September 1st 2010 – Eight Weeks.

Sherlock's shaving his face for the second time today (don't worry, all will be explained) when John strides into the room. By habit, he takes a scrutinising look at the Doctor through the mirror for just a moment, before grabbing the flannel hanging off the knife in the wall (well, hanging off the Cluedo board and then into the wall) and wiping off the residue of the foam where the beginnings of his sideburns had begun to grow.

John likes to pretend it's one of thoselusty 'up-down-and back up again but this time slowly to really appreciate what's on offer' looks because it's a damn sight less critical then 'up-down and back up again but this time slowly to confirm that he'd masturbated in the shower'. Who was he kidding? Sherlock had just won an award for 'Sexiest Male' from The Sun for God's sake; of course spending most of your current existence with him was going to cause some...complications.

Now, face turned to the right and blade pressed against the jaw, Sherlock pauses again, his eyes doing a double take on John, who's now down on one knee to re-tie one of his shoes.

"What is this madness?" Sherlock mumbles, his diction compensated due to the razor at the corner of his mouth.

John frowns (with his lips, more than his eyebrows, how ever does he do that?) at Sherlock through the mirror and moves to stand next to him, "What you on about, now?"

"Well," Sherlock begins, rinsing his razor, "Where are your Ashby Brogue's John? Why aren't they making an appearance?"

"Oh piss off you," Jon retorts, craning his neck, "Those shoes cost near two hundred quid. Besides, you've spent the day with only half of your face shaven; you've no bloody right to mock me."

Unfortunately, John is not exaggerating. He is (crosses his heart, but hopes not to die), 100% telling la truth. It just so happens that Sherlock's been rather busy today, which just made his running joke all the more unbearable. Thankfully, due to Sherlock's impressive reputation (thanks to John's blog, kept telling yourself that, John certainly has to), three out of the four client's that turned up at the door manage to ignore his appearance. Or rather, that half of his face was still being kept cosy by ginger/absolutely not ginger John bristles.

Now, we know Sherlock's eccentric. He climbs over furniture. He pulls childish faces. He'll take John out for dinner, nip off to the toilet and then come back, asking for John's order donned in the appropriate uniform so he can spy on potential suspects unawares, whilst John not only has to go along with the idea without any prior warning, but also hold back the desire to grab the tea towel hanging from Sherlock's apron and whip him with it.

However, he's recently divulged to John that when he was young, his eccentricities where somewhat exaggerated in order to keep people away. Sometimes Sherlock acts differently because that's genuinely part of his behaviour.

But sometimes he'll just do it to make John giggle. To make his life just a little easier, a little brighter.

So today, he didn't shave each part of his face at a time, like most people. He worked from his left sideburn, across his face horizontally. So, when one man in particular stumbled into the living room, took one look at Sherlock's bizarre arrangement of facial hair and declared, "I'm not taking advice from anyone with half a goatee", before hastily taking his leave, Sherlock let out a disdainful snort. And then John giggled. And it was really rather lovely.

"I just find it amusing that he would in fact take advice from someone with a goatee." Sherlock had said.

John smiled breathlessly, "Hmm, have to agree with you on that one."

Now Sherlock takes one slow swipe of the razor from his neck to just under his chin, finishing with a dramatic flourish. He shares a smirk with John, the pair of them looking like a pair of gangling storks what with their craned necks and all, "Told you. I got distracted by an experiment; I wasn't to know it would be so demanding."

"So you spend the whole day looking like bloody two-face?"

Sherlock squints in what could possibly be physical pain, "I have this horrid feeling that was a reference to one of those 'comics' that you and Lestrade rattled on about last time you dragged me to the Pub."

"Bingo." John replies. "I'm off out, remember? It's David's 40th" Although he's quite finished being a little vain, John pauses at the mirror for a reply. But, apparently Sherlock's decided that's the end of the conversation.

Living with the man for nine months ought to have taught John this by now: Sherlock decides when to talk; he decides what to talk about and he decides (or has a horrendously bad habit) to jump from to topic to absolutely in now way related topic.

Oh, and also he takes ridiculously long, theatrical pauses mid – conversation, so much so that John often forgets what they were even talking about. In fact, John manages to head back upstairs to fetch his keys, swear profusely at the human leg standing upright in the door of the refrigerator - "shitting hell, what the absolute fucking fuck is that doing there?" - And then compose himself enough to make Sherlock a cup of tea a.k.a his only nutrition in the last two days.

"Should expect that'll be sufficiently awkward for you John."

"Hmm?"

