropped off alone into a nuclear war zone.

When John looked at him, all he could hear was this crackling roar, and a heat in his stomach, in his groin, spreading up to his cheeks and his ears and his face. There was nothing that was protecting him from the bare flame, and the sound of death and the taste of acidic gunfire.

Sherlock walked towards him, and with every step, the room became more and more stifling. His voice was a rumbling white noise, like rolling thunder, and if John painted him (John often imagined painting people, because color made people more understandable, more real, more two dimensional), he would be a shade of ice blue and blood red and stark white. He would be a blizzard infused with molten shades of scarlet, that flew about in an indiscernible haze.

Walking into a room with Sherlock Holmes was like walking into space without a helmet. It was like jumping into a star. It was like being burned alive.

He had eyes, yes, but they were so attentive, so deliberate, that they must have been something else. They looked like they were made of compacted snow, as if he didn't belong in this season, in this country, in this continent. If the devil invited Mr. Holmes to dine with him in the freezing antarctic depths of hell, he would be there, picking apart raw flesh in a glass dinner plate. He would speak to Lucifer as an old friend, discussing their misgivings and posthumous regrets, and they would shake hands with reserved regard.

Maybe he would stay with him. The Lord of the Dead was lonely, and Sherlock was a Persephone, of sorts.

The war may have changed him, but John could tell that that was unlikely, based on his skin, and the cold fire in his eyes, and his graceful waltz across the room to where John was standing. The war may have changed him, but John doubted that, because he smelled like a match had been struck in his coat. The war may have changed him, but John knew it didn't, because who else looked like he had come out of the womb fighting, spitting fire and casting sarcastic smiles upon all who were unfortunate enough to cross his path? No, Sherlock Holmes was a gasoline tainted British dream boy with a glare that could crease someone up like paper. He had always been like this; precise and cold and indignant, pale and perfect and chiseled out of sunfire and dark matter and frigidly dead moons.

Worldwide wars did not change galaxies. And John was not a astronomer - he was a doctor. He was a simple man with a simple life and he enjoyed simple things - he didn't dare to interpret the constellations and leave dents and holes in the fabric of reality.

He didn't want to speak to someone who looked as if he were composed of uranium. He didn't want to leave craters in his flesh, because his isotopes were inherently unstable and could explode at any moment and wipe John out with a single brush of skin.

Sherlock looked like a felony and acted like a death sentence.

John did not understand him.

John did not... understand... anything.

He didn't even realize that Sherlock's date was talking to him until Claire touched his face. His eyes were locked dead on Sherlock's, and they were unblinking, and he didn't know why but suddenly he was thinking about writing his will, writing it on his chest, just in case.

"You know each other, then?" Claire said to John, her smile widening. "John, you didn't tell me that you were friends."

John smiled darkly, not looking at Claire, saying nothing at all. His date - Jackie, he had heard - asked Sherlock how they knew each other.

"John and I go to the art academy together," Sherlock stated lowly, his eyes locked on John's, a pleasant smirk creeping onto his lips. "We're hardly acquainted."

"Then we shall have to talk, shall we?" Jackie exclaimed, placing a hand around Claire and ushering them to their table. As they walked, Sherlock's hand fleetingly pressed against John's lower back, as if to lead him there. Through the three layers of clothing that John wore, he could feel the indents of Sherlock's fingertips.

Claire's hand slipped into John's as they sat down. She began to speak, paying no attention to John's look of surprise. "So," she said, her voice amiable. "How long have you been together?"

"Oh, us?" Jackie giggled, looking over to Sherlock, who was looking away at something else entirely, his entire body edged away from her. She paid no notice, continuing, "This is our first date."

"Really?" Claire said, pleasantly grinning. "How long have you and he been talking?"

"Just a while," she murmured. "Ah, we met at the bakery-"

"Grocery store, Hannah, don't be stupid. Just because there's an oven doesn't mean that it's a bakery," Sherlock said in a voice that was cold and unfeeling. Claire ignored him as his date awkwardly cleared her throat and pursed her lips. "Jackie," Sherlock's date corrected. "Anyway, he bought me a muffin. It was the sweetest thing any man'd ever done for me in a long while, I'll tell you that." Jacqueline tentatively grasped Sherlock's hand. Claire had to watch in shock as he pulled away from her completely, his rejection obvious as Jackie's mouth opened a bit. Her eyes were swirling with embarrassment.

