"Oh, God, John." He says it like it's being stretched out of his mouth. Like a piece of bubblegum. "John."

"Mrmphhhph," he responds, annoyed. "What, Sherlock." Sleepy, steel colored eyes dart to the analog clock, and a strong hand fights its way from out of the covers and wraps itself around Sherlock's abdomen. "Bed. Sleep. Now."

Sherlock attempts to move, but he can't. He hadn't anticipated John being so strong - he can feel muscle ripple against the cloth of his tee.

"But - John - we have to visit the fair, John, today's Tuesday, don't you understand-"

"No, Sherlock, it's sodding 3:30 and the fair doesn't begin until 9. Please. Go. To. Sleep."

"I can't-"

"Don't. Care." John groans into the pillowcase as he violently tugs down on Sherlock's collar in a movement that is much too hard to be playful. "I mean it, now," he enthuses.

"But John," Sherlock says-

"'But John' nothing. I was an army official, not a goddamned farmer-"

"It's a beautiful morning, John, get your lazy fucking arse out of bed and come-"

"So help me God, Sherlock. Shut up and lie down."

"I don't want to."

"Since when has '3:30 in the morning John' cared?" John then snaps his eyes closed, and buries himself under three layers of decaying blankets. "Fuck off."

Sherlock is not one to give up. But he does. At least until John falls asleep.

***

He makes a chart. It's on a whiteboard that's no longer white - John used to sketch landscapes on the small white display. Now Sherlock writes graphs and algebra equations along the sides, erasing them and redoing them to make sure they're correct.

"Sherlock's money," it says, and "John's money." Under "John's money," it says 319.21£. Under Sherlock's, it says 8,678.93£.

In screaming capitals: "WE OWE TWO-THOUSAND SIX HUNDRED FIFTY SEVEN POUNDS AND SIXTY THREE PENCE." It's circled in poppy red felt tip multiple times, a bright star scribbled above it. A proposal is underneath in smaller letters, ones that don't scream quite as loudly. In a short, hurried paragraph, it details a plan. Not really a plan, per se, more the lack of one. The skinny of it is: Sherlock's going to pay the rent. There's a lot of problems with that, though. Only one, really. But to John, there's exactly 8,678.93.

Knowing this, even, Sherlock has run through all the scenarios several times in his head and has realized, over a matter of seconds, that there are only three ways to go about this.

They can pay with Sherlock's money, they can pray at length and hope for a miracle, or they can wait to be kicked out - and Sherlock is not letting John settle at his flat. Not a fucking chance in nine layers of hell.

So, when he wakes up, Sherlock holds the whiteboard sign in front of John's bedroom door until he is forced to brush his teeth and look at it. John's eyes aren't furrowed at first; they calmly skim over the words. Until he hits the paragraph.

"John,

You have no money to pay the rent, and despite your attempts to get a job, the money you get from your pension can hardly pay for milk, never mind an entire flat."

His brow forms a tight, furrowed line, and he darts his tongue across his lip as he keeps on going, obviously growing more and more angry with every word.

"John, let's face the ugly truth and just use the money I have; it's the only way to make this work without entirely exhausting our resources and plunging into debt-"

When John's eyes reach down to about the third line, they freeze, and then they flicker up to Sherlock, who, currently, is trying to look unintimidated. There's a pink grimace ironed into his features as he stares down at John, and the answer John sports is firm and angered.

His mouth forms a solid "o" before it even utters the word, as if out of sync.

"No."

The "n" takes up the majority of the one syllable, and as John attempts to push past Sherlock's shoulder, he recites a word back to him with forced certainty.

"John," he insists, dropping the whiteboard to the ground with a tremendous clatter, "Listen to reason, and logic-"

"What you do with your money is your business, but don't expect me to bring your lifestyle into something that might result in jail time, or worse."

"It's in cash, John. Not all of it is stolen, even; some of it was my father's, some of it was from my job-"

"Which you got fired from-"

"In a minor accident-"

"You nearly set the place on fire!"

"Minor fire hazard."

"No, Sherlock. I - I won't do it."

"Why, John, you're being a complete idiot!"

"Because, one: it's illegal. Two? It goes against my moral standards, and three: I just. Don't. Fucking. Want your money, Sherlock."

"It isn't my money, John, as you remind yourself so often."

"No!"

"You're being so fucking vexing, John-"

"Not a shot in hell!"

"You would rather we lose our flat because you have a Mary Sue complex?"

