I'm sorry.

-JW

John stares at the text he's sent blankly, feeling a sense of nostalgia for the familiarity of his penmanship. He puts his phone down and drinks a bit of the leftover beer from the fridge.

***

Sherlock receives the text at approximately 11:30, and he shoots out of bed almost instantaneously, like a bullet out of a shotgun.

The phone looks ominous in the darkness, sitting there with its blinking green light. Should he even look?

No. No, he shouldn't.

He does.

And how the fuck is he supposed to reply? Yeah, of course, John, it's fine, you just ripped up perfectly good stationery. In fact, I've been waiting for this moment with bated breaths. In fact, I really have actually been waiting for this moment with bated breaths and I miss speaking with you uncontrollably.

Sherlock puts down the phone slowly, staring at the now still notifications, silent. The candy green light doesn't come on again, as Sherlock stares at that phone, for five minutes, which spans into thirty, and then it's two hours and the entire time he is contemplating how he ever got into this mess.

Sherlock has a way of doing things; a way of getting what he wants without revealing what he is. A liar. A thief. A steal, a cheat. If he wants to be less abrasive about his... hobby, he'd just say he's a "con artist." (Con artist is the most accurate name Sherlock's got.) When he'd tried to make John fall, he did the exact opposite, and now he's bewildered and upset and just exhausted about the entire damned thing.

This's never happened before. This should be easy. Human error. He should have the one up on this - he's not as weighed down by this "feeling" crap - but he feels helpless all the same. He's not supposed to overthink this. His time is too valuable, and he's too busy with his routines, and his induced happiness, and his okay-ness, and his equilibrium.

John is tipping the scales against his favor, and he simply has no idea what to do in a situation like this. He's never felt (pah) butterflies. He's never wanted someone. He's never missed something. He's always had what he wanted, took what he had, wanted what he took. But there is one thing Sherlock is sure of - he does not have John Watson.

John Watson is his own. His skin and his eyes and the sunshine pent up inside his blonde hair is not only beautiful, but it is driven, and he controls the air that he breathes thusly. He controls the way he is, because he is a leader, and Sherlock cannot help himself from being drawn to him. A moth to a flame; the dark to the light. John is not controlled. He's not a variable. He refuses to be inside some poor mathematician's algebra equation.

It's fair to say, that in this moment, Sherlock's half-given up.

Because what if he's wrong? What if Sherlock truly can't steal whatever he wants, what if he's just like the rest - wading through a downpour of slushy lies and broken dreams to try to attain the unattainable... a happy ending?

He gathers his socks and pulls them on so they're all the way up to his knees, then slips on his shoes before getting his navy Belstaff. He feels angry, and sad, and nostalgic, so he's not going to play John's stupid game and say that it's fine, it was an honest mistake.

Sherlock cloaks himself with the coat, hugging it irritably around his shoulders and turning up the collar against the cold. He feels incredibly lacking; not because of his attire, but because of what he's about to do.

***

Sherlock is sitting on this little stool next to John's telly, patiently watching John breathe as he sleeps all his worries away. He's in deep; his eyes are barely moving under his lids. Probably for the first time in a long time.

A beer bottle is sitting on his bedside table, only half-drunk, and Sherlock notes that a movie is still running in the VCR, so he'd fallen asleep barely thirty minutes ago. The scent of alcohol drifts discreetly through the room to where Sherlock is seated, and he wrinkles his nose at even the thought of John's intoxication.

Sherlock thinks about how much alcohol he'd probably consumed as he sits in that cold, aluminum stool, the dark stain of freezing water slowly inching up his clothes as subtly as the frost forming on the window panes. It's so eerily frigid in here - there is no breeze, but the wind still whips icy at his feet. Maybe he shouldn't have ran here. Maybe he should have walked, so the slush didn't splash onto his trousers and freeze his legs. Sherlock hasn't eaten. God knows how long it's been since he last slept. And this cold... he's about ready to pass out.

