institutesamples | you know what I'm sayin'?

He looks sidelong at Sherlock, for a brief, beautiful moment, feeling a little better. As though being together made them almost indestructible. And then Sherlock shatters the illusion by walking on ahead, arrogantly calm.

"Sherlock, Jesus....D-"

He rushes forward, but the pain in his catches and he crashes straight onto his hands and knees, staying stock still for a moment before looking up. He's too far away to touch Sherlock, but a part of him is senselessly worried he'd pushed his friend.

"Why did I want you back?" he gasps, annoyed. "Get away from the edge now, you've made your point and I've embarrassed myself enough for a lifetime."

Sherlock picks up the case, tucking it beneath his arm, but he hears John stumble into the concrete (it's the stick that clatters), and he turns back around carefully, looking at John with blank incomprehension at the annoyance the man voices. He turns back around, his back to the doctor, staring out over the grounds, over everything. The sound of a gunshot ricochets in his mind, and Sherlock actually stumbles back a few steps from the edge, pressing a hand into his eyes. His willowy frame wavers slightly, like he might pass out, and he inhales tightly, forcing himself to look, to look down at the ground below, steeling himself against the overriding fear.

This is just a building. That is just a drop. He is in no danger. Nothing will happen to him as long as he doesn't jump. This doesn't make any sense.

Sherlock stares hard into the stretch of building behind them, the fingers of his free hand curling into a tight fist. He feels vertigo start to rise, and then sinks to his knees before the edge of the building, setting the violin down.

"SHERLOCK!" he shouts, springing up when he sees the hesitation, the unsteadiness. Grabbing Sherlock's coat, he pulls him back, holding his arms to they're facing each other.

"What the HELL are you doing? Are you insane?!"

There was something about it. Uncharacteristic fear from Sherlock. Worse than the Hound case. Something deeper that had beaten his friend. Relaxing once more, he loosens his grip and takes a deep breath.

"Maybe we should start with places that have railings....." he says, in a weak attempt at humour.

Whatever presence of mind Sherlock still has is spent on grabbing the handle of the violin case as John yanks him backwards. He almost falls over, a dazed look branded into his eyes as he stares past the doctor. It's the shout that brings him back to Earth, blinking at John blearily. Sherlock just sinks back to his knees, saying absolutely nothing, jaw clenched. The humor is lost on him, and he screws the heels of his hands into his eyes, grabbing at his hair.

"It's not working, John. I keep finding every building I can find and every time, it's the same thing. It's not rational. It's just a building. It's just a long drop, it's never bothered me before, why would it now? There's no danger in a fall as long as you don't take it, as long as you don't, you know, feel strangely compelled to throw yourself off a roof, but no, it's just... It's just..." Sherlock emits a noise of raw frustration. The same sort of snarl that comes from him when a particular part of a case eludes him.

"There's nothing wrong with me!" he howls into the air, eyes wide open and wild. "And this is idiotic!"

John sits down beside Sherlock, oddly relieved by the man's pained confusion. He lets him speak, just watching him, glad they're not near the edge and thinking about how this must feel for Sherlock and what he'd shown John earlier.

He waits until after the shouting to speak and, with a wry smile, says "Post traumatic stress. You should write your feelings in a blog."

"I do not need a blog," Sherlock's reply is intensely frustrated, but growled, quiet. He plunks down onto his rear on the roof, eyes narrowed, pulling his knees to his chest. Yes. He's sulking.

He peeks back over at John.

"How do I make this go away?"

John almost wants to tease Sherlock, but he looks so pitiful.

"It doesn't go away," he tells him, knowing full well. "It just....gets distracted. By other things. Hopefully better things."

But, hey, the war nightmares had practically been replaced by 'Sherlock falling from roofs' nightmares.

"If you're lucky, the Brotherhood will attack again soon and we can get in the thick of it. How's that sound? maybe start a new agency, looking for mutants, I dunno."

Sherlock makes a grumbling noise and reaches out for John again, grabbing onto the fabric on the arm of his coat, long fingers curling in the material tightly.

"You are a doctor, and there has to be something else that will fix this besides, 'play the normal traumatized human being and wait for something more interesting and shiny to pull you out of illogical obsession.'"