"How much," he says, eyes raging, "of that sodding money have you stolen?"

"A lot of it, John," Sherlock shouts. "But it's the result of something I can't control, a burden that I would love to delete from my life. If I dare to turn this negative into something that benefits me, I'm a lousy human being, correct?"

John is silent, his frown turning into a disheveled grimace. Sherlock wishes that he could wipe it away, like marker from a whiteboard, or a splash of water. It's just a mess of upset lines and disappointment, disappointment, disappointment and Sherlock knew this would happen, he knew it, but not today. Not today.

"I get it-" John starts.

"You don't. Don't pretend you 'get it,' John." He makes quotes with his hands that dig into the atmosphere like fangs, and he spits out the words with an air that resembles winter. John squeezes his leg and hopes that Sherlock doesn't notice. "Don't insult my intelligence."

"Alright," John says, putting his hands up in surrender. "Alright." He steps a few feet forward, trying to ease the glare on his face. In its stead, a tired smile flutters onto John's lips, hardly noticeable. "I don't want us to have a bad day, Sherlock. We can save it until tomorrow." He kisses him. Chaste, sweet. "Alright?"

Sherlock nods into his hair, a begrudging frown that slowly slips into an equally stubborn smile breaking through. "You're an annoying, illogical, unintelligent idiot."

"And you're a stubborn, brilliant, overly confident tit," John replies, ruffling his hair. "Now, let's go to the fair. We'll talk later."

***

Sherlock had no idea that putting on battle armor took this much time.

A number of obstacles had erupted from the woodwork since Sherlock and John had begun their daily routine, one of the most hindering being the fact that it was raining sheets and sheets of icy downpour, and John had insisted that they stay inside until it cleared up.

When Sherlock attempted to make breakfast, he burned it. And when he tried to salvage it, he set the whole damn oven top on fire. And when he tried to open the windows to relieve the smoke, a plant that John had been tending to for the past two weeks was "accidentally" shoved out onto the pavement.

The aftermath was horrendous. John was convinced he needed to salvage the perennials. Fucking ridiculous. He could just go to the store and buy some more, but apparently that lacked "effort" and such. It's not as if it was extremely taxing to grow a god forsaken flower.

John's hands were dirty after that, so instead of washing them, Sherlock insisted that he take a bath: "It's raining anyway, John, it's not as if you won't be taking a bath when you go out." And John grumbled a little bit, of course, but when Sherlock began shedding his clothes too, he cheered up quite a bit.

"What do you want to do today?" John now asks, once they are both submerged in lukewarm water. "I mean - at the fair. We have no game plan."

"We don't really..." Sherlock splashes John with water and suds, "need... a 'game plan,' John."

Sherlock takes John's hands gently into his, and spurts soap onto the palms. "Rub," he says, and as John does, he wipes the dirty suds across Sherlock's face and chuckles as Sherlock gives him a dead pan face.

"Not amused?" John asks.

Sherlock shakes his head and wipes wet, raven hair out of his eyes. "Definitely not amused."

"How about now?" John says, pulling Sherlock's face to his and kissing him deeply.

When he pulls away, Sherlock looks still unfazed. "No," he says. "Not really."

"Shut up, you bloody sod."

A playful grin creeps onto Sherlock's lips before John takes all the suds he can and wipes them into Sherlock's smiling mouth, a gray stripe of dirt across the clean white soap bubbles. Sherlock, after a few moments of fruitless staring, gathers a cup of dirty bath water with his hands and splashes it into John's face.

He makes a face that resembles a boy sucking vigorously on lemon before using both his hands and shoving a wave of water into Sherlock's chest, which is retaliated against by Sherlock splashing water onto John with rapid kicks of his legs.

"Stop it!" John shouts before shoving water into Sherlock's chest. Sherlock hits it back with a playful grin on his face.

"We need to stop-" Sherlock starts, but his mouth is suddenly filled with murky water that tastes of shampoo and dust. He yanks John's right shoulder towards him and wraps a forearm around his neck, laughing the entire time.

"We are not wrestling in the bath," John growls in the back of the throat.

"Why?" Sherlock says, squeezing the choke hold even more, "When you're in a compromising position, you can't come out on top?"

At those words, John violently wraps his arm around the base of Sherlock's neck, and uses the energy to flip onto his front and pull out of his arms. With both hands, he pushes Sherlock's back into the bathtub and twists an arm behind Sherlock's head to make him immobile. There are suds in his mouth, and he blows them out onto John's nose. "Your penis is against my leg," Sherlock mumbles, "idiot."