"Fall back," John suddenly whispers into the frigid air, his fingers gripping the covers fiercely. Sherlock's head tilts up, and his eyes shift over. "Ace..." he says, his voice horror-stricken, frozen in an endless moment of regret. Sherlock has no idea what to do.

Should he wake him? Should he risk the wrath, the distrust? Granted, their entire relationship is based off of an uncanny need to be loved, somehow; maybe Sherlock just doesn't care where the love comes from. A liar, a stealer, a cheat, a man whose father doesn't love him - and a soldier that can't sleep at night. Is that all they are?

Are they just lost souls that accept each other under the circumstances?

When he's sleeping, the lines of his face are deeper, creasing in the places where his tight-lipped frown usually forms. His lips are parted to make a curved, pink line, a line that Sherlock longs to observe, to judge, to learn like the back of his hand. Every once in a long while, a drawn out moan will escape him. It sounds like pain, and desperation, and heartbreak - the silence is so full and the strangled sadness is so empty that Sherlock finds himself covering his ears. Maybe if no one ever spoke, life would be more beautiful.

"Someone, help," he whispers, "get... get..." Sherlock watches, his lips slowly parting in awe as John cries, "No, he's my friend, he's my friend..." because his voice is shaking - he's never seen a man so unsure, so loose-footed. Sherlock's never cried. Not even when his father insisted that he incarcerate himself. Not even when his older brother did absolutely nothing to ensure he didn't dive into crippling poverty. Now... he's confused. He's never had someone close to him die before. In his world, that problem doesn't even exist. If it did, Sherlock would certainly not be torn up about this. But John is.

His chest begins to rise faster and faster, the thudding presence of a frantic heartbeat filling the room as he mumbles, "He's my friend, get... off..." Sherlock can hardly even breathe. This mix of icy water and thick fear is chilling Sherlock to the bone, and even though he thought this was well impossible, he's even colder than he was a moment before. Frosty tendrils bite at John's toes and make him curl in on himself, a low whine escaping his throat. The vines of nightmares move restlessly in the shadows, making John fear being asleep, but fear being awake as well.

A loud, incoherent mumble tenses Sherlock in his seat, and an even louder one causes him to draw his knees to his chest, as if it will make him less visible. John mewls, his head turning violently from side to side to shake off the dream, and then a hand is fighting off the covers as he struggles to breathe.

"He's my friend," he yells, "get off! He's my friend!" His limbs are spasmodic, flailing and kicking at people that aren't holding him back. "I just wanted to see the body," he moans into the silence. "I just wanted to see him again!" He throws off the covers completely, and they pool at the base of the bed. He's breathing hard, and then he's breathing harder, and then his hands are clenching the blankets and he's squirming inside an exceedingly claustrophobic space - his own mind. He pants and hisses and moans, dragging his teeth across his alcohol-chapped lips and making them bleed. Sweating and tearing at the only clothes he hasn't soiled this week, building and building and building and building-

A wordless scream escapes him as he jolts awake, his hands clenching so hard that it's a wonder that he's not bruising his palms. His pants are audible, and throaty, and half of them well up in his throat before being forcibly pushed into the chilly air. "Oh... God," John breathes heavily. "Fuck. Fuck."

Sherlock doesn't even move.

John, on the other hand, rests his head in between his knees and whispers quietly to himself. "They're gone," he breathes, shuddering. "Gone..." Hands rub his face tirelessly, a rhythm forming after a while. It seems as if he's done this a lot, because he gets his breathing under control after a few minutes, despite the panic that he could've sworn was cutting off his airflow a minute ago. He blinks blearily a couple of times, looking dejectedly at his feet before his focus shifts up, to the telly, and then a couple inches right...

He sighs in aggravation as he stares into the not-so-empty-space Sherlock is hidden. He gazes into it, like he's determined to find someone other than who he sees. He just... gapes, his lips parted in shock.

And then he closes his mouth with an audible click of his teeth. "Is that fuckin' you?" he snaps.

Sherlock lets out a strained whisper, probably from smoking one-too-many-cigarettes. "Yes," he squeaks. That was practically mortifying, dear God. He clears his throat as quietly as he can, and says, "There's a lot of you's, so may you please identify the exact 'you' that you're referring to?"