His hand tightens on John's jumper, digging into the cables.

"Make it go away. Now. Please."

"Therapy. Step by step, over a course of time, therapy," he says, gently trying to tug his sleeve out of the death grip threatening to ruin it. He likes this jumper and he'd gotten it back in England, so he can't easily replace it. Unless Mrs H sends some out with the teabags and biscuits.

"Alright, alright, let go and... and look at me. There's something I need to tell you. Mycroft and Mrs Hudson are....going out. Dating."

Sorry, John, Sherlock isn't letting go of your jumper. When he tries to tug away, Sherlock petulantly curls back into his coat more tightly, eyes narrowed to pale blue slits beneath his brows.

However, the look that John gets after he states that Mrs. Hudson and his older brother are dating one another is decidedly insulted.

"You think I'm going to believe something like that? Mycroft doesn't go for little old ladies or ladies at all as far as I know and I don't want to know."

Wait for it... Wait for it. Ah, there's the realization. Sherlock helplessly bursts into chortles at the idea, looking over at John, a deep, rolling chuckle that starts in his chest.

"So the Holmes line really does end with you two? Thank god," he smirked, glad to see the rare sight of his friend smiling at something that didn't involve a dead body.

"That's not all, anyway. Andersen quit his job to become a yodeller in Austria."

"Thank god," Sherlock grumbles. "Maybe someday we can go back to London and live a quiet life of solving murders and annoying Lestrade." He gets to his feet in a sweep of coat and scarf, offering John his hand to help him up off the ground.

A little more quietly: "I told you didn't need the stupid cane."

There is just the tiniest hint of a self-satisfied smirk playing around Sherlock's thin lips, but the man looks too pale, too drawn, really, to make it wholly convincingly assholesque.

"Maybe," he smiled, taking the hand and standing. Things seem easier again, lighter, though it's still surreal to be talking to a deadman. A part of him is still suspicious, one percent maybe, that it's not really him.

"You're going to need it in a minute, you smug git," he shoots back, unable to hide a smile as he reaches down for it, carrying it this time.

Sherlock smirks back at John, "Careful, I might like it." Mostly, it's to see what sort of horrified reaction he can draw out of his flatmate, but in Sherlock's world, everything is about the way it should be. They just need to get back to 221B at some point. Maybe. If it's not rigged with cameras by Mycroft and if the both of them coming back wouldn't give Mrs. Hudson a heart attack.

Sherlock walks a little closer to John than usual as they make their way back to the staircase, within easy touching distance. It's perhaps as if Sherlock's not entirely certain John's there either, but the occasional, subtle bump might remind him.

"You know, that professor really is going to rue the day he asked both of us here."

John stops, looks at Sherlock and possibly tinges pink for a moment before laughing and shaking his head.

"So Donovan was right about the freaky s&m theory.... I'll send her an email, I'm sure she'd be more than happy to spank you."

While he notices Sherlock walking unusually close, he doesn't bother to question it or move away. Instead he just appreciates it for the very same reasons.

"Yeah, I wouldn't mind paying him back for not warning me, too," he huffed. "Fancy a cuppa? Or maybe something stronger...."

Sherlock wheels right around at the mention of Donovan and makes for the roof again - he only gets about two paces away before turning back around to rejoin John with an unmistakably disgusted expression. "I'm not bothered by the implication that I might be a sexual deviant, I'm bothered by Donovan, and if you email her, I will make sure that netbook of yours sends out a continuous stream of violent horse porn to every contact in your address book."

"Don't worry John, we will." Sherlock's confident again, a spring in his step as he kicks open the hatch, descending before John to keep an eye on him (or to catch him, should he go tumbling down the staircase). "Yes. Scotch. Do you have any?"

The two paces are enough for John to feel his insides go cold.

"And I'm not bothered about the horse porn, I'm bothered by you and rooftops," he says, sighing out the breath he's been holding. Weighing the stick in his hands, he smacks it across Sherlock's arse with cheeky 'Giddy-up'.

"...yeah.... in the office."

