A/N: HUGE thanks to doublenegativemeansyes on tumblr for doing a piece for this story, which I've linked to on my profile page here, since I can't insert links within the text. It turned out perfectly!

This story is written as a mix of blog posts (and comments) on John's blog and regular narrative.

The Personal Blog of

Dr. John H. Watson

2 June

Hair Today…

Came home today to a seemingly empty house. It's always harder to tell in the summer, because I can't check and see if Sherlock's coat's missing. (By the way, Sherlock hates it when it gets too warm to wear the coat – he's got no to collar to flip up!) Anyway it was dead quiet – and not the kind of dead that worries me with Sherlock – so I figured he'd gone out on some case. Or, if I was really lucky, actual errands.

I checked the ground floor flat, just be sure. Sherlock's got some of his rubbish down there now, so you never know. Nope. Went upstairs, figured I'd watch some telly and have a beer.

When I got upstairs, there was this odd smell. That's not unusual either, but normally Sherlock's there to convince me that everything is completely fine, even if something's visibly on fire.

No sign of him.

I reckoned whatever he'd done had actually driven him out for some air (that'd be a first) and that he'd get home eventually. He always does.

Well, usually.

John pushed the kitchen window open wider, letting in the fresh air and the sounds of traffic and voices from below. Whatever caustic smell Sherlock had concocted began to fade more rapidly – or he was becoming used to it.

He was fairly certain Sherlock would let him know if the air in the flat was toxic, even if it meant copping to mucking up.

Of course, he'd never call it "mucking up" and would claim that it had all been deliberately planned – while carefully avoiding eye contact.

John grinned to himself, wondering what kind of excuses he'd hear when Sherlock finally surfaced. Depending on how dire the detective thought the situation was, there might even be dinner in it for him. He'd been planning on leftovers, but wouldn't turn down a free meal if Sherlock felt guilty enough.

A cold beer, a good programme on the telly, and the comfort of his chair made up for the tedious day at the clinic and the lack of his partner at home. John propped his feet up on Sherlock's chair – something he didn't dare do when the detective was there, because it earned him no end of complaints.

He let his attention wander, checking his email, scrolling through the new comments on his blog, taking his turn in a few online games he had going with friends. In spite of Sherlock's absence – or maybe because of it – the end of the afternoon was peaceful, and John felt himself relaxing, muscles unwinding as he slouched down in the chair, returning his attention to the television.

The half hour trickled by and when the programme had run its course, John pushed himself to his feet, tilting his head side to side. A grimace of relief at the crack down his vertebrae was compounded by the silence when the television was extinguished. He sighed – more contentment than anything – and padded into the bathroom to wash up before tackling the task of tracking down his wayward lover.

Another, heavier, sigh at the pile of towels dumped negligently on the worn linoleum. He scooped to retrieve them and made a disgusted noise – they were nearly sodden. All of them, even his.

What the hell were you doing? he asked his mental image of Sherlock, who, predictably, ignored him.

"Fine," John muttered, dumping the soggy towels in the tub to retrieve later for the laundry. They'd have to have a little talk about personal responsibilities when Sherlock got home – although he was sure it would fall on deliberately deaf ears.

He stepped into the hallway, intent on the linen closet, when the sharp creak of a floorboard stopped him cold, breath caught, turning instinctively toward the living room.

Silence washed back in. John held himself rigid, heart hammering with a useless adrenaline reflex, listening hard. There was no further sound and he strained his ears, trying to pick up on any hint of movement from the living room – then realized the sound had come from above.

If someone was going to break into the flat, surely they wouldn't bother climbing all the way to his old bedroom? Much easier to break in through a window on the ground floor flat – and both he and Sherlock would be far less likely to notice that intrusion.

It was an old house, he reminded himself. It shifted and settled and groaned and squeaked. He was used to hearing it – but also used to not giving it much attention.

There was something about this that didn't feel like the house making itself comfortable, but like breath was being held that wasn't his own.