"Yes, well." Claire tried to save her by changing the subject. "My fiancé and I are going to a fabulous charity event-"

"Claire," John broke in, leaning closer to her.

"-on the 3rd. You're most definitely invited."

"Oh, thank you, Mrs. Watson."

"Oh, no, dear girl," Claire laughed. "John is going to be Mr. Tabbot. And I assure you, no matter what this..." she paused, to find the word, "Negative Nancy says, it will be great. Food, dancing... you could go with Mr. Holmes," Claire offered good-naturedly, looking to John with a smiling face. It hurt to look at her.

"Boring," a monotone voice said.

Her ears perked. "There'll be dancing?"

John nodded. "Drinking, too. Speaking of, I think I could do with a little more wine, don't you agree?"

Sherlock scoffed loudly. The curtains that were tied back from the windows all suddenly dropped, making the entire room pitch dark except for the low heat of candle light. Everyone exclaimed, murmurs filling the darkness. A few people even up and left as Claire turned to Sherlock, her eyes churning, sharp and gray. "What's so funny, Mr. Holmes?" she said, her voice too composed to be anything but angry. Now, everything was much more intense. Sherlock's eyes were pinholes of reflected light in the darkness, his body slowly leaning back into a chair and becoming dimmer.

"If you could kindly refrain from giving Ms. Forthwright any more wine, that would probably jointly help us all," Sherlock said. "She talks endlessly when she's tipsy. Frankly, it's grating." Sherlock looked over to her, and her eyes were wide, glistening. "Oh, well, don't take it badly," he added. "I think it's a rare phenomena to have someone take a chemical depressant and end up being more energetic than ever. I admire you."

"Mr. Holmes," John growled, his voice low. "Manners."

"Manners are for idiots and the rich."

"Apparently, you are both. Shut up," John hissed.

"I take it you opted to be here?" he said, as if it were a challenge.

"Yes," Claire broke in, her smile disintegrating. "The hosts personally invited us."

"Hmm," Sherlock said thoughtlessly, looking her body over. John ripped his eyes away from him so he could glance over at Claire, who was all harsh angles and redness, soaking into the air like bloodied ink in paper, blotted away too late. "I find it tedious."

"Huh," Claire mused. "If I may pry - then why are you here?"

Sherlock frowned at her, looking thoroughly annoyed by her response. "My father makes me go." His head cocked. "I thought you, of all people, would understand, Ms. Tabbot."

Claire straightened her back a bit. "What do you mean?"

Sherlock's eyes ran over her body, quickly, seemingly evaluating her. John's body clenched a bit as he watched, and Jackie looked noticeably melancholy in the darkness.

"Interesting," Sherlock finally said, meeting Claire's eyes. "How long have you and John been together?"

"What's interesting?" John blurted, as Claire replied, "Four years," her voice wary.

"And that is even more interesting," Sherlock murmured.

"What is?" John moaned into the dark room, closing his eyes. Sherlock looked over to him, his eyes serious.

"Do you always go about like that at these parties?" Sherlock asked. "And your fiancée is the one that gives off free faux pas smiles, selling them like a broke prostitute?"

Claire remained cool, her eyes steeling as she broke in. "You presume to know me, Mr. Holmes."

"I 'presume' nothing."

"And that is because you know nothing," Claire finished, her gaze quietly stirring, but subtle, like the wind picking up on a still night.

"Correct," Sherlock spat back. "I deduce."

"Show me," John cut in.

"Fine," he said, winding back. His body suddenly shifted, looking her over. "I see a woman who doesn't care about her status, but cares about family principals; values. Continuing the legacy." Claire flinched at that. Sherlock glanced over to John, whose eyes where fixated on the table. "Oh," he said, pointing at him, his face easing into a smile. "I'm incredibly sorry about your children, Ms. Tabbot."

"We - John and I don't have any children," Claire said, confused.

"Exactly." Sherlock snorted. "Family. Just a means of getting what you want. Which is probably why you put up with your father - because your mother's dead."

Claire smiled at him, sweetly. "And who told you that?"

