All my life

Aged 24

He was taken.

He was taken by him.

'The kettle.' John was tapping his foot in a way Sherlock knew meant he was angry but for once he had no idea why. What had he done that was making John frown and glare at him? 'What?'

'The kettle. There's a brain in the kettle.' John spat the words in a very unattractive way.

Sherlock smiled, wondering what was wrong with that. That was nothing. 'Yes. Problem?'

'Sherlock, that's my teapot.' John said furiously. Sherlock cocked an eyebrow, still unsure what John was getting at. 'It's a joint teapot-'

'HOW AM I MEANT TO DRINK TEA, SHERLOCK?' John screamed. Downstairs, Sherlock heard Mrs Hudson drop something. Sherlock himself had jerked back at the screech. 'We have more than one kettle-'

'THE OTHER ONE MAKES THE TEA TASTE FUNNY!' John shouted again, visibly shaking. Sherlock laid a placating hand on his best friend's shoulder. 'John, I think you may be overreacting. It's just a kettle-'

John knocked Sherlock's arm off his shoulder. 'But that's not the fucking point, is it, Sherlock? You do this with all my stuff. Right back to when we were kids. You set fire to my Christmas jumper, you totally cocked up my Nintendo, and last week I found you in my bedroom experimenting on my dad's army medal-'

'It was perfectly alright, it was a safe experiment-' Sherlock butted in.

'SHUT UP!' John roared. 'I can't do it anymore, Sherlock. You've exploded the bloody kitchen twice this month and I only have three jumpers left! I do so much for you, Sherlock. So much.'

Sherlock couldn't bear it. He reached up and grabbed John's hands (in a really platonic way) and said softly, 'I know, John. I couldn't live without you. I'm sorry. I really am. Don't be angry, please. You're my best friend.' For once Sherlock was talking from his heart, which he generally avoided doing, but John was just staring at him with an unreadable expression, and he mouthed, 'Best friend.'

They were locked in a silence in which John stared at Sherlock and Sherlock wondered why John was staring at him before John said, in a short and tight voice, 'Look, I, I, I'm going out for a bit.' He stormed to the door, ran down the stairs, and Sherlock heard the front door slam.

He was still sitting in his armchair, his googles and lab coat on, staring in shock at the door. As his brain finally realised what had happened he groaned and slumped forward in his chair, fighting off tears because he knew Mycroft had cameras up and he hadn't gotten round to disabling them again. He knew he shouldn't have spoken from his heart. Now he'd just scared John. John thought he was a freak, harbouring unrequited love for his straight flatmate. Why did he always screw everything up?

It wasn't just that. John had gotten increasingly irritable in the last few months, freaking out at the smallest thing anyone did wrong. Now Sherlock thought about it, it was probably because he felt awkward about Sherlock's oh-so-obvious infatuation with him. He had stopped speaking to Jacob Speaker, Sherlock's favourite DS and long-time fuck buddy, completely and at cases he stood so close to Sherlock they were almost always touching in some way. They had gone to a gay bar for a case a few weeks back and John had completely blown their cover when the suspect tried hitting on Sherlock. Instead of playing along he had growled and punched the man square in the jaw. They had been kicked out and Sherlock had had to put it in his 'cold case' file.

He appreciated John looking out for him but seriously, Sherlock wasn't a little kid anymore. He could look after himself. Sort of.

Usually John stormed around London by himself for about an hour and then came back and apologised, giving a long speech that Sherlock didn't understand, saying stuff like, 'it's just so hard' and 'I know you're a complete machine but I can't help it' before going all red and buying Chinese and putting on Jeremy Kyle.