"Fucking git."

***

When Sherlock buys the tickets, his right hand shakes against the small shelf that is in front of the window. The window shakes with it. Feels like he's a diabetic with a sugar deficiency. John grabs his arm to make it stop, prying open Sherlock's tightened fist and working out the muscles below his knuckles.

"You alright?" John asks, patting Sherlock's back once with a thick hand. He turns to the ticket salesman. "Two, please. Adult."

The man looks at John with a passive look of disinterest, dark brown eyes glossing over John's face. Then he sees Sherlock. He blows his bubblegum and smiles, popping it with his too-clean teeth. "Have a nice time, love," he says with a cheeky smirk, the Irish lilt especially noticeable on the last word. John tries not to strangle him.

"Come on," he says, yanking the tickets out of the man's hand. "Let's go."

But Sherlock doesn't listen. He hasn't been listening. Not for about five minutes; instead, he stares, horrified, at the sign above the entrance. He's squeezing John's hand so hard that he's cutting off circulation, eyes wide and confused. The colors; red and orange and yellow and green and blue - they burn into his eyes like a flame, and when he looks away the colors are vibrant against the cloudy sky.

"Should we do this another day?" John asks. "Sherlock?" He shakes him a bit. "Sherlock?"

"I'm here..."

"You sure you're okay?"

"Yeah. Yes, John." He shakes. "I am okay."

"You look bloody pale."

"I'm always pale, I..." And then, Sherlock blinks.

Everything changes.

It looks like a silent movie filmed in sepia. The colors are drained, the noise static, the only thing heard is the unsubtle sound of a carousel playing a haunting tune. It's almost like everything has rewound. John is not next to him. He is by himself. Alone. An echo.

His vision is grainy, old, but sharp - clearer than ever. The world pauses for a few moments. He can see the carousel he rode on as a young child, repainted a bright, obnoxious red. And there's the bumper cars, riding around in a disarray that some would think entreating. Oh, and the Ferris wheel that he's watched spin in circles more times than he had deemed possible. He hadn't seen the world like this in so long. He hadn't smelled the kettle corn, caramelized apples, fried oreos filling the air like birds. The smells peck at his skin. Is he alive?

We see, but we do not observe. Not till the thing we're looking at has fangs. Not till it has a drumbeat heart. Sherlock observes every claw, every snarling breath, every ferocious push and shove that the crowd collectively gives him; he calculates the diameter of the Ferris wheel, the volume of the monster, and remembers how the leather of the go karts felt against his palms. Soft and new, in his young age, sentimentality in every thrumming of his fingers. The prime of his youth was here, standing in this very spot. Sipping lemonade in between his sugar stained teeth, before the sugar turned to nicotine, and the nicotine turned to worse things. Like love.

He takes a deep breath. Closes his eyes, and listens to every noise, every languid conversation, every rage induced yell, and every love induced whisper. They bury him alive. Yet, he can breathe.

He swims around in the atmosphere, as it feels more heavy upon his shoulders than any air, anywhere else. He swims in smells, and sounds, and textures, and even though his eyes are closed, he can see everything like a blueprint.

Deep breaths.

One, two, three: his eyes open, his mouth shuts, and he curbs the pounding in his chest by turning and staring straight at John, right into his stormy eyes. The world goes back to color, and everything is once again a reality. Sherlock is very, very alive.

"So," he says with a small smile, "where do we begin?"

A/N: i wrote this chapter thinking that it'd be /the/ chapter but then i had 2000 words and I was like oo psi e

SUPER IMPORTANT REALLY IMPORTANT NEWS:::: @DEARWATSON AND I ARE WRITING A FIC U BETTER BE FUKIN PREPARED LIL ONES AHHAGWGEHHQMWMWNWHAHAHHAHAHAHAH hahahah haha i hate her so much

Life update: wow i got good grades in school due to my dedication and hard work and horrible updates B) also guys

Ily

Have a good thanksgiving or I'll pull out your guts via ur butt and FEED THEM TO YOU

thank the lord

I'm thankful for my friends and family

I'm thankful for being alive today as I have almost died on multiple occasions and they were deaths that were not feels related

I am also thankful for

Shit

Guys

I don't know

What are you thankful for?????;;; i really wanna know pls comment ur feels.

Ily BYEEee