Sherlock rinses his razor a final time, and proceeds to pack away his shaving equipment, "David was a friend from work, so one would assume other ex-colleagues will be there."

"What exactly are you getting at?"

"Well Sarah will be there, will she not?"

John pulls his top lip between his teeth to hold back a rather colourful reply. Something along the lines of it'll only be awkward because the last time I saw her I was lying between her thighs, and you decided to barge into the room, twat. "She will."

"Ergo, it'll no doubt be horrendously awkward, given the last time you two were together." Sherlock winks at John and manages to avoid a kick to the shin. He grabs the towel and attempts to wipe off any remaining residue of foam.

"Sod off...oh come here, you're missing bits." John demands, stealing the cloth from Sherlock's hands. He moves to stand behind the Detective, still frowning through the mirror and begins to remove what Sherlock has missed.

Ever since Sherlock noticed the shaving foam behind Jeff Hope's ear, it's made him a little paranoid that he may also have been caught in the same predicament, because like the cabbie, he 'never had anyone to tell him'. It's at this moment in time he realises that he now has someone.

There are a few seconds of pause, where neither of them is actually frowning, and the towel is hanging limp in John's grasp. Sherlock says 'thank you' with his eyes, and John says 'no worries' with his mouth.

John pulls Sherlock back against him and presses a soft kiss to the freckle on his neck, before smiling serenely and heading out, with a noticeable spring in his step.

What ever am I doing?

"You're, err, buying a card."

Oh. Apparently Sherlock's frustrations were so immense they needed to find an outlet out of his brain.

With genuine bewilderment Sherlock asks himself "But why?"

The woman throws Sherlock a concerned glare, wraps a protective arm around her son and makes her get away. She's the second person to do so.

Sherlock gives the card far more disgust that it's worth. What possessed him to enter this shop he has no idea, but now he's looking at stacks of pieces of card filled with insincere, sickly sweet messages and it's everything that Sherlock hates.

"-'What's incredible though is how spectacularly ignorant he is about some things'-"

"-Now hang on a minute I didn't mean that-"

"Oh. You mean spectacularly ignorant in a nice way...Now look," Sherlock manages to haul his body into a sitting position, which considering he is currently mid-sulk, is a rather of a big deal. John knows this and perches on the edge of his own seat in acknowledgement. "You may think it doesn't matter to me who's Prime Minister or who's sleeping with who-"

"Or whether the Earth goes around the Sun..." John mutters under his breath with a smirk, causing Sherlock to punch the coffee table in a burst of rage. His robe billows at the sudden movement almost in slow motion. John's half expecting a ray of light to filter through the window and illuminate Sherlock in some sort of spiritual spotlight.

"Not that again. It's not important." The last word is spoken through clenched teeth.

"Not impor...? It's Primary School stuff, how can you not know that?"

"Well," Sherlock begins nonchalantly, "If I ever did, I've deleted it."

John has to run that through his mind. Deleted it. As in, removed/erased/has no previous memory. As in 'Hello my name is Sherlock Holmes and I genuinely believe my mind is a hard drive'.

"-And it only makes sense to put things in there that are useful. Really useful. Ordinary people fill their heads with all kinds of rubbish. I used to spend my life without any control over what I took in. I knew politics John, I knew High Society and I couldn't take it."

He grips the edge of the coffee table now and takes a great, shuddering breath before continuing, "I couldn't understand why society made sex more fashionable, more important in determining someone's status, than intelligence. Why are we constantly told that we have free will, when we are smothered by advertisements, when our entire lives are caught on CCTV and every aspect of our lives is predetermined by a group of festering, pompous-"

Bloody hell Sherlock, breathing might be boring, but your face is going slightly purple.

"- Upper Class morons who know nothing of living in the real world and – no matter what they say – do not have best interests at heart. Do not listen to us and do not make this Country better. We have no free will, we are merely puppets."

Then Sherlock bit his top lip and cast his eyes to a far off corner of the room, at such an angle that John was sure they, well, glistened. His voice takes a much softer tone.

"All that matters to me is the work. Without that, my brain rots. Put all that in your blog. Tell them I find life overwhelming. Tell them I am not the empty, emotionless carcass they expect me to be. Or, better still; stop inflicting your opinions on the world."

To drive the point home, Sherlock backhands the magazine insisting he go and see 'The Lost Vermeer' (John will dare to tease him later on, when he does, indeed, go and see it for himself) and then curls up on the sofa for a monumental sulk.

It's too much for John.