John turned his eyes to the ceiling; he hadn't checked up there, had he?

The towels were awfully wet for Sherlock to have been gone long.

John pursed his lips, wondering if Sherlock was gone at all.

In stocking feet, he crept up the stairs, taking the time to shift his balance carefully and avoid the spots that would give him away. If Sherlock was up there, he was probably straining his hearing as hard as John had just been, and hoping like hell he wouldn't be found out.

Despite himself, John felt a twinge of amusement curling the corners of his lips as he pushed the door open, eyes sweeping over the recumbent figure buried under the duvet and the pillows in his old bed.

I've seen Sherlock hide before. On cases he can be like a ghost, fading into the shadows or the background so you'd hardly notice him. He can move so stealthily and silently that you won't know he's there until he's right behind you, breathing down your neck. He can slip in and out of places undetected, leaving no trace of himself, vanishing like a mist.

This wasn't any of those things.

This was him stuffed under a bunch of pillows and a duvet, making condescending noises when I pointed out that we have a perfectly good bed downstairs if he fancied a nap.

I'm not genius (Sherlock will be the first to agree) but it wasn't too hard to put the pieces together. When he freed up an arm to hold the pillows down over his head, it was bare, so he was naked (sorry), which meant he'd come straight up here from the shower, which meant I caught him in the act of whatever he was trying to cover up when I came home.

You'd think it wouldn't be too hard to pull the pillows off of someone lying down.

They ended up in a heap on the floor, blankets and all, both of them breathing hard, and Sherlock with a pillow still firmly clasped over his head like a helmet. Wet curls plastered to his skin imprinted moisture on the cotton, and the detective shuffled against the wall, sheets and duvet slipping to give John a rather distracting view.

He ignored it, sitting on his heels, palms resting on his thighs.

"Sherlock," John said, letting a warning note slip into his voice, earning a glower in return, "what did you do?"

"I had a shower then wanted a nap," Sherlock sniffed. "I didn't know this was reason enough to be assaulted in my own home."

"Bollocks," John replied. "The kitchen smells suspiciously of an experiment gone wrong, and all the towels are soaking."

"It was a long shower," Sherlock said. "I was very wet when I got out." John rolled his eyes; the expression went ignored as usual.

"What did you do to your hair?"

"I haven't done anything to my hair," Sherlock snapped, grip tightening on the pillow.

"You've just decided that a pillow makes a good fashion accessory?"

"Better than the death Frisbee hat," Sherlock muttered.

"You might as well tell me now. You know you're going to have to eventually. Better get it over with."

"It's fine," Sherlock muttered, slouching down further.

"Yes, I can see that," John replied, lips twitching into a grin that made Sherlock's expression even darker. "Let me look." He slid a hand over one of his partner's, feeling the jut of tendons as Sherlock's fingers curled more tightly into the pillow. A brief shake of Sherlock's head made John sigh, rubbing a thumb over the bony ridges of knuckles.

"Sherlock."

He waited; Sherlock's eyes darted away and down, defeat flickering over his features. Reluctantly, he released his grip enough to let John ease the pillow away, and the doctor felt his eyes go wide, muscles slackening with shock.

"What the hell did you do?"

And I don't know, because he won't actually tell me what it is. But imagine a kid with gum stuck in his hair. Now imagine that kid is a fully grown adult man. And then imagine that fully grown adult man is Sherlock Holmes.

You get the picture.

Whatever it was, it wasn't coming out.

I had to shave all of his hair off.

"Absolutely not," Sherlock snarled.

"Sherlock, we've run through every kind of cleaning agent we can use that won't corrode your skin and a dozen different concoctions of your own. It's like cement."

"It's not cement," Sherlock said with a stubborn tilt of his chin, still refusing to meet John's eyes.

"Will you tell me what it is?" John asked. The detective scowled, slumping down further into the bath water, turning his face deliberately toward the wall. With a sigh, John sat back, letting dripping hands hang over the side of the tub.

