John scratched at the back of his neck when he was nervous about the Press, Sherlock had noticed. It was an unconscious desire to hide his tattoo – his barcode – which was growing back under the scarring his university lover had left before John had gone back to war.

John's hair was extra neat today, and he was wearing his best collared shirt and tie. His back was ramrod straight as he stared out the window at the jackals milling about, cameras in hand.

"Are you ready for this?" asked John.

"Of course. Are you?"

"I'm fine."

He wasn't. He was scratching the back of his neck as he said it. Something had shaken John about this trial. John had never intended, after his escape from Manticore as a child, to be in the public eye. He had started his blog on the suggestion of his therapist, never expecting that it would be read by anyone outside his small circle of friends. Perhaps it was fear that Manticore would discover him through the media attention?

But, no. He had received assurances from Mycroft that no agent of Manticore would set foot on British soil, let alone get close enough to make contact with him. Sherlock's senses were not as sharp as those of his Transgenic blogger, but he did have the advantage in reading the signals his senses portrayed. John wasn't worried about his secret being revealed, not to Manticore.

Not to Moriarty, either. Moriarty already knew. Sherlock thought back to the last time Moriarty had come into contact with John, back at the Pool. He'd referenced John's biology, referenced the strands of canis lupus lupus wrapped around homo sapiens sapiens. Moriarty knew what John was and what he could do, and had dismissed him as peripheral – foolishly, in Sherlock's opinion, but that was irrelevant. He would be uninterested in using this trial to attack John and even less so in attacking John's family, either the British or American branch.

"Stop trying to deduce me, Sherlock. I'm fine."

Sherlock heard the exasperation in John's voice. Another five seconds. Four, three, two...

"I've just... got a bad feeling, is all. I don't trust- this-" He sighed. "The trial. Moriarty is going to walk, isn't he?"

"I know," said Sherlock. "He's got his fingers in everything. He'll find some way to get off, if he doesn't just blow up the courthouse before he arrives. The interesting thing will be how he does so – and what he does next."

"Interesting is not the word I would use for it."

"Perhaps not."

"So why are we even going through with this, this farce, then?"

Sherlock lied. Sherlock couldn't tell John the truth – not because he wouldn't understand, but because he would. John knew Sherlock far too well, and he knew that the Game drove the detective in ways that nothing else ever could. But perhaps-

Perhaps he didn't yet know just how much it drove Sherlock. And Sherlock was not willing to drive John away. Not yet.

No, he couldn't tell John that he just wanted to see what Moriarty would do.