Sherlock sat on his bed, his head curled towards his knees, resting on his hand. Resting was a form of speech. His mind, his ingenious brain, was anything but rested. There had been unsolved cases, there had been untold secrets, there had been Mycroft and his resentment and Donovan calling him freak at any chance. There had been a childhood filled with hate and anger and fooled expectations; never good, never enough. And now he saw how true it was. He had failed. His methods, his powers of observation and his careful investigation had not been enough. As his head spun in confused circles, he could hear the sounds of the apartment. The open window let in horns and dust and birds and undecipherable screams. The kettle was on, the toaster was burning and the world was spinning all at once inside his head. He closed his eyes harder, trying to get away from it all, trying to go deaf for mere seconds. It didn't matter. As the window in the living room was closed and the kettle stopped and the burning smell of the toast erased it was all still there, a twirling of words and mess. 'Freak' 'We all hated him' 'You upset mum.' 'No, stop' he thought, trying to make his own words stronger than all the others, trying to escape, to find the way out of the labyrinth.

A finger touched his back and the soft feeling of the fingertip, the methodical and careful way it had been put there, encapsulated all the thoughts, showing him a way out. There was just one word now, hanging in the dark. John.

"Tea is ready." John said, kissing his black curls and stepping away. "I burned the toasts, though. I am making more."

He knew that Sherlock didn't like to be interrupted when he was thinking, but John had risked calling him, nevertheless, in hopes that he would leave his mind palace and join him in the living room. Sherlock knew he had been distant the last couple of days, immersed in the case, the case he could not solve. He sighed. At least his mind was blank now, relaxed. John had had some lonely couple of days and it was time for Sherlock to change that, at least for now.

As he walked in the living room, the name still hanging on his head, setting any negative thoughts away, John smiled and placed the toasts and the jam on the kitchen table, all ready to be eaten. Sherlock sat down and the case came to his mind again and he realised what he couldn't see just a few minutes ago. It had always been there, all along. And it was so simple. John tasted Sherlock's tea to make sure it was good enough – even if he didn't like the sweetness added by the sugar – and passed him the mug. Sherlock brushed his fingers on John's, giving him a silent look of unrequested appreciation.

His mind was a racing horse, a canon ready to be fired. John was the soothing water on a burn, the safe murmur on a night of thunder, the familiar road that brought him home. John was the word that remained, when all the others became old and unused and, ultimately, unnecessary.