He kept doing it.

The fiddling and the poking.

His lips were chewed to hell, his nails bloody in places and his swollen eyes darting every which way like jade missiles. He was shaky sometimes, but subtly, and he squeezed his plump lips into a thin, crackly line. He was a tall person, very young and full of potential.

He didn't seem to care about that potential.

He kept to the sidelines like ivy creeping up a crumbling brick wall, determined to hold on just a little longer. And he always wore the same coat, long and heavy and oh so dark navy blue. Depending on the weather, he also wore a scarf, one that seemed equally heavy but not quite as dark a blue as his coat.

He only drank vanilla coffee, sometimes with a few pumps of caramel. Judging by the sunken, defeated appearance of his face every day he came, it was probably safe to assume that the vanilla coffee was the only thing that continued to fuel his mysterious existence.

His shoes were always in a different condition; sometimes they were perfectly polished and spotless, sometimes they were caked with mud, sometimes they were dusty, other times they were wet and shimmery from the London drizzle outside the window.

His fingers were long and pale and precise, fumbling through his wallet for a few bills to pay and a few others to gingerly place in the tip jar. Sometimes he even used coins to pay and tip. As was mentioned before, he was a nail biter, and it showed in his ripped and somewhat bloody fingernails. They thrummed against his sides and the counter and against his paper coffee cup and against the table as he finished his drink. It wasn't something Jim took as rude or as incentive to hurry the fuck up, Jim knew it was just a simple quirk the man had picked up somewhere in his life from someone he might've been close to.

But god, what was his name?

"One vanilla coffee, please, extra caramel."

Jim did as he was told, watching those long fingers peel through his worn out wallet for the amount of money he'd memorized by heart. It was always four seventy-five. His knotted German chocolate curls hung over his forehead like leaves from a hanging flower pot, winding effortlessly round and round each other. Jim averted his eyes like he always did, made the man's coffee like he always did. There was something about his voice that made Jim think. Not about anything in particular, just think.

Not another soul but he lingered in the shoppe. Not another life with separate problems and thoughts to worry about. Jim cleared his throat, and the man looked up from his coffee cup.

"I'm Jim Moriarty. It's nice to meet you."

The other man became slightly shaky before replying, "Oh."

Jim was quiet for a moment, watching the tremors in the tall man's hands. His dark eyes ones again flicked up to the man's face. "And you are?"

The man seemed shocked that Jim had taken interest.

With a sigh, Jim leaned a bit over the counter, a toned elbow giving him leverage. Even though the shoppe was empty, he whispered like he were telling a secret. "My shift ends in twenty minutes. What do you say we get to know each other better, hmm?"

The man moved somewhat like an oak tree, stoic and firm, but his pale eyes conveyed something behind them. Curiosity? Lust? Perhaps both. Jim smirked as the man's eyes squinted, contemplating.

"Why?"

"Why not?"

The man thought for a moment and, seemingly satisfied with Jim's answer, slowly turned around to sit down at one of the tables to wait.

His fingers wouldn't stop thrumming. Against the table, against the cup, against his arm. His foot even beat against the wood floor.

It was the inpatient kind of thrumming.

Jim, between serving the few customers, would stare the man down.

It was strange for him to be sober and agree to take a nameless man home to his apartment.

After twenty minutes had passed and someone else had donned an apron, the man stood and followed Jim to the back. He stood against the wall, arms folded, eyes locked on Jim's every move as he put on his coat and hat.

"You never did tell me your name," Jim said. He didn't look at the man, he was busy making sure his coat was laying right in the dirty mirror.

"Holmes," was the reply. "Sherlock Holmes."

Jim, satisfied with his the way his collar looked, turned and grinned at his new companion.

"Well, Sherlock," Jim purred, wrapping an arm around Sherlock's waist, "you and I are going to get along swimmingly."

The two walked out the back door of the shoppe to Jim's tiny apartment, where they discarded their dignity and pride for a good night in.