“Did you serve in Afghanistan or Iraq?” the man clarifies, steepling his fingers under his chin so that he looks like he’s praying for patience, and John reminds himself that he only has to attend six obligatory sessions with a psychiatrist.

John knows what's his - of course he'll kill for it.

Lestrade has apparently arrested an American billionaire for murder.

A child psychologist is asked to sit in on the questioning of her client, a nine-year old boy, traumatised by finding his father stabbed to death. The child's mother is being held for the murder and the case against her looks water-tight, unless her son can be persuaded to tell what he knows. But the only way to communicate with the traumatised child is through his great obsession, chess, and only one detective speaks chess fluently enough to understand what he has to say.

Meet John Watson, the world's first consulting psychic detective. And meet Sherlock, his ghost.

God, it must have been terrible, to think that he would never have this again.

It could be a better day. When the lift breaks somewhere between the third and fourth floors of New Scotland Yard, it gets worse than Hleb missing by a fucking mile.

Sherlock ran a website called The Science Of Seduction, on which he gave advice on the best ways to get laid, wrote blog entries detailing the results of his various sexual 'experiments' and generally contributed to the stereotype of 'every gay man is a sex-mad playboy'. John avoided the thing like the plague.

The funeral is unbearable.

Most of the funerals John’s attended have been military; they’ve had a smooth, ceremonial competence to them that he misses desperately.

"Wait," says John. "Go over that again, the part about somatosensory stimulation?" He's not a neural specialist, but they don't let you graduate med school without learning a thing or two about the parietal lobe, and he's not at all sure he wants Sherlock using him as a subject for tactile sensation experiments. Particularly if they involve the removal of his trousers.

Dueling shouldn't be humorous - particularly when the other person involved in the duel is a dark wizard. A pitched battle, involving several dark wizards ambushing just a few members of the Order should be even less so. And John believes that, up until he sees Sherlock and Sirius fighting at the same time.

As it turns out they never stop competing.

“Expecto Patronum,” he says, in a clear, deep voice, and a thin silver light streams from his wand, expanding to take the form of -

“Huh,” John says, as Sherlock drives the Dementors back.

"Come on," John said, "You can't tell me no one's ever thought to try that."

“Get up, John,” Sherlock says, in a tone that has John jerking upright in bed, immediately, and grappling for his gun in his bedside drawer, even as he says, “Sherlock, what is it?”

Incomprehensibly, Sherlock simply says, “Voldemort.”

John can't write up the case until he finds out why. He needs to write their story true. [Post The Reichenbach Fall, major spoilers.]

Mycroft’s in Sherlock’s chair -- Sherlock’s going to be so annoyed. He doesn’t even like John to sit in his chair, and if he sees his brother there, all hell will break loose. He’ll be in a strop for days and John will --

Over the years, plenty of people had offered their bodies to Sherlock. He had never accepted, and never planned to. But John was the first person who had ever offered his mind as well.

Sherlock is bored (BORED) and John decides that they should play Cluedo. In retrospect, it was a truly awful decision.

There is a swan, and he's not named Sherlock. And there is a duck, and he's not named John.

Mostly, John just wants Sherlock to leave off the prostitutes.

Sherlock is being a sociopath and not willing to share, and John plays with fire. Miraculously, it all works out.

“You know John, I could hypnotize you if you really want."

Mycroft has tea with his mother twice a month. John and Sherlock become flatmates.

What if John solved Study in Pink? Answer: Badassery.

“Oh, look! It’s Charles, and he’s been transformed into a cat by a malevolent government program! I wonder how I can change him back and thereby secure his love forever and ever, amen?”

The original plan for returning to England involved fucking around being shellshocked and suffering mandatory post-combat counseling and physical therapy to dissect the shattered mosaic of his feelings. That's not quite how it goes.

"I am going to need Watson's phone number."

"The simplest solution seems to be to obtain your sexual gratification elsewhere," Sherlock said.

"Sometime in the next few days, my brother is going to proposition you. Sexually. And he'll do it in the bluntest, frankest, most graphic way possible. Most likely in front of either your date or the landlady." Mycroft paused to check for John's shock. "It will be a test. How you react will determine if you remain at 221b, or if Sherlock cuts you out of his life completely."

John Watson is a man who is comfortable with paradoxes.

Repatriating a priceless cultural artefact shouldn't involve housebreaking, handcuffs, or John Watson. But it does, and it's still the right thing to do.

Take John's jumper, for example. That oatmeal sort of coloured one. Harry gave it to him before he went to Afghanistan. That much is obvious--his trousers are good but not brand name, his shoes completely dull, that black jacket with the leather bits is rather finer, but he got that for himself when he returned to London from a good secondhand store, it's last season's and almost new but previously belonged to a man who smoked Parliaments. John doesn't smoke Parliaments and he hasn't any money, so he bought a barely used coat for much less, but the fashion taste is completely off from the jumper, which was much more expensive when new, but came out of storage just before a strain of mould found it, I can smell as much. So: it's from before the War, isn't precisely his taste, was expensive, and fits him perfectly.

"Downstairs. Have experiment, might be delicate."

"Your blog only has one sentence on it," Sherlock tells him.