.

"I'm John," John introduces himself as sparsely as the room he probably sleeps in, in as Spartan a manner as his clothes must be, his tent must have been. As simple as his hair and the cut of his jaw and the shoes on his feet and the name on his lips.

Simplicity somehow becomes a color to him. It is yellow and brown and blue and green and blond and freckled.

It's comfortable.

Sherlock has never known comfortable before. He has never known nice or alright or any of those vaguely content words that people said with their stupid, dull little half smiles; but suddenly, he does. Suddenly he understands, if only to the slightest, barest degree.

Because he's so flustered and noisy and just exactly what he had thought he didn't need. The silent presence threatening to drown him and suffocate him is suddenly revealed and shoved away by this boisterous, floaty creature who enters his flat and makes himself at home, and Sherlock cannot help but grudgingly enjoy it all as it happens.

Enjoyment. That's new.

Catalogue, file for later use.

.

So is this the flat, then?

Yes.

It's nice.

Yes.

Is that a skull there? And a head in the fridge?

Yes.

Blimey. That's a bit mad. Want me to make some tea, then?

I…what? No.

Yes. Sure.

Do you play violin?

Don't be ridiculous, you've got one right there.

Sherlock.

Hm. That's pretty amazing.

Yes, it really you play for me?

Ah, come on. I'm tired, and music's nice. Just a little.

Come on.

Alright.

.

Everything is dimly grey until John Watson steps into his life, and then it suddenly halts, blurs, shifts into focus. Stark blacks against stark whites and suddenly the blues and oranges are blues and oranges and not blacks and scarlets. And suddenly scarlet is not quite so necessary in all the forms it once was, and the pipettes are not found broken on the floor quite so often because John would make a fuss over the broken glass with the Sherlock, are you bleeding and the what do you mean you're used to this and the of course you need a hospital. I'm a doctor, I know these things. If I didn't know better I'd think you were—.

This particular train of thought shuts abruptly with another cup of tea, and a flash of the same .

Against a stark black and a clean white and a haze of grey, lighter than before.

Good for you, he hears dimly, and he thinks he smiles for a second. But he can't be sure.

.