"Oh, certainly not you. You're too good at keeping up appearances. Your husband," he enunciated, "on the other hand." Sherlock's eyes flickered to John's and suddenly John's lips were pried open to bring in oxygen - his eyes were crystalline, that was all John could think. "All I need to know is written onto him like the blurb on the back of a book."

John nearly shot out of his seat as shivers curled down his spine, a dark, dark smile curling frighteningly across his face in the shadowy room. He could say nothing. His mouth was sewn together; a blood vessel cauterized. Claire, on the other hand, was showing him up in the most collected of ways, while Jackie looked entirely nonplussed. "My mother is dead," Claire echoed, her voice eerily calm as John eased his back into the chair, hardly breathing. "I want to make him proud. I thought you, of all people, would understand."

"I only aim to please myself," Sherlock said, slowly.

John glared at him for half a moment. His face was dark and sharp in the uniformity of the darkness as he cut in, his voice brisk and angry and hard. Sherlock's eyes shifted away. "Do you really need to read her and I to 'know,' Mr. Holmes?" John crossed his arms, leaning back. "Or was it one of the whisperings in one of the circles you drift in and out of, pretending that you're so bloody above us all? 'Poor Ms. Tabbot. Her mother is dead and her father is a handful. I bet she can hardly deal with the stress.'"

"Mm... no," Sherlock snarked, "but I'm glad you underestimate me."

"I believe you overestimate yourself." Arrogant sod, pretentious, pompous, blue eyed arsehole.

"Really?" Sherlock questioned, entirely invested at this point. The amount of intrigue in his eyes was unbelievable. "When I said 'interesting,' you asked, 'What is?'"

"Your point?"

Sherlock brought wine to his lips, humming. When he was done, he said, "How are you liking domestic life?" In response, John's fist clenched. Which, of course, Sherlock saw and chose to exploit it. "Not much, I see."

"Just fine," John said, voice chilly. His heart was thudding like an oil drum. Is this what it felt like to be at war? "You never answered my question."

"That's probably because it was either moronic or boring."

"What is interesting?" John said.

The younger man paused, as if to think. Then: "You," Sherlock mused gently. "You don't even try. You're a mess."

Claire, at this point, had steeled her gaze entirely. She looked like tempered iron, unmoving. "Which is interesting?" she broke in, her voice soft.

"It's not boring," Sherlock compromised.

John asked, "Is there a difference?"

"I'm not a linguist," Sherlock murmured, his eyes growing darker, darker.

"I'm sorry I overestimated you," John snarled under a breath. He could kill him. Honestly, he could. And he knew that was a sin and he knew that Sherlock was sin and the entire room felt cold, cold, cold - and he could taste it soaking his clothes, soaking his flesh - and soon he was as dark as sin and his eyes were like black dinner plates and he wanted, he craved what he did not possess.

Sherlock was a black hole. He looked so devoid of light, as if the fiber and curvature and the angles of his body and his personality and his eyes and lips and hands - they were shadow. Sherlock Holmes was a spectre, a nullity, a haunting emptiness that John had never witnessed before. If he thought about this man too hard he would be laced with him. Cyanide would be stained on his teeth in the form of secrets.

John felt like he was a lifeless body that was trying to understand everything in a way that was unfathomable and impossible; he was trying to rearrange cogs and gears and think, who was Sherlock Holmes?

If he made a checklist, and wrote some adjectives down, how would he check them off?

Or would John check off nothing?

Would Mr. Holmes just be... void?

He would be nonexistent, like a fairytale, or a ghost. John could push his fingertips right into his chest, or his abdomen, or his cheeks and eyelids and those lips, oh, God, those lips.

He was sinful.

Pastel and pale, he spoke with those lips; what John would do to those lips, if they... if they just... weren't his. He couldn't stop running it over and over in his head; the way he spoke to John, and that look. Like he could separate John limb from limb with a glance.

Like he wanted to.

Undo him and unbend him and unfold him and reject him and tear him and destroy him with a single touch. One touch, and John would be imploded into beautiful cacophony, as if he were a sunset composed of grays.

John despised Sherlock Holmes.

"John Watson," Sherlock mused, his body still as atoms at absolute zero. "Thrillseeker."

John didn't know if that was prompting or just an offhand statement, but the sound of his name escaping that man clawed sharp hooks down the length of his back. "You know nothing about me."