"Sherlock," John bellows, standing up without a single tremor in his leg and making his way over to Sherlock's seat.

His fist raises, and Sherlock nearly shrivels at the sight of that familiar hand - but all he feels is the lapel of his coat being yanked up to John's eye level.

"You're a git," John hisses. "You're an insufferable fucking git."

"And your breath stinks," Sherlock chokes, turning his head away to avoid the rank stench.

"Why are you here," John demands. "What are you fucking doing?" His eyes are wild and full of rage, disdain - something is burning in his eyes but Sherlock can't quite put his finger on what. "Answer me," John growls, "before you need fucking morphine."

"Well," Sherlock begins, "I'd assumed that you didn't want to see me, not after last night, not after what I'd said, I-"

"Yes," John says, his hands still clenched around Sherlock's shirt. His eyes are literally so up-close that Sherlock can count the individual specks of brown in his eyes. "Go on, I haven't got all night."

"-didn't know if you were angry with me for asking too many times, but I thought that you liked me because-"

"Because," John spits, quaking.

"-we enjoy each other's company."

"And...?"

"Because you didn't want to see me, John," Sherlock states matter-of-factly, "I came to see you."

A grave expression of tight-lipped disapproval suddenly flickers across Sherlock's face, and John finds himself clenching a little less hard onto his collar.

He searches Sherlock's eyes, darting between the dilated pupils and then down to his blotchy red and white hands. John takes a deep breath - a very deep breath - he steps back a foot, and stands as straight as an arrow. His entire body is tense, unmoving, brittle, and the glare he sports... it burns Sherlock up inside.

"John, I have no other way to put this." Sherlock inhales heavily, trying his very best to keep the cold at bay in his head. "I cannot be more sincere, I promise you. I apologize for breaking in, but-"

"But," John whispers hoarsely, the 't' a hiss between his teeth.

"I ran here in the middle of a snowstorm, and I am absolutely freezing, so if you could kindly, um..." Sherlock fidgets awkwardly, shuffling away from John's looming, angry figure. "Yeah. I'll... I will excuse myself."

Sherlock cloaks himself in his soaking wet trench coat, walking away with his chin down and his hair matted to his head angrily. He's half expecting for John to chase him out by his heels, to push him out the door and yell, "Good riddance to bad rubbish!" but that isn't what happens at all.

"Wait." John is standing a little less straight now, his shoulders pulled forward and his eyes more sagged. "Sherlock, it's..."

Sherlock turns around halfway, one eye watching indecision flutter across John's face. John pouts for a few seconds, and then he beckons to Sherlock with a finger. "Get into bed," he sighs.

"Bed?" Sherlock says in surprise, his brows arching.

"Yes, fucking bed. Take off your shoes. Unless you want me to do that, too," John drawls satirically, making his way over to Sherlock and pointing encompassingly at the bed. "Have you eaten anything?"

Sherlock hadn't been expecting this. "No, I..."

John sighs and stomps off to the kitchen. "You are so lucky I like you," he grumbles. "So bloody lucky."

***

"You warm yet?"

John is sitting in front of the bed, stiffly observing Sherlock as he drinks his soup. Sherlock looks innocently up, a slurp escaping his lips.

"I could be warmer," he breathes hoarsely, and then shoves a spoon his mouth to stifle the coughs racking through his chest. Then, "Could you get me a cigarette?"

"No," John grumbles. "You're gonna get cancer and die."

Sherlock scoffs into the blanket and raises his eyebrows so high John is certain they're going to float off his face and onto the ceiling. "What if I want to get cancer," he mumbles. It sounds like a flirtation, a teasing notion meant solely to make John annoyed, but the words are grave.

"Well, then you're a fucking idiot."

"Touché." Sherlock smirks cheekily before putting the finished bowl of soup on the bedside table. "You know, John," he states, "I simply cannot fathom why I am in this bed right now. I mean, I can eat soup perfectly well on the couch, or the floor, daresay... the dining table." Sherlock shakes his head, a smile in his eyes.