Sherlock's ears glow very briefly pink at this, and he hops away with a muted yelp. Seeing as he doesn't exactly know where the doctor's office is, it's his turn to trail after the shorter man, rather than dragging him along. He sticks close to John's side though, his hand occasionally finding the back of John's forearm, though never overlong. Tiny points of contact occasionally made as they travel through the hallways - nothing enough to cause any attention or to make anyone look twice, but the touch is there for him, and it is there because he knows that John will notice it.

"It is intriguing to me that horse porn doesn't disturb you, John," Sherlock stoops to murmur this into John's ear as a group of students wander past, blocking an intersection of a hallway. "Is that just you being desensitized to the bizarre or do you just prefer anatomically impossible objects in your rear?" Sherlock's grin is downright wicked now, his voice reserved specifically for John's ear.

Edited 2012-11-01 16:55 (UTC)

What with all the touching, John soon begins to worry about Sherlock. The doubts increase, too, but only to two percent. The rooftop changed Sherlock. It scared him.

He leads him through the halls, giving an elbow to the ribs at his comments, not at all worried about any attention violence might bring.

"I was just trying to be clever with my response. And angry," he grumbles in his defence.... which then turns to teasing. "And who are you to talk about sexual preferences?"

The closest the man seemed to have some to any sort of relationship was that Woman.

"In here."

He unlocks the door and walks in, going to his desk and fetching the bottle out from the back of a drawer. He passes it to Sherlock with the glasses and locks the door once more. He's only on emergency duty for the rest of the day.

"I have made extensive study on the topic," Sherlock asserts, tucking his hands into his pockets and taking a good look around the office. He pauses for a moment, head tilted to the side, listening to the new sounds, carefully noting the entrances. That might be a new habit for him, really consciously observing where anything or anyone could slip in. "And I have every right to talk about it. Perhaps more than you, what with a new girl practically every week. I can barely keep up with them."

After pouring two glasses and setting John's on his desk in easy reach, Sherlock's eyes immediately go for the closest thing to a couch, and he sprawls in it. The posture might be a little too familiar - Sherlock immediately asserting his ownership of the space. He takes a sip of the liquor and says absolutely nothing.

"When it comes to sex, practice makes perfect, Sherlock," he says, casually. But he'ss very curious about Sherlock's experiences. Well, not curious just mildly, scientifically intrigued.

"It wasn't every week and they only changed because YOU kept scaring them away," he points out. "And at least I was getting some."

He takes his drink and sits in his chair watching Sherlock. It doesn't bother him that Sherlock is so at ease, he just can't yet fit him into this place. Put the two worlds together.

"The mechanics are very simple, even for the most complicated of positions," Sherlock takes a sip of his scotch, settling easily into the couch while stretching out his long limbs and somehow managing not to knock anything over. "I don't possibly see what could take practice." Sherlock sets his glass of scotch down somewhere near at hand where it won't be immediately knocked over. "Relationships sound boring anyway. Whole load of domestics I'd rather never have to bother with, I've got better things to do than listen to someone go on and on about how much they hate me and how I'll never measure up to their ideal."

Sherlock shrugs his shoulders, but his attention goes to John, and he stares back, head slightly tilted.

".... You're really clueless. It's like the solar System, only this time you at least know SOME basics," he grins, leaning forward, elbows on the table. It faltered a little when Sherlock went on and he looks at him with a curious expression. "I'm not exactly the right kind of Doctor.... but do want to talk about that?"

He's tempted to outright Freud him and ask about his mother. But, well, dangerous territory, he figures.

John gets the first of Sherlock's warning glares in awhile, and the tall detective just slides down to settle more firmly into the couch. His eyes flutter shut as he takes another sip of his scotch, inhaling the complex aroma that rises from the shot glass. He seems to enjoy the liquor for its taste rather than simply sucking it down like he had during the case of the Hound.

"Hm...." he considers, long and low, letting the glass settle on his sternum as he folds his hands around that. His eyes flick open again, settling on John.

"No." The answer comes immediately after John's finished trying to play therapist.

John shrugs and smiled to himself, taking a sip of brandy before just knocking it back and putting his feet up on the desk.

"I'm not sure what surprises me more, though. That you're possibly a virgin or that Mycroft possibly isn't."

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