Sherlock turned to his date, who was completely unsettled in a way that the rest of the table found unnerving. "Katy," Sherlock said.

"Jacqueline," the woman corrected, her voice small.

"Apologies. Take Ms. Tabbot to the refreshments for a moment?"

Claire practically sprung from her seat, her hands on her hips. Her gaze was hot against John's skin - but Sherlock was colder. He didn't know what was worse. Sherlock exhilarated him a lot more, but at the same time, he was going to kill him, eventually. Claire had a more favorable prognosis.

She was glaring daggers at Sherlock, far past the point of patience. She took the girl under her wing, who looked like she was almost horrified at the outcome of the date. Her eyes seemed wet as Claire walked her away, glancing back at John with an unreadable look. "Oh, bugger," John groaned. "You made Jackie cry."

"Doesn't matter," Sherlock shrugged. "She wasn't the reason why I came."

"Yes..." John said, looking over Sherlock's body in the dimness. He was suddenly more aware of how alone they were - the fact that Claire and Jackie weren't coming back any time soon. "Because of your father," John mentioned. "You said."

Sherlock's lips curled. "Your wife was here. I had to be... delicate."

"I find myself asking you to clarify your point far too often."

"I'm trying to help you cultivate your own conclusions."

"You could be straightforward," John muttered. "People do that, sometimes. They actually tell the people they're sharing their conversation with what they're thinking."

"John," Sherlock responded, "I'm being diplomatic." He took a sip of wine. "In this place, if you aren't, you end up in prison."

"Wait..." Oh my God. "You... deal?" John was talking to a drug dealer.

"No, you idiot."

"You're a... junkie? In general?" A filthy feeling stirred in John's belly as he leaned forward, candle light flickering across his face.

Sherlock smiled at him. "Debatable," he stated lowly, giving John that look. "We're all addicts, in a way. And I know your poison of choice."

"What are you on about?"

At those words, Sherlock stood up and moved a seat over to John, apparently so he could be a bit more discreet. What he did, though, was so blatant that John nearly called a waiter for a few more glasses of red wine.

He leaned in. His skin was hot. His breath... chilly. Like a November wind. John couldn't think of anything but leafless trees.

"What did I say..." Sherlock whispered, "about cultivating your own conclusions, hmm?" Sherlock said, his voice becoming lower and lower. John could smell his breath. Wine and ice and sunsets at six.

"I can't... cultivate... when you're doing that."

"Doing what, John?"

His hand was on the seam of John's thigh.

When John was completely unresponsive, Sherlock took his body away and John nearly whimpered from it, the adrenaline pulsing through him and the need becoming as thick as fog. "Fine, then," Sherlock scoffed, unaffected. He then briskly stated, "Your sister is an alcoholic, you hate your job, and you want to enlist, no matter what you say to Claire. Or to yourself."

John's lips fell open, his body frozen. His throat went dry. Like the sun had exploded in his mouth and vaporized his saliva, causing searing pain.

No one knew about Harry. No one.

There was about a zero percent chance that he heard the gossip flittering languidly through pieces of conversation, extracting from it and spitting it back out at John. The Watsons were a respectable group: they did not drink, they did not do drugs, they did not have sex. They went to church, even if they didn't believe, and they told everyone else they did, even if they didn't want to.

There it was. Sherlock knew.

"How-"

"Also - you're queer." Sherlock sipped his wine, his eyes sharp. "Putting it indelicately."

...The Watsons were a respectable group. They did not drink. They did not do drugs. They did not have crushes on little boys in their fourth year, because God so commanded.

There was a time, as a child, maybe six, maybe seven, that John had kissed a boy because he saw Mummy and Daddy doing it to each other when he wasn't looking. He assumed it was because they loved each other very much - and he had loved this boy, he had. The boy had kissed him back and held his hand and John had stopped being nervous about it because it was okay.

When he was nine, he learned that kissing boys was for girls and he pulled at someone's pigtails and they'd started crying and the boys that surrounded nodded with glee. The boy he loved kissed someone behind the playset and John's stomach sunk like stones.