He's always known they have always been parasites to each other. Latching onto the other, taking something from the host and giving something in return. In this moment John realises they are in an entirely mutalistic relationship.

Whether their relationship allows for nutrition or attrition, John isn't entirely sure.

Sherlock pouts as John struts past him, jaw set and lips sternly thin, "Where are you going?"

There's now a hand waving in front of his face.

"Scuse' me mate, you alrig-"

Sherlock sniffs disdainfully. "You manually stimulated your...wife this morning. You may enjoy the scent, I do not. Get your hand out of my face, buy her this card-"

There's a lot of gold glitter, and flamboyant, curly writing of the word 'Congratulations'.

"-And add 'you have a water infection, and your husband cannot talk correctly'. Good evening."

In terms of firsts for Sherlock, today is really rather miraculous.

Half shaven face and the 'soul' (imagine the contortion of Sherlock's face at the concept of a 'soul' and the lack of substantial evidence for such a thing) destroying venture into some institute full of people and things was just the start.

Then Sherlock hauls a cab, well actually two, at the same time (that's typical). He barely has to raise his hand at the edge of the curb and they come a-flocking. There's a flustered mother with a snoozing toddler against her shoulder and a red – faced, weepy child clutching her other hand and they just drive on past to stop in front of him.

Here is the a-typical part, or the a-Sherlock part. He gestures to one cab to wait, opens the door to the other cab and holds it for a whole two minutes and sixteen seconds whilst the family clambers in, the Mother frantically trying to hold in flailing limbs with seatbelts.

The woman smiles in thanks. The muscles in the corner of Sherlock's mouth twitch.

As the cab pulls away, the little boy presses his still ruby red nose to the glass and steams in up with condensation. He draws what Sherlock assumes to be a 'smiley face' against the glass and waves his chubby little fingers at Sherlock. And Sherlock, his index finger pressed to his bottom lip in pause, finds his fingers wiggling back.

Sitting in his own cab on the way to St. Barts, Sherlock notices his chest feels lighter, yet his mind feel denser. As he sinks into the faux leather seats, his mind palace welcomes him, wrought iron gates open in ominous welcoming.

In some ways, it felt the same as when he was with John. A giddy, almost nauseous feeling.

One couldn't feel their organs within themselves. Sherlock wrote an entire essay on just such a topic for a competition from New Scientist when he was 14 years old. He won, of course. His father gave him a pat on the back – not even metaphorically, he actually touched him – Mycroft suggested they go out for Dinner, which then sent Sherringford into an episode because that wasn't what they did on a Thursday.

Instead, Sherlock celebrated by putting up a tent in Sherringford's bedroom and reading the paper to him. In Klingon. They then stayed up all night, writing a letter to Marc Okrand – the creator of said language - asking him to produce words for 'myogenic', 'duodenum' and 'peristalsis' to name but a few.

The point trying to be made is although Sherlock knows it makes absolutely no sense whatsoever, he feels like – Oh God he can't believe he's going to say it –

Like a weight has been lifted.

Now, of course it's not a physiological weight. He isn't oblivious, if he lost much more weight he'd probably find himself in hospital with a drip in his arm. That means it's – Sherlock shudders at this point, and has to glare right back at the driver when he throws him a look through the rear view mirror – emotional. Metaphorical.

Sherlock hates metaphors. Hates them more than breathing. Hates them more than Anderson. Hates them more than the fact that Anderson has the respiratory system that allows for breathing.

But that's what it is.

Is this what normal people do then, in their normal lives? This wretched contentment, is it from social interaction? Does one need to comply to social norms in order to feel accepted, to feel at peace with the World?

Now, envision a man such as Sherlock Holmes faced with such a predicament.

Thankfully, he manages to find a twisted sort of tranquillity in a self digesting pancreas or the gloving of the skin, though having to constantly keep himself aware of potential St. Barts colleagues that could walk into the lab, playing the part of 'Jobs worth' and banishing him.

The thought of having to climb out the window or zip himself up into a body bag again is not a welcomed one.

But then comes the tell tale squeak of the lab door, the clacking of shoes on the linoleum.

Sherlock places the pipette on the table and turns his head towards her. He doesn't know what to say. He isn't quite sure what to do.

She bites her bottom lip shyly, and finally lifts her head to look at him.

"Sherlock, hi."

He sniffs nonchalantly and shoves his hands into his trouser pockets in a (poor) attempt to look indifferent about the situation. But his mouth pulls in protest, and he finds himself smiling bashfully, as a young boy would to the first person who could make his blood hot.

"Hello you."