John frowns. "I wanted you to be comfortable."

"This bed is about as comfortable as your personality."

"Exactly my point."

"Let's be honest with each other; it will make everything much simpler."

"I agree," John grunts.

He sighs deeply, the warmth in his chest leeched into the cold. "Alright. Well. Do you, say, have... feelings. For me." Sherlock's smile melts slowly, and John is left staring into those smoky shadows under Sherlock's brow bone. His features are dark and calm, like the sea, and John wants to drown in him, surround himself in water. If he were to commit suicide, he'd want to do it like this. Staring at Sherlock, unsure of his footing, uncertain, unsettled. For a fleeting, disadvantaged moment... he is indecisive.

And Sherlock knows.

"I'd..." John's eyes widen, and a smile erupts onto his face. Small, subtle, but there. "I'd say so."

"But...?" Sherlock asks.

"There's no but anymore."

"There's no but?"

"There was."

"I just broke into your flat," Sherlock states calmly, a disbelieving smile playing on his lips.

"Yeah, but..."

"So there is a but."

"Sherlock, hush." John laughs gently, and stands.

"Where are you disappearing off to," Sherlock says, scrambling to sit up in bed.

"Just to brush my teeth," John replies. "But then you have to get going, I have things to do tomorrow."

John opens the door to leave, but stops for a moment.

Sherlock stares at his silhouette in the door frame, waiting for him to speak, or come back, or something - but he just closes the door as quietly as possible before padding off to the bathroom.

The quiet is so calming; the snow is turning into sleet, a constant, soft "pitter patter" clicking on the windows. Streetlights illuminate the bed in cold unwarranted light, and Sherlock turns away from it all to hug the vanilla blanket to his chest and breathe in the scent of John.

***

Sherlock is truly, truly an angel. Eyelashes flutter in the dark, a sudden but calm mumble escaping his lips, and John finds himself caressing the cool pink skin of his lips with his own, so in awe with the touch. It's so tender, even when he's unresponsive; his breaths ghost across John's chin, a soft shadow placed where his brows meet. The Creator must have carved him out of marble and satin and air - in the dark, he floats. An angel. Maybe even something more; maybe a god.

John starts speaking. He doesn't know why, he doesn't know how, but his voice rings soft and true to the sleeping Sherlock. He says things he'd never thought he'd say, he says things he's said much too many times, only to break those promises and hurt in the end. Maybe he's leaping too far, maybe his lips are just intoxicated with the sight of this man, laying next to him, so silent and caring and clever, but he doesn't bloody care.

He speaks.

For hours.

For years.

For centuries.

He asks, over, and over, and over, "Why do you care so much?" as if he isn't worth caring about.

He talks so long he starts talking in his sleep, and he doesn't even realize the exact moment when he wakes up, because he's convinced that he was just talking throughout the entire night. The only sign that he fell asleep is the absence of a soft, warm body from his bed, and the note taped to his bedside table.

Dear John,

You had many a thing to say to me last night, and in foresight, I believe it would only be fair if I expressed my awareness of your presence. Please know that your words are in the utmost confidence.

To answer your question... I care because you're the only one left for me to care about. Goodnight, John. Sleep well.

-SH

A/N: DO YOU KNOW HOW MUCH EFFORT THIS TOOK

I HAVE BEEN WRITHING IN A WRITER'S BLOCK FOR THE PAST TWO WEEKS

LITERALLY I SPELLED INTELLIGENT WRONG TODAY

I CONFUSED WRITE AND RIGHT, EXCEPT AND ACCEPT

LIKE WTF IS THIS A CURSE FROM JESUS BECAUSE I DIDN'T GO TO CHURCH THIS SUNDAY GOD WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM ME

on a darker note go check out my story colorblind it's gay

it's about illegal gayness like how rad is that

HOW RAD

also i love the cover more than this one which is basically like impossible because i love this cover

gay

@sherlockwithanafro is like the only reason that you have this chapter right now so thank her she is amazing

shout out to @RedLink for no reason at all

bai ilysm guys (っ'▽')っ