At thirteen he'd found himself watching a lad's tongue swipe across his upper lip. They were men, now. John went to parties with the elegance of a gentleman in waiting. He visited church in his Sunday best and ached when the altar boy knelt over-

And at sixteen he snuck out to dance with them, drink with them, and the man he had loved (when he was six, maybe seven) was there, and his hand was on her hip and they were drunk, they must've been; the sky was spinning. He saw the man and he knew that ache was his cock - he snuck behind the bleachers to watch him stick his hand down the girl's pants. His tongue was pink and wet.

At seventeen, his old friend had no girlfriend. And he remembered kissing him when he was a child, against all odds - and he knew that if he said something about "it" and he was wrong, then he was dead; dead. But he knew he was right. Every once in a while John would glance back and he would be staring. The man's hand followed the line of John's shoulder blades. At seventeen, he was pressing his feelings behind a wall and putting his fingers to its lips. Don't tell, or they'll kill us.

At nineteen, the boy's hands grasped his waist, and he knew that he deserved nothing less than hell, but it was too late: Tell my mother that it was an accident, a joke, April Fools!

Pink and wet, just as he'd imagined, better than he had hoped. His tongue tasted like cherries. His hands were satin. His body was a shadow.

At twenty, John saw a story in the paper about "gay" men being thrown into jail, castrated. He told the boy he loved that he didn't love him anymore.

"That's it, then?"

And that was it.

Now he was twenty-eight and he was having a relapse. He felt like sin; a crucifixion waiting to happen. He wouldn't ask how. He wouldn't, he wouldn't, because then a line would be crossed and a weight would fall onto his shoulders when Claire finally kissed him to sleep that night.

How did you know? How the hell could you possibly know?

"I don't have the faintest..." John breathed, looking at Sherlock with suspended disbelief. His eyes involuntarily glanced down at the man's lips.

"Yes, you do. Which is probably why you hate your fiancée," Sherlock continued, pushing through John's roaring thoughts. "And it's also probably why I went to this boring party. My father can't make me do anything I don't feel like doing. My brother thinks he can, but... he's fat. And out of town, at the moment. Anyway. I came for you, really."

He saw his mouth move out of sync with his words. Everything was lagging behind, and John's body and mind and soul said yes, but there was a piece of him, deep in there, that was screaming objection.

"I'm married," John persisted, his voice only somewhat composed. Now he was just grasping for straws, and he didn't even know if that was a good thing.

"Engaged," Sherlock reminded him softly, leaning a bit closer. The flat of his palm was rubbing John's thigh, and he felt his cock stir involuntarily. "It's much more fun that way, don't you think?"

"You're pulling my leg," John choked out, his voice gone. It sounded like the crunching of dead leaves on the ground. "You're working me up so you can laugh if I say yes," he added hoarsely.

"It's not a joke, it's not a magic trick," Sherlock responded. The table was concealing his hand. "I can help you."

"I don't need help," John murmured. "I should punch you."

"You should," Sherlock affirmed, leaning all the way back in. His voice was almost urgent, as if this was of the utmost priority. "You're an addict looking for a fix," Sherlock whispered. "And I have... exactly what you need."

"Why are you here?" John breathed into Sherlock's hair, because that's how close they were, and he didn't want to let Sherlock see him screw his eyes shut as his hand traced circles in his thigh.

"Because you are - because we both have an issue and I've been looking for something a bit less addictive than cocaine," Sherlock hummed. "You'd work. It's business. Think of it as... symbiosis."

"Who are you?" John choked through a parched throat.

Sherlock's laugh was rumbling. He was thunderous, that close; his vocal chords were shaking with humor, although there was nothing funny about the heat in John's groin and the hand running lines across his leg, concealed by the darkness of the room. "All I am, really, is a boy trying to have a little fun." Sherlock's eyes were blown wide when his hand was abruptly removed from John's thigh. John did not exhale. He stared, his breaths pressed hard against his diaphragm. "Think about it, John Watson. And give Claire my apologies; this party just became uninteresting." He took his coat off the back of his seat and threw it across his shoulders. "Her makeup looks absolutely stunning, by the way," Sherlock added, a grin twisting onto his features. He turned on his heel, beginning to walk into the dark.

It took John a few moments to actually register the loss of contact. "Wait," he called after his retreating form. "How the hell did you know all those things about me?"

"Until next time, John," Sherlock responded, not paying a single glance back. "You know where to find me."

***

Claire fell asleep with her arm curled around John's waist. He gripped her, staring at the wall. Aching.