"We can't just cut it out," he pointed out. "You'll have two gaping holes."

"I'm sure I can–"

"What, style over it? Sherlock, it's three bloody inches across. In two places! You can't just fuss with the hair around it. Too much of the space won't have hair around it."

"I'll wear a hat."

"For months? Until it's grown out?"

"It can't be that bad, John."

"You spent an hour trying to wash it out before I came home. We're just spent another… forty minutes on it. It's not going anywhere, Sherlock. Plus I don't really want – whatever it is in our bed. Or to have to touch it."

"Oh, so this is about you, is it?"

John's lips quirked on one side as he gave his head a small shake. He wasn't as ignorant as Sherlock wanted to believe – at least about some things – and he knew how proud the detective was of his hair. No matter how much Sherlock acted otherwise.

He didn't blame Sherlock, and he certainly understood. John would never admit to it, not out loud, but he loved running his fingers through Sherlock's hair. Loved the feel, the texture, the length. The way fastidiously kept curls slid over his skin.

He did not want to do that and run into a gunky mystery substance.

He'd miss Sherlock's hair. Rather a lot. But it would grow back.

"It'll grow back," he pointed out.

"Oh yes?" Sherlock snapped. "And what am I to do in the meantime?"

"What?" John asked. "You can't take cases if you haven't got hair?" Sherlock gave him a glare, but John had learned to recognize the nuances in each of Sherlock's very specialized glowers, and this was one of reluctant defeat.

"Get out and dry off," he said. "I'll get the clippers."

He told me in no uncertain terms I'm not allowed to post a picture, so here it is.

And now he's having a good sulk in his favourite dressing gown in his chair, pretending I don't exist.

He made me save his hair, too. Not the gunky bits, of course. He's got some notion that it can be made into a wig. I told him he looks good bald but that just made him glare more.

I think I'm going to keep this up until it's all grown back.

"At least you have a good head."

"What?" Sherlock demanded, raising said head to meet John's gaze with a sharp glare.

"A good head," John repeated. "Good shape, and your ears don't stick out."

"Let me see." He dislodged John by standing up, and scrutinized himself in the mirror, turning his head this way and that, features screwed in disapproval. John took momentary pity on him; this wasn't just annoyance, but genuine displeasure.

He ran a hand over the dark, downy fuzz that remained, resisting Sherlock's attempts to shake him off.

"Don't," Sherlock snapped, a hand closing around John's wrist as he moved to bin the old towel that had collected most of his hair. He stiffened, as if realizing the action he'd just taken, shoulders tense, chin slightly raised in defiance.

"I'll just find something to put it in, then," John said. "Relax, you look fine."

"If by 'fine' you mean a complete and utter twit, yes."

"You're right," John agreed with mock surprise. "I'll have to stop sleeping with you."

"John!"

"You play dead for nine months and you think a little thing like this is going to put me off?"

"It's not little," Sherlock huffed – but looked slightly mollified, managing to preen a little bit without actually moving.

Typical, John thought.

"Why don't we order take away?" he suggested. "You can put off anyone seeing you for at least a day."

"If we must," Sherlock sighed.

Take this down right now.
Sherlock Holmes 2 June

Not a chance.
John Watson 2 June

John!
Sherlock Holmes 2 June

I like it. Good look for you.
Greg Lestrade 2 June

How do I unsee?
Sally Donovan 2 June

Everyone needs a change once in awhile :)
Molly Hooper 2 June

I have an urgent case I need to discuss with you. Will be there within the hour.
Mycroft Holmes 2 June

Molly, I may need more hair for the wig. If any of your corpses have similar hair, save it for me. Mycroft, piss off.
Sherlock Holmes 2 June

That's quite a change.
Anonymous 2 June

John, I will withhold sex if you don't take this down.
Sherlock Holmes 2 June

You do know we can all read that, right?
Sally Donovan 2 June

Don't make me bin your hair.
John Watson 2 June