Author's Note: I had fun with this. Written for sherlockbbc_fic on LJ, which is full of amazing! And yes, it's a 5+1 fic. May the wonderful OP find this someday.

Warnings: MASSIVE amounts of future UST. You have no idea. XD

~shjw~

1.

Sherlock was researching on John's laptop when he first became consciously aware of it.

His own computer was somewhere in the kitchen (much too far away; John's was so much more convenient) where his flatmate was most likely noticing his latest experiment in the fridge.

"Sherlock—"

"Leave it," Sherlock interrupted, typing away without pause. "I need that blood for my experiment later. Do be careful with it, John; some of it's infected."

The refrigerator door closed abruptly.

"You put infected blood in the fridge," John said flatly. "Next to the food."

The consulting detective raised his head to stare at his flatmate. "Is there food in the fridge?" he asked.

John reopened the fridge and stared for several long moments. "Ah." The door closed. "Never mind then."

"What do you know about poisons?" Sherlock responded, attention once again on his computer screen.

Behind him, John cleared his throat, shuffling a little. "They can kill you. Generally aren't something you'd want to ingest. Why?"

"Come here."

A soft sigh preceded the sound of footsteps approaching, and then he sensed John's presence at his back.

"Poison, Sherlock?" John asked, profile appearing in his peripheral vision. "Is this for the case?"

"Of course," Sherlock said, bringing up several windows to peruse at once. "What else would it be for? Honestly John, think."

"Who's been poisoned?" John asked, bewildered.

"Jane Levins," Sherlock stated matter-of-factly. "Look at these."

Silence reigned as he waited impatiently for John to finish reading, but he couldn't quell the urge to speak. "Half-brother's slipping it in with her medication, most likely."

"Half-brother?" the doctor asked, aghast. "You mean Stephen?"

"Oh come now, John, surely you didn't think they were fully related."

"Her medication?" John continued, and Sherlock could feel his gaze burning the side of his face, making his skin tingle. "Sherlock, those are prenatal vitamins! She's pregnant!"

"Yes, well, he certainly doesn't know that," Sherlock replied, picking up his phone to text Lestrade. The DI would want to hear about this, he was sure. "I doubt it would have made a difference if he did. No doubt she attributed her nausea, stomach pains, and vomiting to morning sickness or even her vitamins—rightly so. Simply not for the reasons she assumes, of course."

"She—the baby—"

"She'll lose the baby," the detective said shortly, tapping out his message to the Yard. "Hopefully, at least, it won't be too late for Ms. Levin."

"Poison…?" John repeated softly, his voice low and disbelieving and…something else a bit harder to identify. Helpless anger? Sorrow, perhaps? Both?

"John, poison is…"

He made the mistake of turning his head to look at John before his sentence was complete, which normally wouldn't have made any difference at all, but this time…this time John was looking at him. Still leaning over his shoulder, some odd centimeters away, and staring at him with eyes that were more expressive than he had ever seen them.

Sherlock felt the rest of his words trail away neatly without a trace as his stomach adopted the void-like sensation of being in free-fall, a brief flash of confusion and horror flitting through his mind when his gaze involuntarily dropped from the other man's eyes, to his mouth, to his chin, and back again. His heart was pounding so hard he could feel his chest moving in time with his pulse, surely it was obvious, even John was bound to notice—

"You should send that text," John said quietly.

And just like that, those eyes leveled out into something the detective was more familiar with— not emotionless, but emotion restrained by military training. The two men stared at each other a few seconds longer before John turned and disappeared back into the kitchen.

Sherlock kept his gaze fixed on the exact spot where his friend's face used to be for several drawn-out seconds, blinked twice, breathed (when had he stopped?), and jerked his head around to stare blankly at his waiting phone. Feeling oddly lightheaded, he hit the send button.

With a quick unseeing glance at his flatmate's laptop, he ran a swift mental evaluation of what he was feeling. A little shaky, not unlike a mild crash after an adrenaline high, a little anxious, a little mystified, and when had this started happening?

Gray eyes darted briefly over to John, who was doing something in the cabinets, and focused on the myriad of articles littering the glowing computer screen about various toxic substances.

Maybe he'd been poisoned, too.

~shjw~

Author's Note: Review? :D Yes, there will be more to come!