Home.

It is both his castle and the place where his heart resides. Home is his refuge. Most importantly it is his treasure box, in which his precious jewels reside.

John loves coming home nearly as much as he hates leaving.

John loves being smothered by Sherlock's eager kisses on the doorstop of 221B and being greeted by little smiling faces with sticky hands.

He loves coming home to find homemade casseroles and stews waiting for him (even if they are mostly courtesy of his mother in law) and discovering that Sherlock has turned the living room into a giant blanket fort.

John even loves finding paint splattered all over the walls or that Sherlock has blown up marshmallows in the microwave for science.

John is only somewhat surprised then to return one rainy afternoon to find Sherlock and their little army of darling monsters lying curled up on the floor in a nest of pillows and blankets quietly watching one of the home movies Siger is so terribly fond of making.

A much younger Sherlock and John flicker across the TV screen. John recognises the footage, taken the summer before they bonded. In the footage Sherlock sits on the handle bars of john's bike as they spin around the park laughing like hyenas.

A smile floods John's face. "I must have been blind not to see it" he thinks dropping his bag by the doorway and making his way over to his pack.